HP RX7620-16, RX8620-32 User Manual

5 (1)

Itanium®–based midrange servers from HP—

the HP Integrity rx7620-16 and rx8620-32 Servers

Executive summary...............................................................................................................................	3
Adaptable, available: the HP Integrity rx7620-16 and rx8620-32 Servers .................................................	4
Introduction .....................................................................................................................................	4
HP Integrity rx7620-16 and rx8620-32 Server specifications....................................................................	6
System architecture ..............................................................................................................................	9
HP Integrity rx7620-16 Server architecture..........................................................................................	9
HP Integrity rx8620-32 Server architecture........................................................................................	11
HP Super-Scalable Processor Chipset sx1000....................................................................................	11
Cell boards ...................................................................................................................................	12
Cell design details ......................................................................................................................	13
Cell configurations......................................................................................................................	13
Memory latency .........................................................................................................................	14
Cell hot-plug ..............................................................................................................................	15
Crossbar backplane .......................................................................................................................	15
Crossbar chips ...........................................................................................................................	15
I/O subsystem ...............................................................................................................................	16
I/O controller chips ....................................................................................................................	17
PCI-X backplane .........................................................................................................................	17
Core I/O ......................................................................................................................................	19
HP Integrity rx7620-16 Server core I/O........................................................................................	19
HP Integrity rx7620-16 Server internal peripheral bay ....................................................................	21
HP Integrity rx8620-32 Server core I/O........................................................................................	21
HP Integrity rx8620-32 Server internal peripheral bay ....................................................................	22
HP Server Expansion Unit................................................................................................................	22
AC power subsystem ......................................................................................................................	24
Fault-tolerant power compliance in the Integrity rx7620-16 Server....................................................	24
Fault-tolerant power compliance in the Integrity rx8620-32 Server....................................................	25
AC power consumption ..................................................................................................................	26
HP Integrity rx7620-16 Server .....................................................................................................	26
HP Integrity rx8620-32 Server .....................................................................................................	27
Performance and scalability ................................................................................................................	27
Important speeds and feeds.............................................................................................................	27
Scalability .....................................................................................................................................	27

Performance benchmarks ................................................................................................................	28
Racking ............................................................................................................................................	28
Third-party racks ............................................................................................................................	29
Server virtualization ...........................................................................................................................	29
nPartitions .....................................................................................................................................	29
How nPartitions work ..................................................................................................................	30
High availability ................................................................................................................................	30
Partition reliability ..........................................................................................................................	30
CPU protection...........................................................................................................................	31
ECC on caches ..........................................................................................................................	31
Automatic CPU deconfiguration ...................................................................................................	31
CPU cooling ..............................................................................................................................	31
Instant Capacity .........................................................................................................................	32
Memory protection .....................................................................................................................	32
Dynamic memory resiliency (DMR) ...............................................................................................	32
Hardware memory scrubbing.......................................................................................................	32
Address/Control parity ...............................................................................................................	33
Protection for I/O.......................................................................................................................	33
Integrity rx8620-32 Server crossbar backplane protection...............................................................	33
Reliability in the cabinet infrastructure...............................................................................................	33
Dual AC line cord support ...........................................................................................................	34
Resilience to service processor failures ..........................................................................................	34
Enhanced serviceability ..................................................................................................................	34
Investment protection..........................................................................................................................	34
Binary compatibility for the Intel Itanium Processor Family ...................................................................	35
Upgrading the HP Server rp7410 and rp8400..................................................................................	35
Instant Capacity.............................................................................................................................	35
Ease of management..........................................................................................................................	36
Management Processor...................................................................................................................	36
Partition Manager software .............................................................................................................	36
HP-UX...........................................................................................................................................	37
Windows ......................................................................................................................................	39
Linux.............................................................................................................................................	40
HP Services for the HP Integrity rx7620-16 and rx8620-32 Servers .........................................................	40
Evolve your infrastructure confidently with a partner that stands accountable.........................................	40
Full lifecycle services.......................................................................................................................	41
The HP difference...........................................................................................................................	42
Proven experience and expertise .....................................................................................................	43
For more information ......................................................................................................................	43

Executive summary

Based on the revolutionary Intel® Itanium® 2 processor co-developed by HP and Intel, the HP Integrity rx7620-16 and rx8620-32 Servers bring you all the computing power you need to operate in the most demanding IT environments. This market-leading computing performance coupled with the flexibility and scalability of the Integrity rx7620-16 and rx8620-32 Servers allow you the kind of agility and investment protection you need to meet today’s commercial and technical computing demands—all while cutting costs. HP Integrity servers are easily outpacing the performance of the competition by providing more power, more applications, additional features, and a broader range of solutions. And, with flexible configurations, competitive pricing, and financial incentives, the Integrity rx7620-16 and rx8620-32 Servers make high-availability 64-bit computing an affordable reality for your enterprise.

