Specifications

hardware roadmap
In addition to the extensive processor roadmap, HP is planning many other hardware
improvements throughout the rp8400’s life. These in-the-box upgrades are further examples of
how HP preserves customer investment protection. Figure 18 shows HP’s plans for the next few
years. (And remember, this illustration doesn’t show all features!)
figure 18. The HP Server rp8400 is a scalable platform that ensures investment protection
for years to come.
instant capacity on demand
With HP’s iCOD solutions, the rp8400 can be fully populated with high-performance PA-RISC
(iCOD)
CPUs at a significantly lower cost. It is no longer necessary to pay for inactive (iCOD) CPUs until
the moment when you actually use them. These additional CPUs can be activated instantly with a
simple command, providing immediate increases in processing power to accommodate
application traffic demands.
iCOD is also a high-availability feature. In the unlikely event that a CPU fails, the HP system will
automatically replace the failed CPU on the cell board at no additional charge—without
rebooting! In online mode, the iCOD CPU brings the system back to full performance and
capacity levels, reducing downtime and ensuring no degradation in performance.
HP’s iCOD tools use this algorithm to activate new processors:
1.Verify that there is at least one active CPU per cell board.
2.Activate CPUs round-robin across cell boards within a partition. This means that the number of
active processors per cell board will differ by at most one across the partition.
3.Enable CPUs on a cell board in the order 0, 1, 2, 3. This spreads the CPUs across the two
internal cell controller buses and allocates CPUs in the best thermal fashion.
4.When a failed CPU is replaced, choose one from the same cell board when possible. If that is
not possible, choose the next available CPU, following rules 2 and 3.
For best performance, all cell boards in the same partition should contain the same number of
active processors. For high availability reasons, each cell board should contain at least two active
processors.
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