HP ProLiant DL585 G5 server technology, 1st edition

Abstract

The fifth generation (G5) HP ProLiant DL585 server offers the performance and efficiency of quad-core

AMD Opteron® processors, enhanced by improvements to all major subsystems in the server. This

paper explains the technologies implemented in the HP ProLiant DL585 G5 server that make it an

excellent choice for enterprise customers needing increased performance and investment protection

with a 64-bit migration path. This paper is intended for IT professionals familiar with system

administration and HP ProLiant industry-standard servers. It discusses only key technologies of the

ProLiant 500-series servers.

Introduction

For the HP ProLiant DL585 G5 server, HP improved upon the design of previous DL585 generations

by integrating quad-core processors and enhancing key subsystems. The DL585 G5 provides

excellent system performance by using powerful processors, on-chip memory controllers, a large

memory footprint, and fully redesigned I/O and disk subsystems. This server is particularly well suited

for the following computing environments:

• Datacenter virtualization and consolidation projects

• High-performance technical computing (HPTC)

• Electronic design automation (EDA)/semiconductor design

• Financial applications

• Large database applications

• ERP/CRM

• Petrochemical applications

• Life science and material science applications

• Video rendering applications

Operating system support

The DL585 G5 supports the following operating systems and virtualization software:

• Microsoft® Windows® Server 2003 R2 Standard (32- and 64-bit), Enterprise (32- and 64-bit),

Compute Cluster Server, and Datacenter editions

• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (when available)

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and 5

• SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 and 10

• VMWare ESX virtualization software

• Microsoft Virtual Server

• Xen virtualization software

For a complete and up-to-date listing of supported OSs and versions, visit the ProLiant OS Support

Matrix at

http://www.hp.com/go/supportos.

Xen virtualization software is an open source project that allows multiple virtual machines to share the physical

hardware of a single host machine. Some virtualization products run virtual machines as guests on top of a host

operating system (which requires a large amount of overhead). By contrast, Xen operates as a thin layer directly

on top of the underlying hardware. Xen coordinates the interaction of the virtual machines and the physical

hardware. HP is a key participant in the development of Xen. For more information about the Xen project, see the

XenSource website at