Nvidia Quadro Visual Computing Appliance Installation Manual
NVIDIA Quadro Visual Computing Appliance
Installation Guide
NVIDIA Advanced Rendering Center
Fasanenstraße 81
10623 Berlin
Germany
phone +49.30.315.99.70
fax +49.30.315.99.733
arc-office@nvidia.com
Copyright Information
© 1986, 2015 NVIDIA ARC GmbH. All rights reserved.
This document is protected under copyright law. The contents of this document may not be
translated, copied or duplicated in any form, in whole or in part, without the express written
permission of NVIDIA ARC GmbH.
The information contained in this document is subject to change without notice. NVIDIA ARC
GmbH and its employees shall not be responsible for incidental or consequential damages
resulting from the use of this material or liable for technical or editorial omissions made
herein.
NVIDIA and the NVIDIA logo are registered trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation. imatter,
IndeX, Iray, mental images, mental ray, and RealityServer are trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of NVIDIA ARC GmbH. Other product names mentioned in this document may
be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies and are hereby acknowledged.
Document build number 240290
ii Quadro VCA — Installation Guide ©1986,2015 NVIDIA ARC GmbH
Contents
1 Introduction to Quadro VCA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Description of the VCA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 What’s in the box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2 Quickstart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
3 Quadro VCA specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3.1 Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3.1.1 Hardware components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3.1.2 Physical dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.1.3 Front panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.1.4 Power requirements and consumption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.1.5 Ports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.1.6 Acoustic profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.2 Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.2.1 Operating system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.2.2 Operating system setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.2.3 Linux user accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.2.4 Linux security setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.2.5 Iray and the VCA Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.2.6 Directory layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4 Hardware installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.1 Rack mounting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.1.1 Setup location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.1.2 Rack installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.1.3 Precautions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.1.4 Installing the outer rails . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.1.5 Installing the box into the rack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.2 Connecting cables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.2.1 Keyboard and monitor for console access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.2.2 Connecting power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.2.3 Ethernet connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.2.4 InfiniBand connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.2.5 Setup Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
5 Software installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
5.1 System setup using Linux commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
5.2 System setup using the VCA Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
5.3 InfiniBand setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.4 Software updates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.4.1 Listing currently installed packages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.4.2 Updating an existing installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.4.3 Installing new software packages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
5.5 Factory reset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
5.5.1 Creating a bootable thumb drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
5.5.2 Resetting the hard drives to the factory settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
©1986,2015 NVIDIA ARC GmbH Quadro VCA — Installation Guide iii
0 Contents
5.6 Installing third-party software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
5.6.1 Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
5.6.2 Setting up a third-party run script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
5.6.3 Updating the VCA Manager database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
5.7 Testing the installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
5.7.1 VCA Manager tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
5.7.2 Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
6 Warranty and support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
iv Quadro VCA — Installation Guide ©1986,2015 NVIDIA ARC GmbH
1 Introduction to Quadro VCA
1.1 Description of the VCA
Accelerate design and VFX workflows with NVIDIA®Quadro®Visual Computing Appliance
(VCA), the fastest way to interactive, photorealistic digital 3D models and scenes. This is
a powerful network-attached appliance that harnesses the power of the highest-performing
NVIDIA GPUs. It’s accessible to anyone on the network, easily integrated into design workflows, and effortlessly scales to multiple VCAs to minimize the time to noiseless, physicallybased global illumination. This means that you can now deliver photograph-quality images
faster than ever before.
1.2 What's in the box
Be sure to inspect each piece of equipment shipped in the packing box. If anything is missing
or damaged, contact your supplier.
What’s included with your Quadro VCA:
Welcome card
Power cables (4)
Quadro VCA (with rails for rack mounting)
2 Quickstart
This section describes how to to configure the hostname and the static IP address of the VCA.
Check the mapping of the network ports shown in the following figure before starting this
procedure.
Mapping of network ports in the VCA
©1986,2015 NVIDIA ARC GmbH Quadro VCA — Installation Guide 1
2 Quickstart
Note
The first time you connect a machine to a VCA by using a connection port, you
are prompted to install a driver. After the driver is successfully installed and the
machine is rebooted, you can configure VCA interfaces.
After you make changes to a section in the VCA Setup page, you must click Submit.
If you leave fields empty in a section, you must still click Submit before continuing
to the next section.
You can configure all network settings from the VCA Setup page or a Linux shell.
