Racking Servers - Grrrr

the_Grinch

First, just went over 3000 posts!! Look forward to adding 3000 more!

At work we've been getting a ton of servers. They'll be utilized mainly for data analysis and storage. Seeing as I am the Network Administrator the job of racking and setting them up has fallen on my lap. Since they are given to us by different providers we were unable to tell them what brand to buy. With that comes different types of rack mounts and boy is it tough sometimes. I found that Dell's tend to be the easiest, with IBM being the easiest yet hardest.

Today I had to rack two IBM's and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get the mounts to fit in my rack. After about an hour I was ready to jump out the window when I noticed springs on both ends. Push in the back end and they slid right into place then locked. Push a button on the front end and they sprung into place tightly. So simple yet so difficult! Next one took about three minutes. Any other date center/server racking stories out there?

Trifidw

I concur with the difficulties. Fortunately I don't have to deal with many servers and Cisco networking gear is usually easy, utilising the standard ears. Although one of their appliances (I want to say the NCS appliance off the top of my head) required 3 people to get it in properly, 2 holding it and another guiding it in. It didn't help that the rails felt fairly flimsy too.

Why can't there be a standard?

philz1982

I'm not as thin as I once was. We setup a showcase with a clear glass window to show off the rack. They put about 2 feet between the front of the rack and the glass. I was installing a server and I thought I was going to have to hulk smash through the glass.

jibbajabba

Dell used to be the worst ones. A datacenter in London (Telehouse) was weird. First, you had carpet in the suites, then we found an old style phone under a floor tile, but the worst bit, the ceiling was extremy low. Old Dell rails used to work in a weird way. You had to put the server upright (you look at the bottom of the server) into some locking holes in the middle of the rail, then like a hinge you can fold it towards you at 90 degrees. Problem with that ? Low ceilings made it impossible to use the top third of the cabinet without removing ceiling tiles.

Always preferred HP, easy quick snap. But back in the day our main brand was Supermicro and these had to be screwed. We were OEM partner and it was our bitching which kinda sped up their quick rail development.

Really annoying with Supermicro is the difference between 3U and 4U. They LOOK identical, but the screws are ever so slightly different.

Datacenter move day was a fun day.

Oh and ever tried to remove rails of a server between two servers where there wasn't a gap between?

So much fun.

UnixGuy

This is my story: I didn't do it. I worked for a company where they had a dedicated team of technicians to do just that, and I'm glad I didn't do it because I don't wanna break my back.

In other position I had to do a server or 5, not too bad. I don't like racking servers.

Verities

the_Grinch wrote: »

First, just went over 3000 posts!! Look forward to adding 3000 more!

At work we've been getting a ton of servers. They'll be utilized mainly for data analysis and storage. Seeing as I am the Network Administrator the job of racking and setting them up has fallen on my lap. Since they are given to us by different providers we were unable to tell them what brand to buy. With that comes different types of rack mounts and boy is it tough sometimes. I found that Dell's tend to be the easiest, with IBM being the easiest yet hardest.

Today I had to rack two IBM's and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get the mounts to fit in my rack. After about an hour I was ready to jump out the window when I noticed springs on both ends. Push in the back end and they slid right into place then locked. Push a button on the front end and they sprung into place tightly. So simple yet so difficult! Next one took about three minutes. Any other date center/server racking stories out there?

This happened to me when I was an intern...it was a pretty big server that took two of us to get it racked; I was holding the beast and the other person was trying to figure out how to get the damn thing onto the rails for what was probably only 3-4 minutes, but felt like a half hour lol. Eventually the other person found the springs/locks and we were able to get the server into place. My back/arms hurt the next day.