Hi there
In our Data centre we have a mixture of SPARCS running from v100 and ultra10's to v800 and v1250 boxes we also have a large amount of x86 X2100 and X4100 boxes
I am looking to purchase an external DVD-ROM drive that we can plug into the back of any of the boxes if we need to (I accept I may have to buy two of them, one SCSI and one USB) but I just cant find any that are certified/Guaranteed to run on SUN kit
any pointers in the right direction would be greatly appreciated
Really it shouldn't matter. If the protocol is correct and the machine is capable of booting from that protocol, then it shouldn't matter what you use. I generally just use whatever is lying around, sometimes it's old sun stuff sometimes not, it really doesn't matter.
Do you really even need to use a CD or DVD? I deal with a large number of servers, and never use CDs or DVDs in the datacenter. Media is loaded onto a single provisioning server and from there is installed on any, and all, other systems whether this is bare metal or otherwise.
When looking for generic hardware likely to work on esoteric platforms and operating systems, I look for the Apple OSX logo. Hardware that works on both Windows and OSX must be standards-compliant, hence likely to work on almost anything that has the right bus and a generic driver. Hardware that only has a Windows logo is likely to need a proprietary, windows-only driver.