How it Works
HP
Loading...
BL35P
User Manual
22 pgs911.53 Kb0
Table of contents
Loading...

HP BL35P User Manual

Scalability and performance of HP ProLiant BL35p server blades with AMD Opteron Model 250 (2.4 GHz/1 MB) processors in an HP SBC environment
Executive summary............................................................................................................................... 3
Introduction......................................................................................................................................... 3
This performance brief...................................................................................................................... 3
Overview............................................................................................................................................ 4
Benefits........................................................................................................................................... 4
Ideal environment ............................................................................................................................ 5
Features.......................................................................................................................................... 5
Performance testing.............................................................................................................................. 6
Test tools and scripts......................................................................................................................... 6
Test scenarios .................................................................................................................................. 8
Tested environment .............................................................................................................................. 9
Guidelines..................................................................................................................................... 10
Configurations ............................................................................................................................... 11
System summary ............................................................................................................................ 12
Performance test results....................................................................................................................... 13
% Processor Time ........................................................................................................................... 14
Canary time .................................................................................................................................. 15
Results summary............................................................................................................................. 16
Summary .......................................................................................................................................... 16
Appendix A – AMD Opteron processors .............................................................................................. 17
Features........................................................................................................................................ 17
Benefits......................................................................................................................................... 18
Breaking the 4 GB address limit....................................................................................................... 18
Appendix B – SBC solution sizing........................................................................................................ 20
Online sizer tool ............................................................................................................................ 20
For more information.......................................................................................................................... 22

Executive summary

The new HP ProLiant BL35p two-way server blade delivers uncompromising manageability, maximum computing density, and breakthrough power efficiencies to the high-performance data center. Offering customers a modular, space-saving design, the HP ProLiant BL35p server blade consumes less power, enabling denser rack architectures.
The HP ProLiant BL35p shares the same infrastructure components as all BL p-Class server blades, allowing customers to enjoy additional benefits from the HP BladeSystem p-Class rack-centralized power sub-system and network interconnect options.
A two-way HP ProLiant BL35p server blade with 2.4 GHz/1 MB processors can provide optimal support for up to 123 users
1
in an HP SBC environment.

Introduction

HP offers a broad range of HP ProLiant servers that are ideal for particular HP SBC environments. To help customers select the appropriate server for their environment, HP publishes a series of performance briefs that characterize individual server performance and scalability. Each performance brief includes the following information:
• An outline of the benefits and features introduced with the new server
• A description of the test environment and test scenarios used to determine the optimal number of
users supported by the particular server in an HP SBC environment
HP also publishes a companion ProLiant server performance and scalability in an HP SBC environment.

This performance brief

This performance brief focuses on the two-way HP ProLiant BL35p server blade with 2.4 GHz/1 MB processors, providing information on the following topics:
Overview – Summarizes the benefits and key features of the HP ProLiant BL35p server blade
•
Performance testing – Outlines the test tools and scripts implemented by HP to simulate an HP SBC
•
environment; describes the Heavy, Medium, and Light User profiles used to create the appropriate workloads
Tested environment – Provides more information on the HP SBC environment used to test this server
•
Performance test results – Provides sample test results; summarizes the optimal numbers of users
•
supported
Summary
•
white paper that serves as a high-level summary of overall HP
Note:
HP refers to an application server in an HP SBC environment as an HP SBC server. Microsoft refers to this server as a Terminal Server; Citrix as a MetaFrame Presentation Server.
1
Heavy Users, as defined later in this Performance Brief
3

Overview

This section outlines the benefits and key features of the HP ProLiant BL35p server blade, shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: HP ProLiant BL35p server blade, showing a single blade and two blades in an HP BladeSystem p-Class Blade Sleeve

Benefits

HP introduces the new HP ProLiant BL35p server blade, which delivers maximum computing density and breakthrough power efficiencies to the enterprise data center or high-performance technical computing environments. Benefits include:
Price/performance
• Up to two AMD Opteron™ 200 Series processors running at 2.4GHz, each with 1 MB L2 cache
• Up to 8 GB of PC3200 DDR (400 MHz) memory
Density and power efficiency
• Ultra-dense design supports up to 96 servers in an industry-standard rack
• Lower power consumption per server (68 W per processor)
Management
• HP Integrated Lights-Out (iLO) Advanced standard
• Support for HP ProLiant Essentials Rapid Deployment Pack (RDP)
Options
• Fibre Channel support for SAN implementations and clustering
4

Ideal environment

Medium to large enterprise data center customers requiring dense two-way server performance
• Maximum 32-bit or 64-bit two-way performance for load-balanced or front-end applications
• Ultra-dense design supports up to 96 servers (192 processors) in a standard rack
• Lower power consumption per server (68 W per processor) enables denser rack architectures
High Performance Technical Computing (HPC) environments
• Support for up to two Opteron 200 Series processors with on-board memory controllers running at
processor speed
• Optimal solution for applications that require high bandwidth and low-latency access to system
memory
• Typical applications: financial, life and materials sciences, mechanical engineering/virtual
prototyping, electronic design automation, and high-end film and video
Enterprise data center or HPC environments that optimize external storage architectures
• Dual-port Fibre Channel connectivity option with no trade-offs on other features
• Support for HP and third-party SANs
• Support for boot from SAN

