Rack mounted PC for view node?

We are currently looking for rack mounted PC for our view nodes for our HMI system. I have not seen any major supplier who build and sell any of those at the moment except for rack mount server (which we don't want for view node as the video card is normally not designed for that job).

Ideally, we would like to have them on a 1U format and if possible, with an integrated VKM system so that we can simply connect them through a standard Cat5 cable to the remote KVM extender in the control room.

Try B & R sytems - Germany

Jari

Something that isn't clear is why the integrated video in the server boards isn't good enough. If you are looking for a separate video board, then I think you need to define that specification more closely.

Some 1U boxes will take a 1U riser card, but I haven't seen any that have one for AGP or the wider version of PCI-express used for video cards. When you do try to fit a card into the box, you are very limited as to motherboard and card choice as the card has to fit into a very small space. The risers are mostly meant for fitting special RAID controllers and things like that.

If you could fit a video card into a 1U box, then I'm not sure I would recommend it. Cooling on 1U boxes tends to be fairly difficult as it is. The heat output and air flow obstruction of a high end video card might be a big problem.

If you are satisfied with a regular desktop motherboard with integrated video, then you can buy cases and motherboards separately and assemble them. That's all a lot of "industrial computers" are (although they don't normally use 1U). If you don't want to do the assembly yourself, there should be computer shops or IT suppliers in your area who will do it for you.

As for integrated KVM, I would myself prefer not having the KVM irreversibly married to the PC so that I could replace the one without having to replace the other. You seem to have a different opinion on that though.

You haven't mentioned what OS you are using, but if this is a Unix/BSD/Linux system, then X11 forwarding is a standard feature of the OS and the above isn't usually necessary. You put an application server in the server room, and a thin client wherever you want. If you are using MS-Windows, there are add-ons (e.g. Citrix) that try to duplicate the functionality of X11, but because the OS wasn't really designed to work this way (MS-Windows assumes there is someone physically present at each computer) some applications don't work with them properly. You might talk to your application vendor about it though.

Hi Michael
Yes, I use the server/client structure of X routinely. IT (MS) people are amazed that I don't have to buy anything or do anything special to split the GUI from the working machine. They also get rather confused as to which machine I am running apps on. This is a way under-appreciated feature of Linux for automation.

Many of the "How do I add a display for" questions we see here, with convoluted and expensive solutions, involve nothing more than booting another Linux machine and pointing it at the client across the ethernet. If that won't work because of the way the app was written, VNC will often do the trick for free as well. The concepts behind DCS and client/server have been a part of *nix for decades. The X model reverses the client server roles, but that is a good thing when you want many displays and one client application.

Regards
cww

Rackmounting PC,Monitors and automation supports are available here

http://dynalogindia.com/index.asp

Thanks for all the answers.

Maybe I can give more details on what exactly I'm looking for and what exactly I'm doing with those computers.

We are normally installing our operator view nodes (not SCADA servers) in a 19" rack in our PLC/Server room and link them to our control room through KVM extenders. So, in the control room, they only have the extenders, monitors, keyboard and mouses... no computer itself. The reason why I said that the video card on the 1U servers are not good enough is that they are normally designed for server utilization and not for normal desktop usage, which is perfectly fine but not what we need. We don't need top-of-the-line video card but simple office desktop onboard video card chipset.

The reason also why we would like to see the KVM extender integrated in the box itself is only to make the installation cleaner. We are not looking for very expensive computers but much more something that can be replaced fairly easily. Currently we are using HP small form factor desktops (around 14" wide) mounted on shelves in our cabinet (with the extender on top of them). Being 1U or even 3U, we could save a lot of space and the installation would be much more cleaner.

Best regards,

Guy Rousseau

Hi Guy,

I am suggesting a very expensive solution to you.
Buy any Industrial PC Rack mounted version, along
with any GECMA - GMBH [Part of MTL] for remote
mounting of monitor keyboard & mouse. We use it
for hazardous area applications.