Powered by Intel Itanium 2 processors and supporting the industry’s leading operating environments, including HP-UX, OpenVMS, Linux®, and Microsoft® Windows®, the HP Integrity rx7620-16 and rx8620-32 Servers give you the performance and financial flexibility to power every application from Web serving to mission-critical enterprise resource management. And with HP’s clear roadmap for your IT future, you get investment protection through programs like in-chassis upgrades to Intel’s next generation of Itanium processors, offering you tremendous growth potential.

Adaptable, available: the HP Integrity rx7620-16 and rx8620-32 Servers

Introduction

Today’s HP Integrity servers outpace competitive servers by providing more compute power, more applications, additional features, and a broader range of solutions across both commercial and technical computing. The HP Integrity server family offers hardware and software solutions for every tier of the enterprise, from entry-level to high-end enterprise computing, featuring the Integrity rx2600-4, rx4640-8, rx7620-16, and rx8620-32 Servers and the Integrity Superdome. This paper covers the Integrity rx7620-16 and rx8620-32 midrange servers—two highly flexible and scalable members of the HP Integrity server family, powered by the revolutionary Intel Itanium 2 processor. These systems may be configured with either traditional Intel Itanium 2 processors or with HP mx2 Dual-Processor Modules consisting of two Intel Itanium 2 processors. When configured with traditional Intel Itanium 2 processors, the Integrity rx7620-16 Server has a capacity of 8 processors while the Integrity rx8620-32 Server has a capacity of 16 processors. When configured with HP mx2 DualProcessor Modules, the Integrity rx7620-16 Server has a capacity of 16 processors, while the Integrity rx8620-32 Server has a capacity of 32 processors.

The Integrity rx7620-16 and rx8620-32 Servers give you the performance and financial flexibility to power every application, from Web serving to mission-critical enterprise resource management, as well as world-leading performance, operating environment flexibility, and simplified management, for a level of functionality and value unmatched in their class.

This white paper introduces you to the technical details of both the Integrity rx7620-16 and rx8620-32 Servers, beginning by describing their modular designs, system architectures (including the HP Super-Scalable Processor Chipset sx1000), cell board design and configurations, and I/O subsystems. Every aspect of the operation and design of the Integrity rx7620-16 and rx8620-32 Servers is covered, including performance and scalability, unit racking, partitioning, manageability, serviceability, and high-availability features.

Note regarding processor naming: In this paper, the current 1.6 and 1.5 GHz Intel Itanium processors will be referred to as Intel Itanium 2 processors or “traditional” Intel Itanium 2 processors. HP mx2 Dual-Processor Modules (which consist of two Intel Itanium 2 processors) will be referred to as HP mx2 Dual-Processor Modules.

Note regarding server naming: The HP Integrity midrange servers announced in 2003 (Integrity rx7620 and rx8620 Servers) have been renamed to reflect the maximum number of processors to which they can scale. Since the HP mx2 Dual-Processor Module increases the scalability of these servers, this number reflects the maximum server CPU capacity, assuming HP mx2 Dual-Processor Modules are used. Thus, the Integrity rx7620 Server has been renamed the Integrity rx7620-16 Server and the Integrity rx8620 Server has been renamed the Integrity rx8620-32 Server.

Figure 1. HP Integrity rx7620-16 and rx8620-32 Servers

HP Integrity rx7620-16 and rx8620-32 Server specifications

	HP Integrity rx7620-16	HP Integrity rx8620-32	HP Integrity rx8620-32 Server
	Server with 8-way Intel	Server with 16-way Intel	Expansion Unit (SEU)
	Itanium 2 processor or	Itanium 2 processor or
	16-way HP mx2 Dual-	32-way HP mx2 Dual-
	Processor Module	Processor Module

Cell boards	1–2	1–4

1.5 or 1.6 GHz	2–8	2–16
Intel Itanium 2 processors

1.1 GHz Dual-Processor	1–8 Dual-Processor Modules	1–16 Dual-Processor
Module	(2-way–16-way)	Modules (2-way–32-way)

Memory (with 512 MB,	2–128 GB	2–256 GB
1 GB, 2, or 4 GB DIMMs)

Hot-plug PCI-X I/O slots	15 slots	16 slots	16 slots

Aggregate I/O slot	15.4 GB/s	15.9 GB/s	15.9 GB/s
bandwidth

PCI-X slot single bus	533 MB/s (1)	533 MB/s (2)	533 MB/s (2)
bandwidth (qty.)

