Military Computer Systems
The Primary area of work for the Continental group is based on delivering to clients exacting specification. This is why the Royal Navy submarine fleet and training systems run on our computer systems
HMS Talent during trials
When a local government agency required very high specification servers crammed into a small 19" rack system they turned to Continental to provide the solution. We were asked to deliver a dual Xeon server with the ability to take 64GB of RAM. The system had to have a RAID 5 disk array on SAS drives and a DVD RW. To make our job difficult the client wanted at least 5 empty slots and the entire solution had to fit in a 4U 19" rack chassis that was not deeper than 500mm!
The solution:
The initial phase of building these systems was to liaise with the client to see what their requirements were. Reliability would play an important role in the development of these systems.
After careful consideration we elected to use a motherboard from Tyan. This required a 1000w power supply which was sourced separately.
As the processors were located close to the drive bays we had to find a means of installing four drives in the space provided for a standard 5.25" drive. We turned to suppliers in the United States and installed a RAID 5 array with 4 SAS drives installed in the one drive bay. Space only allowed for a notebook type DVD writer and this was fitted under the drives. A new facia was manufactured by a local metal work shop.
The Tyan motherboard allows for huge memory expansion and the slot availability was excellent after the installation of the RAID controller.
The finished system provided ample cooling for the dual Xeon server which all fit in a small package - 4U high by 50cm deep. All delivered on time and to budget.