This is a very reliable solution/product

Jari
iconcnl at vsnl.net

Check around for ISP hardware, from the majors or better, the second tier suppliers. They sell racks and racks of 1 and 2 unit packages to ISPs and remote hosting outfits. Also outfits that stress Windows. Anyone with more than 10 users will have 30 machines in racks in a glass house and they will get the offers and spam you are looking for. It's sort of an inside thing. But, I'm sure you can get what you want from Egghead if you don't mind a little assembly. By the way, millions of those rack units were obsoleted by the horrendous resource requirements of the latest MS drek. You should be able to buy them for a song. Even the cheapest server MBs these days have reasonable video. You can't even maintain a Windows server without it. It won't be a gamer, but it should work for everything else.

Regards
cww

If integrated graphics is good enough when its in a desktop box, why isn't it good enough when it's in a "server" case? A lot of cheap "servers" are just commodity desktop motherboards in a different case. I doubt you are seriously considering buying 4 socket "server" motherboards for your view nodes anyway. I think you need to narrow down your motherboard chip set specifications better.

I would suggest that you just buy some 1U or 2U rack mount cases (you can buy these just about anywhere), pick out a desktop motherboard that you feel comfortable with (check the component height for 1U use), and stick it in the box along with a SATA hard drive. If you've got a lot of these and want someone else to do the manual work for you, there should be plenty of IT service people in whatever town you are in who will do it for you.

For the KVM extender, you can get 6 and 12 station rack mount Ethernet KVM extenders in 1U and 2U shallow depth boxes from someone like Rose. You would need one rack mount KVM box for every 6 to 12 1U view node boxes.

The cost should be $250 to $500 for a 2U case with power supply, ~$100 for a motherboard, $50 to $100 for a CPU, ~$50 for 2G RAM, ~$100 for a hard drive, ~$25 for a DVD drive. Add ~$250 (a guess) for a 1/6th share of the rack mount KVM extender and KVM cables. This makes the hardware costs as somewhere around $1000 per unit. Add the cost of the rack(s), labour, installation, etc. Add the cost of software (whatever this is), configuration, etc.

This solution should be good enough, and it has the advantage of being maintainable. The problem with looking for the "perfect" solution for an obscure application is that you can easily end up with something that nobody can repair or replace in a few years without ripping everything out and starting over again.

In reply to Curt Wuollet: I doubt that "millions of those rack units were obsoleted by the horrendous resource requirements of the latest MS drek" as so far as I know, very few people in business are actually touching it. If people are replacing their server hardware to run new versions of MS-Windows, I haven't heard about it (at least on a large scale).

ISPs and other big installations simply don't usually use MS-Windows for technical and economic reasons. Businesses with internal MS Exchange e-mail servers seem to be sticking with their MS-Windows Server 2003 installations (or even 2000) because MS Windows Server 2008 just doesn't do anything for them that anyone cares about.

Don't confuse license sales figures with actual installations. Microsoft licenses businesses on a different basis than individuals. Large businesses generally have to pay an annual fee for the right to run a certain number of licenses. On the other hand, they can pick which software version they want to install, so most of them are sticking with their existing older versions. Microsoft *has* eliminated the cheaper licensing options which effectively jacks up their prices considerably (which has got a lot of customers upset), but that doesn't result in installing newer versions. Microsoft simply counts a contract renewal as being an MS-Vista or MS Server 2008 installation even if the customer is simply keeping their existing XP or MS-Server 2003 installation. The licensing uptake obfuscation is more an effort to pump up their rather flaccid share price than anything else.

What companies *are* doing is "server consolidation". They are reducing the number of servers they have by using virtualisation (e.g. VMWare) to run several programs on one server. Traditionally, people have dedicated a separate server for every MS-Windows application because of OS limitations. Virtualisation software from companies like VMWare lets them run multiple applications on the same physical hardware by emulating multiple servers. The main driving force behind this change is to save power, air conditioning, and floor space costs. Since this is all driven by cost savings, companies are putting a lot of effort into it today.

I suppose that you are familiar with much of the above, but I have included the technical details for the benefit of anyone else who is following the discussion.

I haven't heard of virtualisation being used in the automation business yet. It is something to think about in larger SCADA installations though.

