Aberdeen puts a big monitor on a (Peta)rack

Siggraph 2016: Touchy feely SAN racks are kinda neato

Aug 2, 2016 by

Aberdeen logoAberdeen showed off an interesting option for their Petarack storage system, a touch screen monitor. SemiAccurate saw it at Siggraph and thinks it is neat but not paradigm shifting.

The idea is simple, take an Aberdeen Petarack storage system and put a big touch screen monitor on the front. The version you see below also has the usual slide out 2U KVM drawer for ‘real work’ but this demo system also has a large touch screen monitor too. You can call up an on-screen keyboard if you want or just press the bits on the GUI that interest you. Either way the underlying tech isn’t a revolution, it is just something we haven’t seen done before.

ABerdeen Petarack storage array with monitor

Yes it is a storage rack with a big monitor on the door

Once you start thinking about it, for small and medium-sized installations, a monitor like this can make a lot of sense. Sure you probably have the enterprise dashboard, warning triggers aplenty, and everything else that a modern sysadmin uses every day, but a big monitor like this has uses. Imagine having wiring schematics on it, the IPs of what things should be rather than are, and a big high rez version of the front and back blue light Compaq introduced a few decades ago with useful extras visible. That and a simple visual representation of problems so if you happen to be walking by it, you can just tell a ‘whoopsie’ is in progress.

The monitor Aberdeen put on the Petarack isn’t for everyone, isn’t for all situations, and probably should only be put on every few racks in the best of cases. It won’t change the world, won’t do anything a normal KVM or enterprise dashboard can’t do, but it is unquestionably handy in a lot of ways. This monitor isn’t officially part of the Petarack options list but if you are buying a Petarack or twelve you can probably convince Aberdeen to throw one in. Like we said in the beginning of the piece, it won’t change the world but it is neato, a word that you don’t hear often with regards to datacenters.S|A

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Charlie Demerjian

Roving engine of chaos and snide remarks at SemiAccurate
Charlie Demerjian is the founder of Stone Arch Networking Services and SemiAccurate.com. SemiAccurate.com is a technology news site; addressing hardware design, software selection, customization, securing and maintenance, with over one million views per month. He is a technologist and analyst specializing in semiconductors, system and network architecture. As head writer of SemiAccurate.com, he regularly advises writers, analysts, and industry executives on technical matters and long lead industry trends. Charlie is also available through Guidepoint and Mosaic. FullyAccurate