[Tim Walsh]

I have to agree with most of what's said here. We(a university of 15,000 students) run almost exclusively dell and sun machines not just because of their reliability but also their support. Both companies provide 4 hour onsite service, all of our major systems are redundant with SAN storage, etc, etc. The biggest problem we're running into currently is thermal. We've been using one of our two machines rooms for 30 years and our A/C when on generator power is marginal. It's one thing to think about when designing a datacenter.. if the power goes out and you go to UPS/Generator will your A/C units keep up?

Not to hijack the thread, but what is everyone using in their major data centers for monitoring? We've been on BMC Patrol for the last year.