HP 9000 midrange servers from HP— The HP 9000 rp7440 and rp8440 Servers Executive summary............................................................................................................................... 3 Adaptive, flexible, and scalable: The HP 9000 rp7440 and rp8440 Servers ............................................. 4 Introduction .....................................................................................................................................
Racking ............................................................................................................................................ 28 Third-party racks ............................................................................................................................ 29 Server virtualization ........................................................................................................................... 29 Hard partitions .................................................
Executive summary The HP 9000 rp7440 and rp8440 Servers and the PA-8900 processor bring you all the computing power you need to operate in the most demanding IT environments. Leading performance and compute density, coupled with the flexibility and scalability of the HP 9000 rp7440 and rp8440 Servers, allow you the agility and investment protection you need to meet today’s commercial and technical computing demands while improving your return on IT.
Adaptive, flexible, and scalable: The HP 9000 rp7440 and rp8440 Servers Introduction Today’s HP 9000 servers outpace competitive servers by providing a broader range of solutions with more applications at a higher performance, across both commercial and technical computing.
Figure 1.
HP 9000 rp7440 and rp8440 Server specifications HP 9000 rp7440 Server with 8 PA-8900 processors HP 9000 rp8440 Server with 16 PA-8900 processors HP 9000 rp8440 Server Expansion Unit (SEU-2) Cell boards 1–2 1–4 — Dual-Core PA-8900 processors 1–8 processors 1–16 processors — (2–16 cores) (2–32 cores) 1.
HP 9000 rp7440 Server with 8 PA-8900 processors HP 9000 rp8440 Server with 16 PA-8900 processors HP 9000 rp8440 Server Expansion Unit (SEU-2) Depth 762 mm (30.0 in.) 762 mm (30.0 in.) 762 mm (30.0 in.) Typical maximum power consumption (for maximum configuration) 2120VA (2078 W) 3866VA (3789 W) 613VA (601 W) Weight (max.) 101.6 kg (224 lb) 171.4 kg (378 lb) 81.6 kg (180 lb) Figure 2.
The HP 9000 rp7440 and rp8440 Servers share many system components and design features as seen below. Figure 3 shows a front/side and rear view of the HP 9000 rp8440 Server with its front plastic bezel and top and left side panels removed. A peripheral bay located at the top front of the HP 9000 rp8440 Server provides space for four hotplug disk drives and two removable media devices (DVD or DAT).
System architecture HP 9000 midrange servers are built around HP sx2000 chipset which is based on a modular cellbased architecture. Cell-based architecture allows for components (cell boards, IO and more) to be configured to effectively cover a wide range of computing needs. Both the HP 9000 rp7440 and rp8440 Servers support a variety of system configurations, ranging from one to sixteen PA-8900 processors.
HP 9000 rp8440 Server architecture The HP 9000 rp8440 Server architecture builds on that of the HP 9000 rp7440 Server with the addition of a crossbar backplane and two more cell boards. The crossbar backplane provides a nonblocking connection between up to four cells, plus a connection to the external I/O resources in the HP SEU-2. Similarly to the HP 9000 rp7440 Server, the HP 9000 rp8440 Server can be configured as one 1- to 16-processors system, or it can be divided into smaller independent nPars.
Figure 6. Primary components of the HP sx2000 chipset Cell board Memory I/O controller 16 DIMMs x 36 DDR II 8.5 GB/sMem buff 4.3 GB/s each bus 17 GB/s total CPU socket CPU socket 8.5 GB/s each bus 17 GB/s total Cell controller 5.75 GB/s each bus 11.5 GB/s total per cell I/O controller CPU socket CPU socket 11.5 GB/s each bus x 3 / cell 34.
Figure 7. Layout of the HP 9000 rp7440 and rp8440 Server cell board Cell design details Each cell board is a self-contained unit, with an SMP, main memory, and all necessary hardware.
The CC also supports DCS, an increased level of memory availability. The memory error correcting logic reestablishes chip-spare correction after another DRAM in the same error checking and correcting (ECC) codeword has failed. This strategy is more cost-effective than memory mirroring methods for protecting memory. See the HP sx2000 chipset technical white paper for more information on this feature. Cell configurations The HP 9000 rp7440 Server supports up to two cells.
Number of processors per partition Average memory latency 4 processors (one cell) ~185 ns 8 processors (two cells) ~249 ns There are two types of memory latency within the HP 9000 rp8440 Server: • Memory latency within the cell refers to the case in which an application runs on a partition that consists of a single cell or uses cell local memory. • Memory latency between cells refers to the case in which the partition consists of two or more cells and cell interleaved memory is used.
providing higher bandwidth, the crossbar fabric consisting of the Crossbar ASIC and high-speed links have been redesigned for the sx2000 to provide greater availability and reliability. See the HP sx2000 chipset technical white paper for more information on the benefits provided by new Crossbar ASIC and links. I/O subsystem Each HP 9000 rp7440 and rp8440 Server contains an embedded high-performance I/O subsystem.