PCI-X slot dual bus	1066 MB/s (14)	1066 MB/s (14)	1066 MB/s (14)
bandwidth (qty.)

Internal disk storage slots/	4/584 GB	4/584 GB	4/584 GB
max. capacity

Internal removable media	1	2	2
slots (DVD, DAT)

Hard partitions	2	2 (4 with Server Expansion
		Unit)

Hot-swap redundant power	2	6	2
supplies (N+1 included)

Hot-swap redundant fans	Yes	Yes	Yes
(N+1 included)

High-availability	Hot-swap redundant fans and bulk power supplies
features	Redundant power line inputs for dual grid protection
	Error checking and correcting (ECC) on all CPU and memory paths
	Main memory DRAM kill resiliency (chip spare)
	Parity-protected I/O data paths

Operating system	Intel Itanium 2 processors: HP-UX 11i v2, Windows Server 2003 Enterprise and Datacenter
	editions, Red Hat Linux v3.0, OpenVMS (2005)
	HP mx2 Dual-Processor Module: HP-UX 11i v2, Windows Server 2003 Enterprise and
	Datacenter editions, OpenVMS (2005)

Dimensions:
Height—Rack	445 mm (17.5 in.)	755 mm (29.7 in.)	400 mm (15.75 in.)
—Pedestal	527 mm (20.75 in.)	833 mm (32.8 in.)
Width	482 mm (19.0 in.)	482 mm (19.0 in.)	482 mm (19.0 in.)
Depth	762 mm (30.0 in.)	762 mm (30.0 in.)	762 mm (30.0 in.)

Typical power consumption	2030 VA	3800 VA	662 VA
for maximum configuration

Weight (max.)	99.8 kg (220 lb.)	171.4 kg (378 lb.)	81.6 kg (180 lb.)

Figure 2. Front and side view of the Integrity rx7620-16 Server	Figure 3. Rear view of the Integrity rx7620-16 Server

Figures 2 and 3 show major components of the HP Integrity rx7620-16 Server, as well as the system’s mechanical and architectural features. Figure 2 shows the Integrity rx7620-16 Server with its front plastic bezel and top and left side panels removed.

A peripheral bay located at the top front of the Integrity rx7620-16 Server provides space for four hot-plug disk drives and one removable-media device (DVD or DAT). Directly below the peripheral bay are two PCI-X power bricks, which supply DC power for the PCI-X backplane. Below the power supplies are two redundant hot-swappable cooling fans. These fans pull cool air in from the front and force air to the rear, cooling the system’s internal components. At the bottom is the bulk power supply (BPS) bay, which houses two redundant (2N) hot-swap power supplies with dual grid support.

The illustration also shows the right side of the Integrity rx7620-16 Server, with a view of the cell board bay, which supports up to two cell boards. The cell boards contain processors, memory, and cell controller chips.

Figure 3 is a rear view of the Integrity rx7620-16 Server showing the location of the two hotswappable 150 mm exhaust fans and the I/O bay bulkhead directly above them. The core I/O cards are located at the right edge of the unit.

The system backplane board houses the linkages used for communications between cell boards, I/O, and internal peripherals. The Integrity rx7620-16 Server’s I/O card bay is located at the top rear of the system. It contains 15 PCI-X card slots, all supporting hot-plug functionality.

The bottom rear of the Integrity rx7620-16 Server has inputs for the 2+2 redundant line cords. Because of the high degree of connectivity offered in the Integrity rx7620-16 Server, a cable management arm (not shown) is provided in racked systems for dressing cables and simplifying cable routing (available only on racked systems).

The Integrity rx7620-16 and rx8620-32 Servers share many system components and design features. The similarities are evident in Figures 4 and 5, which show the major components and architectural features of the Integrity rx8620-32 Server.

Figure 4 shows a front view of the Integrity rx8620-32 Server with its front plastic bezel and top and left side panels removed.

A peripheral bay located at the top front of the Integrity rx8620-32 Server provides space for four hot-plug disk drives and two removable-media devices (DVD or DAT). Directly below the peripheral bay are two PCI-X power bricks, which supply DC power for the PCI-X backplane. Below the power supplies are nine redundant hot-swappable cooling fans. These fans pull cool air in from the front and force air to the rear, cooling the system’s internal components. At the bottom is the bulk power supply bay, which houses up to six redundant (2N+1) hot-swap power supplies.

