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  • Linux hot-swap CPU/Memory

    If I want to install something large (think M9K or E25K), what is a system I should consider that supports CPU/Memory hotswap under Linux?
    I don't like taking some systems down to replace components.
    I know on a SPARC system with Solaris I can hot-swap, but I am at a loss on the Linux side.

    Anyway, your input would be greatly appreciated.

  • #2
    Although Linux *does* support CPU/memory hotswapping, I would STRONGLY advise against it unless there is absolutely no other option. You go near the inside of a powered-up system with pieces of metal and you ALWAYS run the risk of shorting something out and powering it off PERMANENTLY.

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    • #3
      Originally posted by droidhacker View Post
      Although Linux *does* support CPU/memory hotswapping, I would STRONGLY advise against it unless there is absolutely no other option. You go near the inside of a powered-up system with pieces of metal and you ALWAYS run the risk of shorting something out and powering it off PERMANENTLY.
      Exactly 5 minutes downtime is far better then having to get a replacement system going. If your worried about downtime instead of looking for a system that supports hot swapping just run redundant servers.

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      • #4
        Originally posted by droidhacker View Post
        Although Linux *does* support CPU/memory hotswapping, I would STRONGLY advise against it unless there is absolutely no other option. You go near the inside of a powered-up system with pieces of metal and you ALWAYS run the risk of shorting something out and powering it off PERMANENTLY.
        These aren't PCs. Things like E25Ks and M9Ks are designed to hot-swap every possible component. They are designed to lack a single point of failure. Heck, even the Ultra E4500s could hot-swap CPU/Mem boards.

        Powering down the whole unit to swap out a CPU board isn't 5 minutes of downtime. An E2900, for instance, takes over 25 minutes just to get past the firmware initialization and start booting from disk.

        Additionally, if I have hot-swap in Linux, I can provision additional CPU/Mem boards to a running domain. I want Linux to pick something like this up without an OS reboot.

        Since Linux scales so well I am sure somebody has a large machine like this available.

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        • #5
          Something like this is definitely a boon for large server farms that serve realtime data such as stock-market share data for example. If you want to quickly power off/on cpu's and memory on demand that's another good application for this too.

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