Thanks Michael for the suggestion. It's looking like we will have to go that way. That solution will meet most of the criteria we set at the beginning.

Regards,

Hi Michael,

> In reply to Curt Wuollet: I doubt that "millions of those rack units were
> obsoleted by the horrendous resource requirements of the latest MS drek" as
> so far as I know, very few people in business are actually touching it. If
> people are replacing their server hardware to run new versions of MS-Windows,
> I haven't heard about it (at least on a large scale). <

Preaching to the choir, Michael. We have indeed come to a tipping point. I should have said they were obsoleted IFF the people continue down the MS path. At least, part of the plan was to obsolete much more hardware than they have successfully sunk so far. Not so very long ago, it was a given that MS could turn over a whole generation of hardware with every major release. Perhaps this is why Intel is no longer under Bill's thumb and has been catering to the OSS crowd.

> ISPs and other big installations simply don't usually use MS-Windows for
> technical and economic reasons. Businesses with internal MS Exchange e-mail
> servers seem to be sticking with their MS-Windows Server 2003 installations
> (or even 2000) because MS Windows Server 2008 just doesn't do anything for
> them that anyone cares about. <

Let's hope that they actually do some thinking and bolster their courage to do something other than eventually giving in and following the leading lemmings.

> Don't confuse license sales figures with actual installations. Microsoft
> licenses businesses on a different basis than individuals. Large businesses
> generally have to pay an annual fee for the right to run a certain number of
> licenses. On the other hand, they can pick which software version they want
> to install, so most of them are sticking with their existing older versions.
> Microsoft *has* eliminated the cheaper licensing options which effectively
> jacks up their prices considerably (which has got a lot of customers upset),
> but that doesn't result in installing newer versions. Microsoft simply counts
> a contract renewal as being an MS-Vista or MS Server 2008 installation even
> if the customer is simply keeping their existing XP or MS-Server 2003
> installation. The licensing uptake obfuscation is more an effort to pump up
> their rather flaccid share price than anything else. <

I have seen this. There are closets full of untouched product. It is remarkable that few other businesses could manage to cram product up their posteriors that they have no intention of using. I would expect that to produce a violent reaction when the lean, bean, counters find out, but this is a protection racket. If you depend on the stuff, you have to pay or bad things could happen. A break with the Redmond crowd will still need to be a complete break. Demanding a refund for those licenses would get you on the excrement roster for sure.

> What companies *are* doing is "server consolidation". They are reducing the
> number of servers they have by using virtualisation (e.g. VMWare) to run
> several programs on one server. Traditionally, people have dedicated a
> separate server for every MS-Windows application because of OS limitations.
> Virtualisation software from companies like VMWare lets them run multiple
> applications on the same physical hardware by emulating multiple servers. The
> main driving force behind this change is to save power, air conditioning, and
> floor space costs. Since this is all driven by cost savings, companies are
> putting a lot of effort into it today.
> I suppose that you are familiar with much of the above, but I have included
> the technical details for the benefit of anyone else who is following the
> discussion. <

I haven't been in with the elite MS crowd for quite some time. :^). In fact I'm persona non-gratis with many IT departments and am loathed as a heretic for the dangerous ideas that might throw sand in their underperforming, but well oiled MS machinery and require that they learn something. Very dangerous. I hadn't really thought about it, but I haven't got any really sincere, heart-felt. hate mail for a while. Perhaps Vista is the threat that is all consuming in their minds at the moment. Or, perhaps its just that I haven't had time for much marketing lately. That first is by far the more hopeful thought to entertain. Fear is certainly the greatest roadblock I face in my consulting business. Redirecting it can only be helpful.

> I suppose that you are familiar with much of the above, but I have included
> the technical details for the benefit of anyone else who is following the
> discussion.
>
> I haven't heard of virtualisation being used in the automation business yet.
> It is something to think about in larger SCADA installations though. <

I prefer the notion of consolidating by simply using an OS that can do more than one thing per box, virtual or physical. But virtualization should limit the damage that crashes can do. :^).

Regards

cww