Technical data

Introduction to nPartitions
HP Superdome Partition Configuration Guidelines
HP System Partitions Guide: Administration for nPartitions—rp7410
EMSP—[e-mail]
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• Place each partition within an empty cabinet, if possible.
This applies to partitions in HP Superdome 64-way servers only.
Assign each partition cells from a cabinet whose cells have no
partition assignments, if possible. Do this before assigning cells from
a cabinet that already has cells assigned to a partition.
To select cells for partitions that are larger than six cells, on HP
Superdome 64-way servers, refer to the chart of recommended
partitions. For such larger nPartitions, assigning some cells from both
cabinet 0 and cabinet 1 provides better performance by better
distributing cell communications across crossbar links.
These guidelines can help minimize contentions for using the server’s
interconnecting hardware (crossbars and crossbar links).
• Assign each partition cells from an unused “cell quad”, if
possible.
Each “cell quad” is a set of four cells that share the same cabinet
backplane connections (crossbar chips). Within each HP Superdome
cabinet, cell slots 0–3 comprise one cell quad, and cell slots 4–7
comprise the second cell quad.
Because cells in a quad share the same crossbar chips they have the
best cross-cell memory performance.
Partitions with cells on different crossbar chips have higher memory
latency (worse memory performance) than partitions whose cells all
share the same crossbar chip.
HP Restricted / DRAFT
DRAFT NOV 2001