To configure from the VCA Setup page, the hostname, and the static IP address or DHCP
address of all network interfaces of the VCA:
1 Change the IP address of the external machine to 192.168.124.2.
2 Connect to the VCA Setup page:
2.1 Connect the external machine to the eth2 interface (marked in blue in the illustra-
tion) by using an Ethernet cable
2.2 Connect the eth3 interface to your local LAN.
2.3 Connect a browser to http://192.168.124.10:14000.
Note
For more information about changing various parameters, see "System setup
using the VCA Manager".
If your network has a DHCP server running, the eth3 interface is automatically
connected to it.
3 To change the network settings of an interface to a static IP address, use the network
parameter section of the Setup page:
3.1 Add a static IP address
3.2 Add a gateway
3.3 Add a network mask
If you are not sure what to enter, ask your system administrator.
Note
From this Setup page, you can switch an interface to a static IP address or to
DHCP as often as you want.
If you do not want to change the network settings of an interface to a static IP
address, leave this section empty and click Submit.
4 To test the performance of the Quadro VCA, perform a render test by clicking Start Test.
5 After you have completed and submitted all sections, a Restart button is displayed in
the upper left corner of the form. Click Restart to restart the VCA Manager.
2 Quadro VCA — Installation Guide ©1986,2015 NVIDIA ARC GmbH
3 Quadro VCA specification
6 Set the IP address of the external machine back to what it was before (DHCP).
7 Reconnect to https:// VCA-IP-address-or-hostname.
8 Accept the certificate warning.
9 Login to the VCA Manager again:
User Name: admin
Password: admin
You can run the VCA setup procedure more than once. From the Setup page, you can change
the IP address of an interface:
To a static IP address
From one static IP address to another (changing the hostname, gateway or network
mask)
Note
When you change the interface to a static IP address, the IP address of the InfiniBand
interface is changed automatically.
3 Quadro VCA specification
3.1 Hardware
3.1.1 Hardware components
Feature Description
GPU 8 M6000-VCA
GPU Memory 12 GB per GPU
CUDA cores 23040
CPU cores 40
System memory 256 GB
Storage 4x 500 GB
Network 1x IPMI, 2x 1 GigE, 2x 10 GigE (SFP+), 1x FDR 56 Gbit/s
InfiniBand
©1986,2015 NVIDIA ARC GmbH Quadro VCA — Installation Guide 3
3 Quadro VCA specification 3.1 Hardware
3.1.2 Physical dimensions
Feature Description
Form factor 4U Rack mount
Width 18.2" (462mm)
Height 7.0" (178mm)
Depth 29" (737mm)
Gross weight 100lbs (45.4kg)
Color Dark Gray
3.1.3 Front panel
Quadro VCA front panel
The front panel of the Quadro VCA contains the power button as well as indicator lights.
Power button
Press once to turn the system on.
Press once while running to turn the system off.
Press and hold while running to force system shutdown.
System Power LED
LED on when system is running
Alert modes
A blue LED identifies the system using the Intelligent Platform Management Interface
(IPMI).
A red LED indicates a hardware error such as a power failure, fan failure, or overheating.
4 Quadro VCA — Installation Guide ©1986,2015 NVIDIA ARC GmbH
3.1 Hardware 3 Quadro VCA specification
Color Alert LED Behavior Status Description
Blue Off Normal mode operation
Red Off Normal mode operation
Blue Blink On when enabled by administrator
Red Solid System component overheat
Red 1 blink per second Power module failure
Red 4 blinks per second System fan failure
3.1.4 Power requirements and consumption
There are 4x 1600W redundant power supplies. The power supplies can accept either 110V
(ac) or 240V (ac) at 10A. If one of the power supplies fails at 110V, it will continue to run on
the remaining three supplies. For a 240V connection, up to two power supplies may fail and
the system can still run with full load.
The maximum power consumption with all system resources under full load is 2800W (at an
ambient temperature of 35◦C). Idle power consumption is 350W (at an ambient temperature
of 25◦C).
3.1.5 Ports
Type Description
VGA Available
USB 2x USB 2.0
Ethernet One IPMI Ethernet Port. Optionally, the IPMI port
can be used to monitor and manage the system,
rather than a local keyboard and monitor.
2x 1 Gb Ethernet Ports Connection to 1 Gbit Ethernet network
2x 10 Gb Ethernet Ports Connection to 10 Gbit Ethernet network
1x FDR 56 Gbit/s InfiniBand Connection to a managed InfiniBand switch
3.1.6 Acoustic profile
Fan speed Sound pressure level Description
Optimal 72 dBA The system is at full load
Full 83 dBA Fans can set to full speed in the
BIOS. Full speed can also be
triggered by the system.
Sound measurements were made in an independent laboratory. The ambient sound level was
21 dBA, which represents an empty office environment.
©1986,2015 NVIDIA ARC GmbH Quadro VCA — Installation Guide 5
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