View Full Version : How do you solve a problem like Woodcrest?
Ok, I have in front of me a 3.0GHz Woodcrest Xeon – a little gift from my Dell account manager. 1 of 3 actually, the other 2 have gone into a couple of the devs workstations, and the idea was the third would go into mine (Precision 490).
… but I don’t really need it tbh. I’ve never noticed any lag when I’m virtualising a network, and I do very little compilation on this box – certainly not enough to justify an upgrade. Being a freebie I could take it home without any problems, but I have no intel kit, no DDR2 memory, no will to spend any money on some and tbh, no room for the server rig I’d want to build.
I don’t want to sell it, because that sets a bit of a precedent which unnerves me. Being outsourced, selling on other companies kit for my own financial gain is just dodgy ++ to me, and I’m not comfortable with it.
So… what do I do with it?
Depending on your relationship with your account manager, ask if he'll swap it for something else. I was given a Xeon of some description a while ago which was of no use to me so I swapped it for one of their 19" widescreen tellys.
Bung it into your machine and get folding for F@H :p
Bung it into your machine and get folding for F@H :p
This man, he has a point. :D
My Dempsey already is :p
No a bad suggestion Paul. Not really sure what I'd swap it for though, doubt I'd wangle one of those 37" TV's, and I'm not sure I'd have the room for it either :D
Dell can get hold of just about anything. One of my guys get a TomTom Go 710 a couple of weeks back in place of the cruddy laptop he was originally offered.
The 37" TV's are very nice (I got one of them free too ;)).
doubt I'd wangle one of those 37" TV's, and I'm not sure I'd have the room for it either :D
I could look after it for you till you find enough room? :p
That's a fair point. I've had digital camera's and MP3 players off them before, you forget they can source these things. Food for thought.
Going to one of their VMware workshops in December on a random note. Need to be in Frimley for 09:00 :'(
They're a good company to work with. I should find out which Man United games I'm going to. I'm not a Man U fan, but free tickets ftw.
If they have to source the stuff then they're less generous but they do still give nice pressies away. The Dell guy I had a meeting with yesterday told me that they don't give away pens, t-shirts and crap like that :)
Spend a few hundred grand with Dell and free stuff is yours!
Buy stuff like this from Dell:
http://dwuk.net/misc/rack.jpg
And they'll give you loads :D Bought and filled half that rack 4 months ago, filled the rest last week. Got tons of stuff on those 2 orders ;D
I'm not the only one to use yellow dymo tape on the servers then :)
Evidently not :D
Labelling properly is one of my pet peeves. Every cable on the back of that rack is labelled, at both ends. Power, CAT5, KVM - everything. And colour coded. Red CAT5 - primary LAN, yellow - secondary LAN, purple CAT5 - KVM etc
It annoys the hell out of me when stuff isn't labelled, even more so when I have to start trying to identify what cable does where. One of my guys learnt the hard way that if the cabling isn't sensible then it'll all be pulled one and done again.
Primary cat5 = green, secondary cat5 = red, DRAC = grey, ISDN = orange and so on.
Good to know it isnt just me ;D Our ISDN is black. Phones blue, twinax green, printers orange... there's another one which escapes me right now.
Oh, and grey for hosts, of course.
[edit]Wireless kit, that's on something else.
It may seem a bit anal, but it makes good sense. I've spent too much time having to pull cables to find where they go and have occasionally pulled the wrong cable. Oops.
Twinax? Bloody hell, haven't seen any twinax stuff for years.
I'm not the only one to use yellow dymo tape on the servers then :)
Nope but we use different colours so that they match and don't stick out to much in publically viewed areas. But in the back of racks we label it with just any type be it white or black or yellow...
Evidently not :D
Labelling properly is one of my pet peeves. Every cable on the back of that rack is labelled, at both ends. Power, CAT5, KVM - everything. And colour coded. Red CAT5 - primary LAN, yellow - secondary LAN, purple CAT5 - KVM etc
Ditto. Only because it's so bloody important on a yacht as all the cables disappear in waterproof/fireproof glands and there's no way of finding out which it is otherwise. Also we have to deal with engineers and yachties that aren't particularly great with IT so it has to be ultra simple. Also it makes coming onto a site so much more simple rather than having a GA or a spreadsheet with all the connections on it.
We normally use Orange for PoE, Yellow for APs, Green for PABX/Telephony, and so on and so forth. It makes sense really and life a lot easier!
Twinax? Bloody hell, haven't seen any twinax stuff for years.
Hooks up to an 810 AS400 here, we've still got some green screens around the factory, and a couple of big twinax printers. It's easier to route it over CAT5 and use a balun or two than get twinax run all over the shop.
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