hardware driver support confusion

Alan Choyna, Sunday, May 7, 2006 @ 10:05 pm

Trying to keep your web site content up to date can be incredibly challenging when you have a large site with constantly changing data. However, not keeping it up to date can lose you business. That was the case with the behemoth known as HP.

I recently performed a compatibility analysis on the software and hardware for a large client project. If you've done this sort of thing, you know that the conflicting information provided on many vendors web sites can be a source of frustration. When you're as large as HP, the gap between good and bad information can be especially large.

I was trying to determine if there was a RAID card on the HP site that is compatible with the HP Integrity 8620 series Itanium servers (running RedHat Advanced Server 4.0). The answer was yes. Or it was no. Or it was maybe.

l found 3 different documents; one saying that there was no RAID card with Linux support, one saying that one card was supported, but only the RHAS 2.1, and one showing all of the linux drivers available, which apparently excluded all but Redhat Enterprise linux 4.0.

So I decided to try our friendly neighborhood HP rep. He said that they do support RHAS 4.0, but has not yet provided confirmation. Most likely he's searching the same mess of contradictory information on the HP site.

In the end l had to tell the client that the server they selected could not be certified in time due to the conflicting information on its ability to support hardware RAID. As a result HP will miss out on  a million-plus for the 3 servers the client needs.

Lessons learned for hardware and software vendors?

• Plan your site design to make it easier to keep content synchronized and updated. Make sure that only product managers and their teams can publish specs and docs on their products.

Lessons learned for system integrators?

• When analyzing compatibility, don't trust the 1st document you see. Like a journalist, try to find support for it in other documents.

• Look at each item's driver/software support to see whether it lags behind the competition. This should help you determine the useful life of the device. The more recent the driver support, the higher the likelihood it will maintain that support into the future.

tech development

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