The last two days I’ve been busy reorganzing the data center. Where I had the Alpha and storage in separate rooms (to limit the noise level) I have no placed Diana and all storage in one cabinet. Noise levels are less high anyway, the DS10 is more silent than the PWS; the only point is when I startup all BA350 cabinets, the noise level goes up significantly. But I can take additional work to keep it low.
This reorganization required the systems to be shut down temporarily – storage had to be powered down to move it. Once re-attached to the DS10, starting first didn’t locate the HSZ50 nor any disk. The reason was simple: I connected to the wrong SCSI outlet first, and after that, when starting the DS10 it found a lot of errors on the second controller – it couldn’t locate DKB100…Checked the HSZ50, used LOCATE D100 and found out that the first and second cabinet were swapped when re-connecting. After the right connection was established, Diana booted – but not complete: WASD started halfway and stopped. I couldn’t connect to any other node on the network – and the switch also showed no connection; which was also signaled in the boot sequence. A bit troublesome to make the connection work – since there is little room to move the box. But once that was settled, all came up nicely. and all was running fine.
Until I accidentally hit the switch on the power block.
Well, it was intended to switch down the storage unit anyway, the power cord needed to be rerouted. So that was the moment where all work that could now be done, was actually done – and after that, power was restored and it all came up like before – without any trouble.
The only thing yet to do in this environment is adding an extension to the keyboard cable. I don;t have one at hand and the shops are closed now. But it can wait a few days.
What goes on behind the doors of the (private) data center