[Beowulf] Cluster Diagram of 500 PC

[Mark Hahn]

> By experience, some IPMI hardware implementations are not sufficient to
> ensure efficient reboot, for example, we had some issues rebooting the
> nodes when they were in the PXE boot stage, or blocked in grub with a
> missing kernel, or worse: when running a freeBSD system.

that is most peculiar - why would any activity on the host affect 
the IPMI in the first place?  oh - was this IPMI one of the ones 
that shares a NIC/port with the host?  I can easily imagine that 
would cause some possible issues.

> Many other solutions are OK: they tend to be scriptable though a telnet +
> expect script, so it's OK as long as it can reboot all your nodes in any
> situation.

I guess I'd be surprised if the protocol to the BMC made any difference - 
IPMI or telnet.  but I'm often surprised ;)