Hardware

From Wiki CEINGE

Overview

The CEINGE institute can provide a complete hardware infrastracture to supply IT services. The main hardware components are located in a dedicated room, capable to guarantee continuous mains power and controlled air temperature, allowing full reliability of the installed devices. Moreover, the access to the room is controlled by an alarm designed to warn of intrusions, fully responding to the current laws regulating the privacy of the managed data.

Servers

The central system includes a series of servers of different power class:

• 5 IBM biprocessor servers, based on Intel IA32 bits architecture, dedicated to the base IT and bionformatic services (mail, web, fileserver, vls). Their specifications are:

double Intel PIII 1Ghz;

1-2 GB of RAM;

SCSI internal disks;

external SCSI disk array DAS (Direct Attached Storage);

double ethernet interface configured for fault tolerance.

• 2 IBM servers with 8 processors, based on Intel IA32 bits architecture, dedicated to the management of large databases and programs used into the bioinformatic research activities. Their specifications are:

8 Intel PIII XEON 700 Mhz

4 Gb of RAM

SCSI internal disks;

external SCSI disk array DAS (Direct Attached Storage);

double ethernet interface configured for fault tolerance.

• 1 cluster server composed of 4 physical boxes containing 14 node servers each, for a total of 56 server nodes and dedicated to the High Performance Computing (HPC) activities. Each of the 56 node server is an independent computer with the following specifications:

double Intel P4 3Ghz with hyper-threading support;

2 Gb of RAM;

double EIDE internal disks;

double Gbit ethernet interface.

• 4 single processor servers, used to support activities and services such as monitoring and network management.
• 1 Apple PowerPC biprocessor, dedicated to the services for clients.

Clients

The CEINGE institute accommodates in its structure a big number of client, in fact from a recent esteem, they are approximately 200, fairly subdivided between Apple Macintosh and compatible Pc. Apple clients are mainly computers that use PowerPC processor, but recently also new models that use Intel Core Duo processor. Memory RAM mounted, is between 512 MB and 1 GB, while for storage the average is of 80 GB. The operating system in use, for all Apple computers is the MacOSX, with versions 10.3 and 10.4

PC compatible, mounts Intel processor, generally Pentium IV, and some Pentium III (sure still sufficient for the activities of routine like Browsing, email, etc.). Memory RAM mounted, is between 512 MB and 1 GB, while for storage the average is of 80 GB. Operating system used is the Microsoft Windows with the versions 2000 and XP, but some client uses also other operating system like Linux.

For connection to the web, Apple clients are configured with public IP address, for availability from the outside, for to use services which AFP, FTP, Samba, HTTP, etc. We haven't antivirus installed on Apple computers.

PC with operating system Microsoft Windows are configured on private network, for protect them by attacks from the web; moreover every Windows client is supplied of antivirus software and a Firewall.

Network devices

The network topology consists of one central router (Cisco 4006) connected to 13 periferal rack, each one equipped with one or more switches (Cisco 3500 series), serving the network to the various zones of the building. The connectivity is realized through Gbit fibers up to the periferal racks and from these to the clients through ethernet cat.5e cabling. The CEINGE connectivity to internet is guaranteed by a Gbit fiber connection to the close Faculty of Medicine network.