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HP ProLiant SL6000 Scalable System technology
technology brief
Abstract.............................................................................................................................................. 3
Mechanical design for extreme scale-out computing................................................................................. 3
HP ProLiant z6000 G6 chassis .......................................................................................................... 4
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Appendix: PPIC command line utility.................................................................................................... 24 For more information.......................................................................................................................... 25 Call to action .................................................................................................................................... 25
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Abstract The HP ProLiant SL6000 Scalable System implements an entirely new mechanical design and architecture in the industry-standard server market. The SL6000 server family is optimized for extreme scale-out computing applications such as High Performance Computing, large-scale enterprise server deployments, and the latest web and cloud computing applications. HP expertise in design and technology implementation in the SL6000 system led to achieving a record-setting performance in the
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Figure 1. HP ProLiant SL6000 Scalable System HP ProLiant z6000 G6 chassis The HP ProLiant Scalable System implements a new chassis/rack architecture in the industry-standard server market space. The chassis provides shared power and cooling to the system components by means of one or two high efficiency, HP common slot power supplies and up to four system fans. Each 2U chassis contains an embedded microcontroller that provides power metering and throttling capabilities for the ent
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Figure 2. Front and rear views of HP 42U rack fully populated with SL6000 systems SL6000 server trays HP developed multiple SL6000 server trays to meet various customer needs: memory capacity, internal storage, or compute density. The chassis supports two server trays of the same model within an SL6000 chassis. To optimize air flow, if one server tray is removed for maintenance, fan speeds increase to ensure adequate cooling of the other tray. If a server tray is removed and a repla
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For easy servicing, video and serial ports, USB ports, NIC ports, and optional out-of-band management LAN ports are located on the front panel of each server tray. Also on the front panel are two LEDs for health and UID status, and an access port for a low profile PCIe 2.0 x16 adapter (Figures 3 and 4). Figure 3. Front view of a ProLiant z6000 G6 chassis fully populated with two HP ProLiant SL170z G6 server trays Figure 4. Front view of a ProLiant z6000 G6 chassis fully populated
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HP ProLiant SL160z G6 server The SL160z G6 server tray is optimized for maximum expansion (Figure 5). The system board accommodates up to two Intel Xeon 5500 Series processors and up to 18 slots for DDR3 memory modules (nine per processor). In addition to the optional PCI Express (PCIe) 2.0 x16 slot, there is room for another optional internal PCIe 2.0 x4 slot. The SL160z G6 server can support large form factor (LFF), small form factor (SFF), or solid state (SSD) SATA storage drives house
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HP ProLiant SL170z G6 server The HP ProLiant SL170z G6 server tray is optimized for maximum storage capability (Figure 6). It supports LFF, SFF, or SSD SATA storage drives housed in quick-release drive carriers. The system board accommodates up to two Intel Xeon 5500 Series processors and provides up to 16 slots for DDR3 memory modules (eight per processor). More detailed information about memory configuration and internal drive support is available in the QuickSpecs at this URL: www.hp.c
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HP ProLiant SL2x170z G6 server The HP ProLiant SL2x170z G6 server tray is optimized for compute power and density (Figure 7). It contains two SL170z G6 server nodes side-by-side in the tray. This means it has up to four sockets for Intel Xeon 5500 Series processors and 32 slots for DDR3 memory modules (eight per processor). Each server node has its own embedded SATA controller that accesses one of the two LFF, SFF, or SSD SATA storage drives housed in quick-release carriers. More detailed
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Because two server nodes are installed side-by-side, the front of the unit has twice as many ports and LEDs as the SL170z G6 server. Each server node has its own video and serial connectors, USB ports, NIC ports, health and UID LEDs, optional out-of-band management LAN port, and a slot for an optional PCIe 2.0 x16 adapter (Figure 8). Figure 8. Front view of a ProLiant z6000 G6 chassis populated with 2 HP ProLiant SL2x170z G6 server trays Intel Xeon 5500 Series processor technology
