Proliant 3000 and Dell 100Gbit switch - (PWJ150)

A deeper view into an 1999 Compaq Proliant 3000 and a brand new Dell Z9100-ON 100Gbit switch.

[zuli]

Imagine that in 20 years we will be looking at this 100Gbit switch the same way as we look at the old Compaq server today.

[AnonyDave]

Those compaqs seemed almost indestructible. Almost like they'll continue working until the end of the universe...but draw so much power that they accelerate our progression towards heat death of the universe 🙃

[netbenchmark]

It is Fascinating to see all this old hardware being disassembled, and cool to add some of the newer hardware into the mix like the Dell switch.
I have been using the same Dell switch myself at home for a few years (got a cheap used one),
and it works great for a high speed network, as it support all the speeds from 1G>100G by just changing the transceivers. Only sad thing about it really, is that it has vendor lock on the optical transceivers.
so you can't use cheap 3rd party ones. But now I know how it looks inside, which was cool.
Great content.

[User]

Wow. Proliant 3000. That was the first rack of servers I worked on with my first IT job when I was 19 years old. 1997. Jesus, I'm old.

[soupisgoodfood]

Those HDDs have the strongest neodymium magnets I've ever pulled out of a HDD. Very useful, if not a bit dangerous.

[InIMoeK]

It's funny to see that all the switch vendors have the exact same layout. We use Arista and they look very similair. Only big difference is in the software that runs on it.

I think you wanted to mention Cumulus as a switch OS? If you google on whitebox switch OS you will get them all ;) Cool vid!

[hubzcaps]

I love proliants. The sound of them brings me way back man.

[Manofcube]

Brings back memories. A local company donated a bunch of those Compaqs, as well as the really big quad CPU models, to my high-school computer club in 2004 or so. We used them as X11 terminal servers (or would you say clients?)in the library for the Sun thin clients they also got as a donation a few years before. The quad CPU with 4GB RAM was much improved over the slow Sun server that they were running before.

We had trouble getting one of the big ones to power up, and after much time with the manual, I learned that there was an interlock circuit that ran through all of the boards. Once everything was re-seated it came back up again. Did you ever have trouble with that?

[theposguy]

that was the first server I had for my first computer company... windows 2000 advanced server... ha good to see one again

[johannesdormann]

The "ON" in the Modelnumber means "Open Network". This points to the strategy of DELL selling this type of switches with any operating system you want. You can even buy one without an operating system and install an ordernary Linux on it. Normally you would buy it with the DELL OS called "DNOS 10" or some third party operating systems like "Cumulus Linux" or "BIG Switch OS".
All in all a nice switch for a decent price in my opinion, especially compared to CISCO and other major brands. I wish I get one or two for my lab. Working here with the small brother "S4048-ON" with only 48 x 10 GBit/s and 6 x 40 GBit/s.

[theryanwitski]

So cooool! Was only in 30seconds and I was pumped!

[thudtheace]

I like the Post Error Code: Doh


Cheers!

[Slash]

Play with Junk: 100gbit switch
Me: looks at my brand new 10gbit mikrotik
Mikrotik: dude i'm not dell ok

[willemkossen]

At my first employer we had predecessors of that compaq machine. Very reliable. Novell servers. Usually we had uptimes of years on them. Thats when hidden power buttons are needed. When we migrated to windows nt we had to schedule nightly reboots to keep the servers performing. Rubbish...

[JonWhitton]

BigIP software is from F5 for the Dell Z9100. Alternative version of switch software

[cornflake]

Those disks are huge ! I even has some 4.3 GB ones, but binned them a while ago...

[michaelheimbrand]

Yes! I worked a lot with the 3000 back in the days.

[thorsteinj]

I read ... "ProLiant 3000 and Dell 100_Mbit_ switch" and thought well that's a good combo... Nidec fans though!

[mina]

From my very limited experience with servers external VRM modules seem to have been a thing up until around 2008. But by that point they were generally only required for the second CPU. Basically they changed from a useful feature to a way for manufacturers to cheat more money out of you.

[hgbugalou]

Now let's see the gear that switch is connecting to! 👍