Compaq 3000R - ProLiant - 128 MB RAM Technology Overview

Brand: Compaq

Model: 3000R - ProLiant - 128 MB RAM

Category: Servers

Type: Technology Overview

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Executive Summary

The data center, a mission-critical, enterprise facility, is a complex and

demanding technology environment, requiring computing equipment that is

extraordinarily reliable, scalable and manageable. Data center server

equipment must provide the level of high availability that data center

customers demand. The server manufacturer also must provide the level of

service and support that these customers expect.

HP now offers a new server in the HP NetServer product family, which

complements the HP PA-RISC products. The new, high level of computing

power provided by the HP NetServer LXr 8500 can address the major

computing challenges customers face today in enterprise resource planning

(ERP), database management systems (DBMS) including on-line transaction

processing (OLTP), data warehousing and data marts, thin client,

consolidated messaging, and many other applications.

This white paper will focus on the technical aspects of the HP NetServer

LXr 8500. This server is an 8-way capable product, supporting the latest and

most powerful Intel processor, the Intel

Pentium

III Xeon™. The product is

optimized for the data center; specifically, elements of the architecture,

configuration and industrial design were chosen to meet the requirements of

this market.

Introduction

Data Center Needs

The data center, as a repository of information assets, is an integral

component of the enterprise infrastructure. It generally consists of mission-

critical, application-specific data stored in large databases and on file servers.

Long-emerging trends and technologies such as network computing, the

Internet and massive data growth are dramatically increasing the demands on

this environment.

Selecting the appropriate server equipment that resides at the center of this

information web is critical. Each of the components in a server system must

be balanced and scalable for maximum throughput capability under a variety

of application loads, whether the workload is CPU, I/O or network intensive.

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1000

2000

3000

4000

July 97

One

Pentium

Pro

Oct 97

Two

Pentium

Pro

Dec 98

Four

Pentium

Pro

Nov 98

Four

Pentium II

Xeon

June 99

Eight

Pentium III

Xeon

transactions per second

LXr 8500

LXr 8000

LX Pro

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Scalability

The Profusion SMP chipset architecture

delivers the highest levels of

performance and scalability for Intel-

based systems. Compared to previous

generations of SMP architectures and

the performance of a single processor,

the HP NetServer LXr 8500 provides

improved scalability (see Figure 1) to

8 processors for Microsoft Windows

NT™ Server 4.0, Microsoft Windows™

2000, or Novell

NetWare.

The scalability of the HP NetServer

LXr 8500 is impressive. Since the server

is available in configurations from one to

eight 550 MHz Pentium III Xeon

processors with L2 cache sizes of 1 MB

or 2 MB, it provides a wide range of

compute capability. Using ServerBench

measurements, scaling from two to four

processors increases system throughput

by 1.8 times, which is equivalent to 80%

more transactions processed each

second. When the system is scaled from

four to eight processors, then the

throughput improves by a factor of

more than 1.5.

Processor scaling is only one aspect of system scalability, however. The capability to

add memory, mass storage and network I/O capacity is also important. Most applications

that need a significant gain in overall transaction throughput will benefit by scaling all

system hardware resources. In many cases, adding CPU power is less effective than

adding memory or I/O bandwidth. On the HP NetServer LXr 8500, fully provisioning the

PCI I/O accessory slots can add several times the workload of a minimal system.

The HP NetServer LXr 8500 employs the Intel Profusion™ chipset, jointly developed by

Intel and Corollary (now part of Intel), to provide a breakthrough 8-way Symmetric Multi-

Processing (SMP) architecture. SMP architecture is one in which two or more linked

processors are contained in a single enclosure and work cooperatively on sets of tasks.

The processors are identical to each other and have shared access to all system

resources.