Figure 9. Basic block diagram of the HP 9000 rp8440 Server I/O subsystem I/O controller chips The HP 9000 rp7440 and rp8440 Servers contain two master I/O controller chips located on the PCI-X backplane. Each I/O controller contains 16 high-performance, 12-bit-wide links. These links connect to 16 I/O controller chips supporting the PCI-X card slots and core I/O. In both systems, two links—one from each master controller—are routed through the system backplane and are dedicated to core I/O.
Figure 10. The PCI-X backplane of the HP 9000 rp7440 Server has fat link high-performance links for 14 of the 16 I/O card slots.
In practice, PCI-X I/O cards requiring the largest amount of bandwidth should be configured into the dual-link slots. Because each I/O slot has a dedicated bus, any slot can be hot-plugged or serviced without affecting other slots. Core I/O The HP 9000 rp7440 and rp8440 Servers are purchased with one or two core I/O card products. In both systems, core I/O provides console, Ultra320 SCSI, Gigabit LAN, and Management Processor (MP) functionality, along with SCSI controllers for the peripheral bay.
Figure 13.
External LAN—The external LAN port is a 10/100/1000BaseT external LAN port that uses an RJ-45 connector. External SCSI—The external SCSI port is an Ultra320 LVD external SCSI port for connections to mass storage or media. HP 9000 rp7440 Server internal peripheral bay The HP 9000 rp7440 Server internal peripheral bay is located at the top front of the system chassis.
HP 9000 rp8440 Server core I/O The HP 9000 rp8440 Server chassis supports up to two core I/O cards, installed in core I/O slots located along the right-rear vertical edge of the chassis. A minimum of one core I/O card must be ordered with each system; the optional second core I/O card can be used to enable hardware partitioning or to utilize the full capacity of the built-in mass storage bays. Figure 14.
HP 9000 rp8440 Server internal peripheral bay The HP 9000 rp8440 Server internal peripheral bay is located at the top front of the system chassis. The peripheral bay holds up to four low-profile hot-plug disks and two removable media devices. Each HP 9000 rp8440 Server core I/O card contains two dual-channel SCSI controller chips that support the SCSI devices in the internal peripheral bay.
Figure 15. The HP SEU-2 (left) and the SEU-2 + HP 9000 rp8440 Server mounted in an HP 2-m cabinet (right) The HP SEU-2 mirrors the I/O resources embedded within the HP 9000 rp8440 Server chassis, both physically and electrically. The high-speed connection between the HP 9000 rp8440 Server and the SEU-2 is provided through a remote I/O (E-Link) cable. The E-Link cable mounts directly to the system backplane board in the HP 9000 rp8440 Server and to the I/O backplane board in the SEU-2.
Figure 16.
• Redundancy for both hardware failures and power input failures • Hot-plug capability for any BPS in a redundant configuration • Better data security, maintenance scheduling, and maintenance operations without system interruption Figure 17. Power inputs and interconnects in the HP 9000 rp7440 Server are designed for fault-tolerant power compliance. Fault-tolerant power compliance in the HP 9000 rp8440 Server The AC input to the HP 9000 rp8440 Server is divided into four separate circuits.
Figure 18. Power inputs and interconnects in the HP 9000 rp8440 Server are designed for fault-tolerant power compliance. AC power consumption The power consumption of the HP 9000 rp7440 and rp8440 Servers varies greatly, depending on the hardware configuration and the input line voltages supplied at your site. HP represents power consumption in terms of volt-amperes (VA) to take into account power factor correction.
– Typical maximum power: 2120 VA (2078 W) (10.6 A @ 200 VAC across two cords) – Marked Electrical for the server: 2640 VA (12A @ 220 VAC across two cords) – Marked Electrical per line cord: 1320VA (6A @ 220 VAC across each cord) – Maximum Theoretical Power: 3130 VA (3092 W) HP 9000 rp7440 Server average configuration with four PA-8900 processors—Consists of four 1.
Scalability HP 9000 rp7440 Server HP 9000 rp8440 Server Cell boards 1–2 1–4 PA-8900Processors 1–8 1–16 Memory 2–128 GB 2–256 GB Hot-plug PCI-X I/O slots 15 slots 16 slots Partitions 1–2 1–2 (4*) Hot-plug internal disks 0–4 0–4 (8*) Removable media 0–1 (2 with low profile DVD) 0–2 (4*) *Including SEU-2 Racking Both the HP 9000 rp7440 and rp8440 Servers provide industry-leading performance density and availability in a racked configuration. At 10 EIA units (44.45 cm [17.
