On Sun, Jan 24, 2010 at 10:10:55PM -0800, Ian Forde wrote: > And the floppy thing? In fact, the whole BIOS/any-firmware upgrade via > floppy thing? Industry-wide? I mean, *seriously*? These are supposed > to be "enterprise" systems. I try to order them without floppy drives > (even if one could get them WITH them in the first place) and without > CD/DVD drives (which, depending upon the Dell server model, may or may > not always be possible). Anyone running a lights-out data center can > tell you that the money you save on leaving the DVD drive out on the > purchase, while not small, adds up when talking about 1000, 100, or even > 50 servers. Heck - even at 10 servers, PXE installations should be the > norm. So to be told that one has to use a DOS floppy is a little... > well... grating...
This is exactly why 11G PowerEdge servers includes Lifecycle Controller, which itself can download BIOS and firmware updates for all system components directly from ftp.dell.com (or a local repository if you prefer) and update the whole system. It does so from a pre-OS environment (UEFI actually) so that it works regardless of what OS you have on your disks. While the OpenManage team is working to make more Linux-native firmware update utilities available, Lifecycle Controller is really quite slick, and there's no concern with having the "right" Linux environment to run. So, go get yourself several new 11G PowerEdge servers (e.g. the R610, R710 class) today! :-) Thanks, Matt -- Matt Domsch Technology Strategist, Dell Office of the CTO linux.dell.com & www.dell.com/linux _______________________________________________ Linux-PowerEdge mailing list [email protected] https://lists.us.dell.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-poweredge Please read the FAQ at http://lists.us.dell.com/faq