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8-way Architecture Overview

The HP NetServer LXr 8500, an 8-way capable server, is based on the Intel Profusion

chipset: a tightly coupled, multi-ported symmetric multi-processing system architecture

(see Figure 2). The multi-ported system controller enables simultaneous communications,

via dual 64-bit wide buses, between any combination of eight CPUs, four I/O bridges and

up to 32 GB of shared memory. There are three system (P6) buses in this design, two

dedicated to the CPUs and one to system I/O. Each of these buses runs at 100 MHz,

800 MB/s. To assure data integrity and improve system performance, a novel cache

coherency mechanism is employed to reduce conflicts for access across the buses. The

Profusion chipset makes the HP NetServer LXr 8500 equally effective whether the

application is memory-intensive, data-intensive or processor-intensive.

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The Profusion system controller allows direct point-to-point, simultaneous access to all

system resources, producing a balanced server platform. Two processor buses and

innovative cache coherency filters reduce CPU overhead and traffic, providing maximum

processor scalability. In addition, dual-memory bus architecture has been included to

reduce memory bottlenecks and provide memory scalability. Finally, four multi-peer PCI

bridge chips provide the LXr 8500 system with four separate peer PCI buses. Each PCI

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bridge, combined with the Profusion chipset, permits the system to handle long bursts of

data (streaming) due to the write-posting buffers, another feature that improves data flow

and further balances the system.

The paper continues by providing detailed information on the following points:

• The Profusion design supports from two to eight Intel Pentium II or Pentium III Xeon

processors.

• The memory design facilitates two subsystems of dual interleaved ECC memory with up

to 16 DIMMs in each memory bank.

• The standard configuration for the LXr 8500 includes two cache coherency filters for

improved server performance.

• The I/O port connects to four Bus-to-PCI bridges that together support ten hot-plug,

64-bit PCI slots; four of these are 66 MHz PCI slots and the remaining six are 33 MHz

PCI slots.

Processors

The HP NetServer LXr 8500 uses Pentium III Xeon processors at 550 MHz. The server

supports from one to eight of these processors. The Intel Pentium III Xeon processor

includes the latest improvements in performance-enabling instruction sets, although it still

provides the same cartridge form factor as its predecessor, the Pentium II Xeon. The

Pentium III Xeon processors will be available with L2 cache sizes of 1MB and 2MB. Larger

Level 2 caches serve to reduce system bus activity enhancing performance, especially in

systems with over four processors.

The NetServer LXr 8500 will be able to be upgraded to future generations of Pentium III

Xeon processors.

Memory

The Profusion chip set supports up to 32 GB of synchronous dynamic random-access

memory (SDRAM), ideal for memory-intensive applications such as enterprise resource

planning and messaging. The system divides the memory into two carrier boards of up to

16 GB of interleaved SDRAM, that are connected to two ports on the Profusion system

controller switch. Interleaving improves memory access performance because both

memory buses can be simultaneously active. One bus responds to odd-numbered cache

line requests, the other to the even-numbered lines. Two buses increase memory

bandwidth, reduce access conflicts and increase the maximum memory supported.

(Memory interleaving is only available when both memory carrier boards are included in the

system configuration.)

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Input/Output (I/O)

The Profusion chipset provides for a dedicated I/O bus to which up to four PCI bridges may

be attached. Two of the four host-to-PCI bridges (or I/O controller) support 64-bit, 66 MHz

PCI transactions, four times the maximum theoretical bandwidth of the current 32-bit,

33 MHz PCI bus. The other two bridges support 64-bit, 33 MHz PCI slots. I/O throughput is

improved since the PCI controllers are now connected to the I/O bus rather than the

processor bus as in prior generations.

As can be seen from Figure 2, the I/O bus handles all of the I/O traffic, reducing the impact

upon the processor buses and upon the processors’ interfacing with memory. Since there

is no contention between the I/O and processor activity, this new architecture allows for

greater throughput and improved scalability. 66 MHz, 64-bit PCI enables the use of the

latest high performance I/O adapters for networking and storage.