The figure also shows the side of the Integrity rx8620-32 Server, with a view of the cell card cage. This cage supports up to four cell boards that processors, memory, and cell controller chips reside on.

Figure 4. Front and side view of the Integrity rx8620-32	Figure 5. Rear view of the Integrity rx8620-32 Server
Server

Figure 5 is a rear view of the Integrity rx8620-32 Server showing the location of the 12 hotswappable 120 mm exhaust fans and the I/O bay bulkhead directly above them. The core I/O cards are located at the right edge of the unit.

Visible here is the system backplane board, which houses the high-bandwidth crossbar used for communications between cell cards, I/O, and internal peripherals. The Integrity rx8620-32 Server’s I/O card bay is located at the top rear of the system. It contains 16 PCI-X card slots, all supporting hot-plug functionality.

The bottom rear of the Integrity rx8620-32 Server has inputs for the 2+2 redundant line cords. Because of the high degree of connectivity offered in the Integrity rx8620-32 Server, a cable management arm is provided for dressing cables and simplifying cable routing. (The cable management arm is not shown here and is available only on Integrity rx8620-32 Server racked systems.)

System architecture

HP Integrity midrange servers are built around a modular architecture, with components that can be configured to effectively cover a wide range of computing needs. Both the Integrity rx7620-16 and 8620-32 Servers support a variety of system configurations, ranging from two to eight 1.6 or 1.5 GHz Intel Itanium 2 processors or from two to 16 1.1 GHz Intel Itanium 2 processors, using HP mx2 Dual-Processor Modules. Both servers can be configured as large symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) systems or as multiple independent hard partitions (nPars). The basic components in the HP Integrity midrange servers are the cell board, the PCI-X–based I/O subsystem, and, in the Integrity rx8620-32 Server, the crossbar backplane. These components fit together to provide a high-performance, scalable, highly available, and flexible computing platform.

The HP mx2 Dual-Processor Module allows the Integrity rx7620-16 and rx8620-32 Servers’ chassis to be expanded to allow 16 processors and 32 processors, respectively, in the existing chassis. The HP mx2 Dual-Processor Module consists of two Intel Itanium 2 1.1 GHz processors joined by a daughterboard. This new technology allows two microprocessors to occupy the same space as a single processor. For example, a typical cell board contains four processor sockets, but with the HP mx2 Dual-Processor Module, the same cell board can contain eight processors, resulting in double the capacity of the system in the same chassis. The performance of the HP mx2 Dual-Processor Module is enhanced with a 4 MB L3 cache, along with a 32 MB L4 cache.

HP Integrity rx7620-16 Server architecture

The HP Integrity rx7620-16 Server architecture is designed around the ability to operate the system as a single 2- to 8-way (Intel Itanium 2 processor) or 2- to 16-way (HP mx2 Dual-Processor Module) SMP server or to divide it into two independent hard partitions (nPars). Figure 6 shows the primary components of the Integrity rx7620-16 Server architecture. When the system is configured as a nonpartitioned server, all resources shown in Figure 6 are available to perform together as one logical server. When it is configured as two nPars, system resources are divided into two logical servers, or independent partitions, each containing a cell board with a dedicated set of I/O resources. For example, in Figure 6, imagine that the solid line connecting the upper and lower cell boards is no longer there. The drawing would then reflect a system divided into two independent partitions. The cell board, I/O bay, core I/O, and peripheral bay in the upper half of the drawing would be an independent hard partition, which is isolated from the second partition shown in the lower half of the drawing.

Figure 6. Architecture of the HP Integrity rx7620-16 Server, showing the basic modular building blocks of the system

HP Integrity rx8620-32 Server architecture

The HP Integrity rx8620-32 Server architecture builds upon that of the Integrity rx7620-16 Server with the addition of a crossbar backplane and two more cell boards. The crossbar backplane provides a non-blocking connection between up to four cells, plus connection to the external I/O resources in the HP Server Expansion Unit (SEU). Similarly to the Integrity rx7620-16 Server, the Integrity rx8620-32 Server can be configured as one 2- to 16-way (Intel Itanium 2 processor) or 2- to 32-way (HP mx2 Dual-Processor Module) SMP server, or it can be divided into smaller independent nPars. The Integrity rx8620-32 Server can be divided into four hardware-isolated partitions when connected to the SEU.

