RackHD Use Cases

author: Tom Capirchio

Companies are choosing to leverage RackHD to meet one or more of these lifecycle stages

Day 0 – Bare Metal Deployment

The process of taking an OTS server from bare metal to infrastructure ready, inclusive of updating firmware, hardware configuration, and OS deployments. Typically this step is done in the factory due to the manual steps required to make it infrastructure ready. However, it can easily be done in the field using RackHD workflows.

Day 1 – Rack and Stack

The process of taking provisioned nodes (output of Day 0) and clustering them with other nodes (servers and switches). This involves racking the gear, cabling the servers to switches and configuring L2 networking. For a turn-key solution, this step is traditionally done in the factory. However, it can easily be done in the field using RackHD workflows.

Day 2 – Lifecycle Management

Lifecycle management refers to the activities that take place after Day 1. These activities can include FRU replacement, system expansion (adding new nodes), or updating firmware, reconfiguring hardware settings, and upgrading operating systems. This is typically done in the field today through vendor specific tooling or homegrown software. RackHD can provide a consistent approach across heterogeneous hardware.