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Managing Superdome Complexes: A Guide for HP-UX System Administrators: HP 9000 Computers > Chapter 1 Overview of the Superdome System Environment
Overview of Superdome System Features |
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Hewlett-Packard's new Superdome system provides a highly configurable, high-performance HP-UX server environment. Within each HP Superdome server cabinet are multiple cells, each of which contains processors and memory. Each server cabinet also can have multiple I/O chassis that provide PCI slots for I/O cards. Each I/O chassis is connected to one of the cells in the server. All hardware within a server—including all cells, I/O chassis, cables, cabinet hardware, and power and utilities components—is considered to be a Superdome server complex. A Superdome complex can consist of one cabinet or two cabinet, as discussed in “HP Superdome Server Models”. A major new feature of Superdome servers is the ability to manage the server hardware in units called partitions. The new partition capabilities allow you to configure a single Superdome server as one large system, or as multiple smaller systems. A new feature of HP Superdome systems is the ability to run multiple instances of the HP-UX 11i operating system on a single server. This capability is accomplished by defining multiple partitions within a Superdome server. Because partitions are managed through software, you can reconfigure a server's partition definitions without physically modifying the server's hardware configuration. See Chapter 4 “Configuring and Managing Superdome Partitions” for details on performing tasks related to managing and configuring partitions. Each partition establishes a subset of a Superdome server's hardware resources that are to be used as a system environment for booting a single instance of HP-UX. A partition includes all cells assigned to it as well as all I/O chassis connected to those cells. These cells and I/O chassis are used exclusively by the partition and are not used by any other partitions in the complex. All processors, memory, and I/O in a partition are available exclusively to the software running in the partition. This means that each partition runs its own private instance of Boot Console Handler (BCH) and HP-UX. HP-UX 11i supports static partitions, which provide a fixed set of hardware resources for running a single operating system. You can reconfigure partitions to include more, fewer, and/or different hardware resources, but doing so requires shutting down the operating system running in the partition, and resetting the partition as part of reconfiguring it. Three models of Superdome systems are available, providing a powerful base set of functionality and increasing capacities in the larger models. See “HP Superdome System Hardware Components” for details on the physical components that comprise a server. All HP Superdome servers are highly scalable systems that allow you a tremendous amount of configurability to adapt the system to meet your particular hardware and software needs. The three Superdome models include:
With HP's Superdome servers you can start with a system that meets your needs now, and add more components as your needs increase. You can add components (cells and I/O chassis) to your existing system as needs arise, and can also upgrade to larger-capacity systems as needed. A Superdome 16-way server can be upgraded to a Superdome 32-way server, and likewise the Superdome 32-way server can be upgraded to Superdome 64-way server. Configuring HP Superdome system hardware involves performing the following tasks. You can manage the tasks and issues listed below by consulting with your HP sales or HP support representative. When configuring your HP Superdome server, you have the following options.
See the sections that follow for details on Superdome hardware components and for information on system configuration requirements. |
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