[AG-TECH] Advice sought on AG server upgrade proposal

[Tom Coffin]

hi Phil

One of the underlying concepts behind the AG (imho) is the
inexpensive nature of PC's and their ability to act as appliance's

To enable, a multiple use scenario (being able to
use the same a/v equipment into multiple applications (AG, EVO etc)
We have created a 3 box system. This has also become handy for events
that request multiple video solutions.

setup:
2 machines operate in traditional AccessGrid fashion
(video producer/linux; video consumer/audio/windows)

A third windows box which can also manage the production of 4
video steams is very useful for alternate applications
like Iocom, EVO etc. We can also take advantage of it's
expanded display to effectively use it with VNC in order
to manage other AccessGrid consumer machines located
remotely. So, in essence a control machine

BTW, we also separate gware, presentation sharing
and background communications to other machines.

-- 

___________________________________________________________
Tom Coffin ...................... tcoffin at ncsa.illinois.edu

    NCSA ACCESS / Univ. of Illinois     cel: 703-477-5948
    901 North Stuart Street, #800       tel: 703-248-0105
    Arlington, Virginia, 22203          fax: 703-248-0100

______________________________ http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu


On 10/13/2010 1:11 PM, Stanford P. wrote:
> Hi
> I am currently trying to put together a proposal to upgrade our rather
> ancient Access Grid servers. I have looked through this list and gleaned
> various bits of useful information about possible configurations. I would be
> grateful for comments about any aspect below - apologies in advance for the
> length of this mail.
>
> Background:  we installed a pretty traditional room-based node about 6 years
> ago  - a two-box HP workstation system running AG Toolkit under Linux,
> XAP800, Sony EVI-D100 cameras using s-video into Osprey capture cards, and
> using a NVidia quad-head display card.
> The aim is to update the servers, but keep the XAP and the existing Sony
> cameras for standard definition video feeds. If possible we also want to add
> two HD feeds for future use, from the Tandberg Precision HD cameras we also
> have in the room for H.323 videoconferencing (these can output
> simultaneously on HD-SDI, as well as the HDMI connection we use for the
> H.323 videoconferencing).
> As well as Access Grid, we want to use this infrastructure with other
> collaborative software such as EVO, or even to use Skype in a room-based
> environment.  Although we have a strong preference to run things under Linux
> (Fedora or RHEL), we will probably want to make the new server(s) dual-boot
> to some flavour of Windows too so we can cope with any eventuality.
>
> We¹ve found our current hardware to be very reliable, so for starters I¹ve
> looked for updated versions of what we¹ve got rather than changing
> everything in sight.
>
> I¹m still undecided about the one box / two box question.  In support of the
> two-box approach, I can understand the complication of the operator seeing
> multiple VIC instances on a one-box system, rather than just having a single
> instance on the display machine. Also, I do still wonder about the wisdom of
> expecting one box to cope with (say) capture of two HD streams and 2 SD
> streams, plus audio, plus quad-head graphics output and networking. That
> seems an awful lot of i/o (translating to CPU load). However, for use with
> EVO, both capture and display would need to be on the same machine (unless
> you signed in on two boxes, I guess). In the end of course it will probably
> come down to money.  Your current opinions are solicited on this issue.
>
> New server(s): The HP z800 looks a pretty good spec, particularly when it
> comes to i/o in the form of the number and type of PCIe slots ­ it would
> seem to give some options for future growth, even on a one-box solution.
> Also we mostly use HP for our other servers, so are generally comfortable
> with their support.
>
> Processors: I would prefer dual quad-core processors, but would welcome
> advice as to whether this would be overkill, particularly in a two-box
> solution.
>
> Memory: I¹m assuming that memory requirements are not particularly great,
> and that something like 12GB per box would be ample (memory is triple
> channel on the z800, so for dual processors needs to be installed in sixes,
> hence 6 x 2GB)
>
> Disk: Similarly the disk requirements should be modest ­ we¹d probably keep
> the Linux and Windows installs on separate drives for simplicity ­ ideally
> I¹d like to mirror each OS on a pair of drives.  There seemed to be some
> references to Linux on the z800 needing SAS rather than SATA drives for any
> RAID config, but whether that applies to a straight RAID1 mirror I¹m not
> sure.  At a pinch we could live dangerously and just have a single drive
> (146 or160GB) per OS I guess.
>
> SD video and audio capture: The initial need is to be able to support the
> current 4  s-video feeds, and I was looking to use the Osprey 450e if
> possible (though there seemed to be some doubt as to whether this was
> supported under Linux or  VIC yet).   A second best might be the Osprey 440
> (normal PCI).  Either should be able to do the audio capture too.
>
> HD video capture ­ The Blackmagic cards seem to be the popular option, both
> for AG and EVO. The ŒDecklink Duo¹ takes two HD-SDI inputs, which would seem
> ideal for our system., and it seems to have a Linux driver. It isn¹t crucial
> for it to be supported Œright now¹ in AG Toolkit / VIC, but it would be nice
> to know it¹s on the horizon.
>
> Graphics card:  One quad-head card supported in the z800 seems to be the
> Nvidia Quadro NVS 450 ­ we¹ve previously used the similar PCI card with good
> results. The current PCIe model outputs on DisplayPort connectors, which we
> would have to convert to VGA.   An alternative could be two NVidia Quadro
> FX580 cards, as suggested here:
> http://www.arcs.org.au/index.php/tturnkey-video-collaboration/318-room-based
> -turnkey-vc-system but I am not sure what the benefits would be compared
> with the single card.
>
> There¹s probably something else obvious I¹ve missed but this is long enough
> already.
>
> Thanks in advance for any comments
>
> Phil Stanford
> National Oceanography Centre
> Southampton, UK
>