Processor Cache Coherency Filter

The processor cache coherency filter is memory that is used to keep track of data that each

processor bus has cached. The processor cache coherency filters (2) are used in

conjunction with the I/O coherency filter memory (stored within the Profusion chipset) to

store information about data that has been cached on either of the two P6 processor

buses. When a processor on one bus makes a request for data, the Profusion chipset looks

at the information stored in the coherency filter for the other bus, to determine if the

required data is cached there. If it sees that the data is not cached there, it can go directly

to memory, reducing search time and system overhead, thereby improving system

performance.

System Management Features

Industry initiatives supported by HP and Intel also promote a balanced platform that

improves overall system performance and lowers the total cost of ownership for the

enterprise-class server.

• Intelligent Platform Management Interface or IPMI: IPMI defines an industry

standard, co-developed by HP and Intel, which provides a common framework that

specifies how system devices communicate in a standard way. The devices are

monitored and coordinated through a management controller, which reduces load on

the CPU, improving performance. The management controller also logs all system

events to embedded, non-volatile memory. The log also aids recovery, should a device

fail, since it provides a detailed record of the event. The HP NetServer LXr 8500 is

IPMI-compliant.

• Virtual Interface Architecture or VIA: An industry-standard architecture enabling the

clustering of standard high volume Intel-based servers. VIA results in highly scalable,

enterprise-class platforms optimized for data warehousing, decision support and

transaction processing applications. VIA standards have been incorporated into the

design of the HP NetServer LXr 8500.

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Enhanced Software

Intel has released new instructions associated with the Pentium III Xeon processors.

These instructions are called Streaming Single Instruction, Multiple Data (SIMD)

Extensions. These extensions serve to boost the performance of TCP/IP-based

applications for messaging, Internet- and intranet-related functions.

Other business-critical applications such as database and ERP applications will also

benefit, achieving notable performance increases. SIMD extensions help memory-intensive

applications use the system resources more efficiently when processing computing tasks.

System efficiencies increase because the extensions give these applications their

instructions on using main memory, L1 and L2 caches to accelerate application

performance. SIMD extensions also streamline the TCP/IP stack, which improves the

functionality of streaming media applications such as voice recognition or compression

software, as well as Web hosting and e-commerce transactions.

Improving System Uptime: Availability

Beyond building reliable, high quality servers, HP has implemented a number of techniques

to improve server uptime, a critical measure for data centers, where the data must always

be accessible to the users.

Redundancy HP has provided redundancy (a means of preventing failures) for several

components and subsystems in the design of the HP NetServer LXr 8500. For example,

power supplies and fans are included at the N+1 level, one more than is required to support

the system. Should one fail, the others can assume the load until the failed one is replaced.

Additionally, since both the fans and power supplies are hot swappable, the server can

continue to run while the repairs are made.

HP has also designed for processor redundancy, de-allocating a processor should it fail.

The system will also de-allocate failed memory DIMMs, a failed processor bus or a failed

memory board. The system will still boot up, loading the NOS while ignoring the failed

component. (This capability assumes a configuration that contains at minimum, two buses,

two memory boards and two DIMMs.)

Automated Failure Recovery Should a system fail, automated failure recovery allows for

quick recovery from a failure. Features in this category include automatic server restart

(ASR), Error Checking and Correcting (ECC) memory and new data backup capabilities.

HP is the first major server vendor to offer a hardware-based One-Button Disaster-

Recovery tape backup solution. Without needing technical assistance, customers simply

can insert the most recent backup tape and push one button on their HP SureStore DDS

tape drive. The system will automatically boot from the tape drive, restoring the operating

system, configurations, applications, device drivers and files to exactly the way they were at

the time of the last backup.

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Server Clustering To further assure system availability, server clustering is often

employed. HP supports four different programs from several vendors including Microsoft

Cluster Server, Vinca Co-Standby

Server,

NSI Software Double-Take

and Novell SFT III,

all for HP NetServers. Depending upon the cluster program, either 2-node or 4-node

clustering is possible, increasing system uptime for the data center.