Features

Table 1 summarizes key features of the HP ProLiant BL35p server blade.
Table 1: Key features
Component Description
Processor Opteron Model 250 (2.4 GHz)
Support for one-way and two-way server configurations
1 MB L2 cache per processor
AMD HyperTransport™ (HT) speed: 800 MHz
Up to 192 processors in a 42U rack
Chipset Opteron 8000 Series
Memory ECC PC3200 (400 MHz) DDR
Expandable to 8 GB
Network Two NC7781 PCI-X Gigabit NICs (deployed on a Mezzanine card)
One 10/100 NIC dedicated to remote management
Internal storage Integrated storage controller
Maximum 120 GB (2 x 60 GB ATA 5,400 rpm drive)
SAN connectivity Optional Dual Port Fibre Channel Adapter (2 Gb)
Remote management
Integrated Lights-Out (iLO) Advanced
5

Performance testing

HP continues to upgrade existing HP ProLiant servers and introduce new servers to meet particular business needs. To help customers select the appropriate server for their particular HP SBC environment, HP publishes this and other performance briefs to characterize individual server performance and scalability.
This section describes the test environment and test scenarios used to determine the optimal number of users supported by an HP ProLiant BL35p server blade in an HP SBC environment.
Note:
HP makes a distinction between the optimal number of users that can be supported on a particular server configuration and the maximum number. The optimal number is a more practical metric that reflects the number of users that can be supported without impacting user response times.
Historically, HP has defined the optimal value as the number of users that are active when processor utilization reaches 80%. After processor utilization passes 80%, additional users are supported; however, response times may become unacceptable.
Scalability metrics specified in this Performance Brief reflect the optimal number of users.

Test tools and scripts

HP used a range of test tools and scripts to simulate typical HP SBC user workloads.
Tools
Terminal Services Scalability Planning Tools (TSScaling), a suite of tools developed by Microsoft®, helps organizations with Microsoft Windows® Server 2003 Terminal Server capacity planning. These tools facilitate the placement and management of simulated loads on an HP SBC server.
Table 2 outlines the components of the TSScaling suite.
Table 2: Components of TSScaling
TSScaling suite component Description
Robosrv.exe Drives the server-side of the load simulation Automation tools
Robocli.exe Helps drive the client-side of the load simulation
Test tools
Help files
Qidle.exe Determines if any scripts have failed and require operator
intervention
Tbscript.exe A script interpreter that helps drive the client-side load
simulation
TBScript.doc Terminal Server bench scripting documentation
TSScalingSetup.doc A scalability test environment set-up guide
TSScalingTesting.doc A testing guide
6
More information on the test tools
• Roboserver (Robosrv.exe) and Roboclient (Robocli.exe): Terminal Server capacity planning
• TSScaling: Windows Server 2003 Terminal Server Capacity and Scaling
Test scripts
HP used test scripts that simulated the activities of three types of users (Heavy, Medium, and Light). Table 3 describes these users and their simulated activities.
Table 3: Simulated user activities
User Type Activities
Heavy User Heavy Users (also known as Structured Task Workers) tend to open multiple applications
simultaneously and remain active for long periods. Heavy Users often leave applications open when not in use.
Heavy users have an average typing speed of 40 – 50 words per minute.
The Heavy User script included the following activities:
• Creating, saving and printing documents using Microsoft Word
• Browsing web pages, and sending and receiving e-mail using Microsoft Outlook
• Performing extensive Microsoft Excel activity (using PivotTable
and charting data, and so on)
dynamic views, graphing
Medium User Medium Users (also known as Knowledge Workers) are defined as users who gather,
add value to, and communicate information in a decision-support process. Cost of downtime is variable but highly visible. These resources are driven by projects and ad­hoc needs towards flexible tasks. These workers make their own decisions on what to work on and how to accomplish the task.
Sample tasks include: marketing, project management, sales, desktop publishing, decision support, data mining, financial analysis, executive and supervisory management, design, and authoring.
Medium Users tend to open and close applications more quickly than Heavy Users. These users typically do not leave applications open when not in use; they have an average typing speed of 35 – 40 words per minute.
The Medium User script included the following activities:
• Creating small documents with Microsoft Word
• Performing simple data entry with Microsoft Excel
• Sending and receiving e-mail with Microsoft Outlook
• Engaging in minimal browsing of an intranet site using Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0
Light User Light Users (also known as Data Entry Workers) input data into computer systems.
Activities include transcription, typing, order entry, clerical work and manufacturing. The Light User script simulated simple Microsoft Excel data entry, entering 10 rows of
data.
7
Loading...
+ 15 hidden pages
Buy Points How it Works FAQ Contact Us Questions and Suggestions Privacy Policy Cookie Policy Terms of Use