HP XC System Software Hardware Preparation Guide Version 3.0

1 Hardware and Network Overview
The following topics are addressed:
• Supported Cluster Platforms (page 15)
• Interconnect Network (page 15)
• Supported Console Management Devices (page 16)
• Administration Network (page 16)
• Administration Network: Console Branch (page 17)
• Large-Scale Systems (page 17)
Supported Cluster Platforms
The hardware supported in the HP XC system is the HP Cluster Platform 3000 (CP3000), HP Cluster 4000
(CP4000), and HP Cluster Platform 6000 (CP6000). For more information about the cluster platforms, see
the documentation that was shipped with your hardware.
Table 1-1 lists the hardware models that are supported for each HP cluster platform. An HP XC system must
contain at least 5 nodes up to a maximum of 1024 compute nodes as a standard configuration (larger
systems may be considered as special cases).
Table 1-1 Supported Server Models
Processor Architecture and Hardware ModelCluster Platform
Intel® Xeon™ with EM64TCP3000
• HP ProLiant DL140 G2
• HP ProLiant DL360 G4
• HP ProLiant DL380 G4
• HP xw8200 Workstation
AMD Opteron®CP4000
• HP ProLiant DL145
• HP ProLiant DL145 G2
• HP ProLiant DL385
• HP ProLiant DL585
• HP xw9300 Workstation
Intel Itanium®CP6000
• HP Integrity rx1620
• HP Integrity rx2600
• HP Integrity rx2620
• HP Integrity rx4640
Interconnect Network
The interconnect network is a private network within the HP XC system, and it is dedicated to communication
between processors and access to data in storage areas. Typically, every node in the HP XC system is
connected to the interconnect.
The interconnect provides a high-speed communications path used primarily for user file service and for
communications within applications that are distributed among nodes of the cluster. Table 1-2 lists the
interconnects that are supported on each cluster platform.
Supported Cluster Platforms 15