Martin 53N 1W wrote:

Miaowara Tomokato wrote:

the outside world, helped by a very generous sponsor. I very much doubt they've got the high profile or funding required to also get their own dedicated redundant power supply.

150 dollars at Best Buy?  If I had money I could buy one.

For their setup, they need something much more substantial than that to stay up for any length of time through a mains power failure.

They run something more than just a 200W PC...

Can we stop this cross-posting crap?

Yeah, we're talking about something on the order of a Liebert system. Not cheap.  Probably not funded, either.  People can complain all they want, but this is the nature of educational institution-driven research and implementation.  It's not a corporation driven by profit.  It is a "project" that is run by students with oversight from professors. Tenuous budgets, bubble gum, tie wraps, spit, and a prayer. Occasionally some big company dumps some really cool iron on the project and assumes that the students can make it all work.  Sometimes it does.  Sometimes they need help.

As an example, I know that Cisco makes some pretty damn good firewall iron.  I don't have the funds to have one dropped in pre-configured and maintained.  I also don't have the time needed to devote to the learning curve.  What would I do if I absolutely had to have that box up and running?  This is what SETI is dealing with.  They know they need big boxes that are not the easiest things to implement.  They are trying to make them work with the limited resources they have.  It's a learning process.  At the same time, they're dealing with a power delivery infrastructure on a campus that never envisioned the esoteric needs of the flaky hardware that is now in place.

I know a ton of IT consultants who would love this gig.  Because they could charge a fortune for it!