[committee] Purchasing milotic/machop EPYC server PC parts

[Nick Bannon]

Hey, all!

Looks like... we're getting what amounts to a new server, possibly a
replacement for medico.

We discussed acquiring some or all of the parts at the last tech meeting and in chat
and took a physical look at a recent project night. (PSU modular cables collected!)

/home/wheel/docs/meetings/2021-09-05.txt
- ...so if `loveday` doesn't have upgrade quotes yet, how about `medico` -> `machops`?
  - https://discord.com/channels/264401248676085760/264411219627212801/883522265466146869
  - General consensus that we should buy everything on the spreadsheet.
    Possibly need to budget for a new case if that one doesn't have rails,
    plus a power supply that has redundancy.
  - To check: SSD smart age, RAM speed, total price
  - budget additional $700 for case and PSU (so $2350 all up?)

At the 2021-09-29 committee meeting, the full $1650 of UCC funds was
budgeted for the parts in the attached spreadsheet.

The parts constitute a new server based on an "small" 8-core AMD
EPYC 7262 (our first post-Meltdown/Spectre server CPU!),
256GiB ECC RAM, some storage and a motherboard with plenty of PCIe I/O:

https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=ROMED8-2T
https://www.scorptec.com.au/product/hard-drives-&-ssds/accessories/87765-hyper-m.2-x16-gen-4-card

Can we organise the sending of $1650 to:
Benjamin Arntzen
Westpac BSB: 736082
Account: 759257

In addition, some case rails have recently arrived, waiting on a
quote/price for those.

As far as a name goes - following on from:
- https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Magikarp_(Pok%C3%A9mon)
- https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Mudkip_(Pok%C3%A9mon)

Machop was the first suggestion, but I see (thanks, [TPG]):
- https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Milotic_(Pok%C3%A9mon)
is more in keeping with the m-fishy theme, and I'm not sure this
has the true <ahem> mussel-y power that Machop deserves.

In any case: a conversation to followup soon, re:
- fundraising/grants for an upgrade to https://wiki.ucc.asn.au/MoneyMoneyMoney/NewHeathred
  - as prioritised in tech meeting 2021-07-18.txt
- GPGPU computation
  - generic passthrough? or vGPU?
  - some collaborations and handmedowns have been proposed, though we
    already test with the hardware we have
- could we find a cheap secondhand DELL that could take a bigger
  Engineering Sample EPYC Zen2 SP3 CPU:
  - R6515 (1RU), R7515 (2RU), R7525 (2RU, 2CPU sockets), C6525, R6525
  - R6415, R7415, R7425
  - ...which might give us a spare CPU or two for another ROMED8-2T motherboard/case?

Nick.
(Thanks Michael, Benjamin, Bob!)

-- 
   Nick Bannon   | "I made this letter longer than usual because
nick-sig at rcpt.to | I lack the time to make it shorter." - Pascal
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