[geeks] IBM rant

[Francois Dion]

On 11/30/06, Bryan Fullerton <fehwalker at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/29/06, Dan Duncan <dand at pcisys.net> wrote:
> > So why exactly is it that when I call for replacement of a failed
> > drive on an IBM-manufactured server to replace an IBM-labelled
> > drive (although it's manufactured by Fujitsu) when I give them the
> > machine type and long-ass IBM model number reported by the drive
> > they don't know the actual type of replacement drive because they
> > need some made-up FRU that's only printed on the front of the
> > drive carrier instead of being somehow accessible from the system
> > itself?
>
> IBM x86 servers are ass. I'm supporting ~60 low-end IBM x86 servers at
> $WORK, mostly running RHEL. We seem to be using IBM because one of our
> execs has a good relationship with them from previous experience which
> was all AIX/POWER - sigh.
>
> Don't get me started about HostRAID. Or IBM's lights out management
> card that uses a PCI slot, even in 1U boxes. Or that our execs want us
> to try to get Solaris 10 x86 running on these machines.
>
> Bryan

Sounds just like Dell...  If you dont have the service tag they have
*no* idea what is in your machine. And let's not even go into the "i
cant help you until you flash the latest greatest bios of the week"
deal.

There's never a good reason to buy them beside some exec has a relationship...