Remote Management

The HP LXr 8500 includes several powerful management features built into the architecture

of the server. Micro-controllers and I

C buses permit system event log management.

Remote management is available via the RMC, a plug-in card.

Industrial Design

The physical design of the HP NetServer LXr 8500 has also been optimized for the data

center in several ways.

The server is rack-mounted in a 7U (12.25 in. or 31.12 cm) rack height, “rackable and

stackable”, which is important as the data center consolidates servers. Since this is an

8-way server, the processor density is very high, over a very small footprint. The design

conserves floor space, which is at a premium as the amount of equipment continues to

increase. Five servers can be stacked in one 2-meter tall rack (41U) to a maximum

40 Pentium III Xeon 550 MHz processors per rack. Tremendous processing power in a very

small space.

High processor density produces high levels of heat. The fan cooling system has been

optimized to remove the heat load, with extra fan capacity to spare. (The importance of

redundancy was explained earlier.)

Since availability is so important in a data center, this server has been designed for quick

replacement of key components. Identification of component status is aided by easy-to-

read LED indicators for the overall system, fans, power supplies and PCI cards, each of

which can be replaced without shutting down the system. Adding more memory or more

processors requires that the system be shut down for a very short time.

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Conclusion

HP Philosophy and Strategy

HP’s approach to meet the needs of the data center is based first on solid system design

and manufacturing of all server components and subsystems. The most effective approach

to improving performance, availability and scalability is to keep faults from occurring in the

first place. HP’s design philosophy for the 8-way symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) system

was simple: lead in all areas of performance, scalability, manageability, availability and

reliability. The Profusion architecture is a uniquely balanced design where the performance

capabilities of the processors, cache, I/O subsystems and memory are matched. The

customer does not have to make tradeoffs between CPU and memory capacity or between

CPU and I/O capacity to achieve high performance.

The HP NetServer Family

HP has designed this new HP NetServer, the LXr 8500, to be optimized for the complex

and demanding technology environment of the mission-critical data center. This server is

8-way capable, meeting the performance, scalability, storage density, configuration and

high availability needs of the data center. The architecture, including the Intel Profusion

chipset, configuration and industrial design of this server has also been carefully

implemented. Finally, the server will also grow with the enterprise facility, able to be

upgraded in several key aspects.

The HP NetServer LXr 8500 is the highest performing server of the HP NetServer family of

products (see Figure 3). The HP NetServer LXr 8500 continues the HP NetServer tradition,

providing the outstanding performance for a server of its class, combined with lasting

investment protection, scalability, proven high availability and the best of service and

support in the industry.

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The HP NetServer LXr 8500 is the second 8-way Intel-based SMP server to have been

offered by HP. The first eight-way SMP system was launched in November 1997 and was

based upon the Pentium Pro processor. It was one of the first 8-way Pentium Pro servers

to market. In addition to these servers, HP has more than 20 years of experience in

providing computing solutions and has amassed a wealth of knowledge in the uses of

multiple processors. The knowledge and experience has been incorporated into the current

8-way products.

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For More Information

HP has several white papers and technology briefs that describe in more detail, memory,

processor selection, clustering, IPMI and availability. Please see the technical papers

section of the HP NetServer web site at:

http://www.netserver.hp.com/papers

For more information on Intel Pentium III Xeon processors and chipsets, see

http://www.intel.com

Microsoft Cluster Server is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft Windows NT is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

All other brand names are trademarks of their respective owners. Information in this document is subject to change without notice.

Compaq 3000R - ProLiant - 128 MB RAM Technology Overview

Brand: Compaq

Model: 3000R - ProLiant - 128 MB RAM

Category: Servers

Type: Technology Overview

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Compaq 3000R - ProLiant - 128 MB RAM Technology Overview

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