Tyan S5502 Server/Workstation System Board

Not All Servers are Created Equal

Some of the most useful features of the S5502 platform are to be found at the bios level outside of the OS. As mentioned earlier the S5502 is meant for server deployment so consider the following scenario:

You are a small/medium business owner with 50 employees. Your network consists of a domain server, an MS Exchange server, and a file server. For reasons unknown to you none of your employees can sign into the domain, get internet access, etc. You do not have a dedicated IT administrator, instead you contract that service out to an on call company to save on cash. Every minute your employees are down costs time, which in the case of a down server usually means hours or longer to wait for the IT service personnel to arrive on site and find out why the server is not working correctly.

This scenario happens many times a day all over the country and the world. Businesses lose thousands of Dollars, Yen, and Euros waiting for servers to be restored to full functionality. Many times the server hardware is just fine and all that is needed are a few clicks of a mouse or a reset of the server and things are back up and operational. The business ,however, is at a loss for the time that the server was down. A technology known as iKVM, which Tyan has implemented into the S5502 can eliminate much of that lost time.

As many in the IT industry are aware many service calls and maintenance can be done remotely. This requires RDP, RCP, and that the computer be up, operational, and connected to the internet to function. iKVM only requires an internet connection for it to work. iKVM allows your IT company or administrator to VPN into your network and have direct access to what is happening within the S5502 at a bios and hardware level. If the server in question has “Blue Screened” (BSOD), locked up, or experienced any number of problems, then the moment the IT admin plugs in the IP Addressof the iKVM machine he/she will see exactly what is on the screen at that moment regardless of the OS. This level of access allows for unprecedented troubleshooting and much quicker recovery from issues.  your IT administrator can for example reset the server and watch the bios post, enter the bios remotely and make changes real time, and restart the system. They would have access to RAID arrays, all attached hardware, and more. iKVM allows you to virtually be on site with diagnosis and repair much more quickly.

iKVM in conjunction with IPMI (Intelligent Platform Management Interface) provide the backbone of support for IT administrators and are wonderful additions to the S5502. Essentially IPMI allows remote monitoring of system health parameters including:

• Fan Speed
• Hard Drive Health
• CPU Temperature
• Remotely Control Power
• System Event Logs
• Access to console interfaces

These features and others show the dynamic flexibility and power that the S5502 grants to its users.

Dynamic Growth Capability:

When we started this review we mentioned that many businesses make the decision to implement standard desktops as servers. We also mentioned some of the trade offs of that sort of arrangement. Lets take a look at the S5502 and its expandability and accessibility options and compare them to a standard desktop system that has been setup as a server.

In terms of expansion and future growth the S5502 as expected easily outperforms nearly any standard desktop configuration with its already built in support. In order for any standard desktop to reach the level of functionality and expandability of the S5502 a business owner would have to purchase several add on cards. The downfall to this approach is of course that such add on cards do not always play nicely together.  In the case of the S5502 you are purchasing a solution that works well out of the box. Our testing of each of these features went without any issues. iKVM for example meets a specific need and does so outside of any OS, there is little if any lag when viewing bios screens and making changes and allows an amazing amount of added control over a system that RDP by its nature cannot hope for.

Conclusion:

The S5502 is an excellent server and workstation platform that brings an awesome amount of power to both fronts. Its expansion and accessibility options place it above most other options among similar choices by Dell, HP and other OEMS and at a significantly reduced price. Our testing found that the S5502 was extremely stable, had high performance, and was extremely configurable. Our single issue with the on-board SAS controller was limited to Windows 7 support which nearly any server platform will have considering how new Windows 7 is. We were particularly pleased with the inclusion of iKVM and the expandability of our storage options with the S5502. Considering all of the features, support, and level of performance of the S5502 we award it Editors Choice for enterprise hardware.

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