The management software also sets the machine name based on its location in the chassis. So a Windows blade might take on the computer name of RLX-0-4-5. This renaming feature of the management software can be
disabled so the computer name can be set by the administrator.
Managing the RLX system was easy. The Web interface provided a graphical representation of the system that let us drill down to each blade. From the image we could see which LEDs were active on the systems and their states. The Web interface provided a wealth of detailed information, including current voltage levels, temperatures and vital stats on the hardware, OS and software on the blade.
Unique to the RLX management software is its ability to produce trend graphs of various components. Off by default, we could turn on trend graphs to watch items such as critical temperatures, Ethernet traffic, processor utilization and disk utilization. It was easy to view all the same graphs (for example, the critical temperatures) for all blades on a single Web page, making comparison a breeze.
The RLX management software also made it easy to "provision" the OS out to blades. Like the HP RDP software, the OS can use a scripted, unattended install of the Linux or Windows software. Once a blade was configured, the image could be captured for faster redeployment. It was also very easy to customize the images; for example, it took just a few mouse clicks in the Web interface to change the Red Hat Linux 8.0 install to use the ext3 file system instead of the ext2 file system.
RLX System 300ex. RLX Technologies, (866) 759-9866, (281) 863-2100. www.rlx.com
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