Figure 7. Architecture of the HP Integrity rx8620-32 Server, showing the basic modular building blocks of the system and the buses that connect them

HP Super-Scalable Processor Chipset sx1000

To support the growing needs in performance, scalability, and functionality, HP has developed the new HP Super-Scalable Processor Chipset sx1000. The HP sx1000 Chipset consists of five distinct ASICs: the cell controller, memory controller, system bus adapter, PCI-X host bridge adapter, and crossbar. The HP sx1000 Chipset provides connectivity to Intel Itanium 2 processors, HP mx2 DualProcessor Modules, PA-8800 Processors, and future Intel Itanium and PA-RISC processors. In addition, the HP sx1000 Chipset provides higher CPU and memory bandwidth, faster low-level error correction than the previous chipset, and PCI-X support.

Figure 8. Primary components of the HP sx1000 Chipset

Cell boards

The cell, or cell board, is one of the basic building blocks of the HP Integrity rx7620-16 and rx8620-32 Servers. A cell board is a module that primarily houses processors, memory, and the cell controller ASICs.

Figure 9. Layout of the Integrity rx7620-16/rx8620-32 Server cell board.

CPU2

CPU3

CPU1

CPU0

Cell design details

Each cell board is a self-contained unit, with a symmetric multiprocessor (SMP), main memory, and all necessary hardware.

•CPUs—up to four 1.6/1.5 GHz Intel Itanium 2 processors or four 1.1 GHz HP mx2 Dual-Processor Modules (consisting of eight Intel Itanium 2 processors)

•Cell controller ASIC

•Memory controller (buffer) ASIC

•Main memory DIMMs (up to 16 DIMMs per cell board)

•Voltage regulator modules (VRMs)

•Data buses

The cell controller ASIC (CC) is at the heart of each cell board. The CC provides the communications link between processors, memory, I/O, processor-dependent hardware (PDH), and adjacent cells. The cell controller chip contains interface logic and maintains cache coherency throughout the system. Adjacent to the cell controller ASIC are up to four Intel Itanium 2 processors or HP mx2 Dual-Processor Modules and up to 64 GB of main memory. Each cell interfaces with adjacent cells and I/O resources either directly or, in the case of the Integrity rx8620-32 Server, through the crossbar backplane.

The primary function of the memory controller ASIC is to multiplex and de-multiplex data between the cell controller ASIC and the SDRAM in the memory subsystem. When the cell controller ASIC issues a read transaction to the memory interface command bus, the memory controller ASIC buffers the DRAM read data and returns it as soon as possible. When the cell controller issues a write transaction, the memory controller ASIC receives the write data from the cell controller ASIC and forwards it to the DRAMs.

Note that only the data portion of the memory subsystem goes through the memory controller ASIC. All address and control signals to the DIMMs are generated by the cell controller ASIC and sent directly to the DIMM via the memory interface address bus.

The memory subsystem is a quad-ported implementation. It supports memory DRAM fault tolerance, in which a discrete SDRAM chip can fail without compromising data integrity. The memory subsystem provides 16 GB/s of peak bandwidth to the cell controller ASIC and reduces the overhead typically associated with directory coherency.

Cell configurations

The Integrity rx7620-16 Server supports a minimum of one and a maximum of two cells. The Integrity rx8620-32 Server supports a minimum of one and a maximum of four cells. When configured with Intel Itanium 2 processors, each cell can be purchased with two or four active Intel Itanium 2 processors or HP mx2 Dual-Processor Modules. When configured with HP mx2 Dual-Processor Modules, each cell can be purchased with one, two, three, or four active processor modules (providing two, four, six, or eight total Intel Itanium 2 processors). The fully loaded Integrity rx762016 Server will therefore contain eight Itanium 2 processors or eight HP mx2 Dual-Processor Modules (16 CPUs). The fully loaded Integrity rx8620-32 Server will therefore contain 16 Itanium 2 processors or 16 HP mx2 Dual-Processor Modules (32 CPUs). They may also be purchased in combination with inactive Instant Capacity processors.

Both systems support traditional Intel Itanium 2 processors in two speeds: 1.6 GHz with 6 MB of cache or 1.5 GHz with 4 MB of cache. They also support HP mx2 Dual-Processor Modules in one speed: 1.1 GHz with 4 MB of L3 cache and 32 MB of L4 cache. The ability to mix processor speeds within a chassis is supported, but processors within a cell or partition must be the same speed. In addition, the ability to mix CPU types (between traditional Intel Itanium 2 processors and HP mx2 Dual-Processor Modules) is also supported, but processors within a cell or partition must be the same type.

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