The interlock is a safety feature that is used when more than one product is to be installed in a single rack. This feature works only when two products are mounted on slides adjacent to each other (above and below) in a rack. The function of the anti-lock mechanism is to prevent sliding of more than one server from the rack at any given time. In the absence of this mechanism, if two servers are pulled out at the same time, the rack can tip over.
Hard partitions Hard partitions (nPars) are electrically isolated hard partitions with security provided in the hardware. Facilitated by the MP and secure firmware, you can configure the sx2000 fabric to isolate resources in an nPar from the rest of the system, which creates a hardware firewall to prevent other operating system instances from disrupting that partition. The firewall also reduces the chance that a single failure (in hardware or software) can take down multiple partitions.
processors and the virtual server resources that can run within the server hard partitions (resource management groups, soft partitions) across an entire multitier application based on the demand generated at the front end. By ensuring that each service can access the resources it requires to meet its service levels, HP gWLM reduces the complexity and management challenges associated with multitier applications and web services.
Partition reliability The HP 9000 rp7440 and rp8440 Servers have a design that is significantly “hardened” over other systems in their class. In fact, many of the features in these midrange systems can only be found in mainframes (or in HP Superdome). The reliability features within each HP 9000 rp7440 and rp8440 Server partition have been field proven to provide high system reliability.
HP Instant Capacity HP iCAP is a means of adding and removing processors in a partition. With iCAP, you do not need to worry about: • Interleaved memory • Application locked memory • Server switchovers due to false failures • Physically handling processors or memory boards • Rebooting iCAP is the most reliable means of reducing planned downtime for hardware upgrades. Memory protection Main memory failures are the single largest cause of customer downtime.
“cleans” memory without operating system or application knowledge, resulting in much better coverage. Protection for I/O I/O errors are another significant cause of hardware errors and downtime because the number of I/O cards in a typical system is significant and the I/O cards themselves are a part of the system most exposed to frequent human interaction in the data center.
Dual AC line cord support As described earlier in this paper, the HP 9000 rp7440 and rp8440 Servers can run on one or two totally independent power sources. Moreover, these two power sources do not need to be in phase or the same voltage. Resilience to service processor failures The HP 9000 rp7440 and rp8440 Server hardware has been designed to enable service processor failover when redundant core I/O cards are in place.
Upgrading the HP 9000 rp7420 and rp8420 Servers The HP 9000 rp7420 and rp8420 Servers are the current generation of the HP midrange server family that share several different components with their equivalent HP Integrity rx7640 and rx8640 Servers. These PA-8900 RISC-based servers can be easily upgraded to an HP 9000 rp8440 Server containing PA-8900 processors. Upgrading the HP 9000 rp7420 and rp8420 Servers is easy: 1. Remove the cell boards. 2. Upgrade system backplane. 3.
HP-UX HP Essentials for HP-UX 11i are advanced plug-ins to HP SIM that provides modular, integrated system management software for complete HP server management. It integrates with many other HPUX–specific system management tools, including the following tools available on HP 9000 servers: • Ignite-UX addresses the need for HP-UX system administrators to perform fast deployment for one or many servers.
(guaranteed minimums) to fixed levels in the configuration. The use of workload groups and SLOs improves response time for critical users, allows system consolidation, and helps manage user expectations for performance. • HP OpenView Operations Agent provides a fully integrated, single-pane-of-glass management solution for systems, networks, applications, and databases.
other well known vendors. With the introduction of the midrange servers based on the Intel Itanium 2 micro-architecture, HP is the only vendor that offers the services to support the implementation of multiple operating systems (UNIX, Windows, OpenVMS, and Linux) on a single Itanium-based server.
• Ongoing support—HP offers a variety of support levels that cover your entire IT infrastructure and meet your specific needs. Companies can count on HP Services to help them acquire the assistance they need to maintain control of and deliver business value through their IT investments. You benefit from proactive onsite services, defined escalation processes, and rapid fixes. Corresponding HP services for your storage and network systems provide an integrated support solution for your environment.
The HP difference HP Services provides a full range of services to help companies like yours quickly and confidently introduce Itanium-based systems into their IT infrastructures. Through our world-class methodologies, proven processes, IT expertise, advanced support technologies, and partnerships with industry leaders, HP Services can help you gain the full benefits from this technology—better resource utilization, reduced costs, and improved return on IT investment.
For more information For more information, see: • The HP 9000 server family overview website at http://www.hp.com/go/hp9000 • The HP 9000 rp7440 Server website at http://www.hp.com/go/rp7440 • The HP 9000 rp8440 Server website at http://www.hp.com/go/rp8440 © 2004–2007 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