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Multi-level caches Intel Xeon 5500 Series processors have a three-level cache hierarchy (Figure 9): • An on-core 64-kilobyte Level 1 cache, split into two 32-kilobyte caches: one for data and one for instructions • 256-kilobyte, Level 2 cache for each core to reduce latency • A Level 3 cache of up to 8 megabytes Figure 9. Block diagram of three-level cache hierarchy for Intel Xeon 5500 Series processors The Level 3 cache is shared by all cores. It is inclusive, which means th
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QuickPath Interconnect controller Intel Xeon 5500 Series processors attain their performance potential through Intel QuickPath architecture (Figure 10). High-speed, point-to-point interconnects directly connect the processors with one another. Intel QuickPath architecture also connects each processor to distributed shared memory and to the I/O chipset. Figure 10. Block diagram of QuickPath architecture Each QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) consists of two unidirectional links that oper
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Turbo Boost technology Intel Turbo Boost Technology complements Hyper-Threading by increasing the performance of both multi-threaded and single-threaded workloads. For workloads and applications that do not benefit from multi-threading, Turbo Boost Technology can increase performance. Turbo Boost is engaged by enabling the Turbo Mode option in the Advanced Power Configuration submenu in RBSU (Figure 11). It automatically increases the clock frequency of active cores operating below power
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Figure 12. Diagram showing how the processor installation tool simplifies installation Memory technologies Xeon 5500 Series processors connect directly to memory rather than through a chipset. These processors support only DDR3 dual inline memory modules (DIMMs). DDR3 is part of the synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM) group of technologies. Administrators control all processor functionality options, including memory mirroring and memory channel interleaving, through the
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Unbuffered and registered DIMMs DDR3 DIMMs are available as both Unbuffered (UDIMMs) and Registered (RDIMMs). Both UDIMMs and RDIMMs support error correcting code (ECC). There are three types of DDR3 memory: • PC3-8500R (RDIMM) —1066 or 800 MT/s data rate, depending on memory configuration and processor • PC3-10600E (UDIMM) —1333, 1066, or 800 MT/s data rate, depending on memory configuration and processor • PC3-10600R (RDIMM) —1333, 1066, or 800 MT/s data rate, depending on memory con
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For detailed memory configuration guidelines, use the Online DDR3 Memory Configuration Tool available on the HP website: www.hp.com/go/ddr3memory-configurator. I/O technologies ProLiant SL G6 server trays incorporate PCIe and SATA I/O technologies. PCIe lets administrators add expansion cards with various capabilities to the system. SATA is a serial communication protocol for direct-attached storage devices such as SATA hard drives. PCI Express technology All ProLiant SL G6 server trays
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throughput and improve the ability to locate and fix disk failures. More importantly, serial architecture 3 solves the problems of clock skew and signal degradation at higher signaling rates. HP has developed a software RAID solution based on Smart Array firmware. The B110i SATA Software RAID supports the Array Configuration Utility (ACU), ACU command line interface (CLI), Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) agents, and Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) providers. B110i inclu
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Power supply options Common slot power supplies come in multiple power ratings and have achieved efficiency ratings of up to 92 percent. Three power supply options are available for the SL6000 Scalable System: • 460W AC up to 92% efficiency • 750W AC up to 92% efficiency • 1200W AC up to 90% efficiency Common slot power supplies provide improved power delivery and the advantage of reclaiming lost power. With the exception of the 1200W power supply, they meet Climate Savers Gold r
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Full AC or DC redundancy requires two power supplies to run the z6000 chassis. If one power supply fails and the remaining power supply can meet power demands of both server trays, both servers will continue to run without interruption. AC redundancy with throttling requires two power supplies to run the z6000 chassis. If one power supply fails and the remaining power supply cannot support the full load of both server trays, the servers will throttle using HP power capping technology so
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In a multimode environment, it is important to ensure that planning is completed prior to selecting the right power supply for the desired redundancy mode. Use of the HP Power Advisor is highly recommended for identifying the optimal power supply for each SL6000 configuration. The HP Power Advisor is available online at www.hp.com/go/hppoweradvisor. Management and deployment IT administrators using ProLiant SL6000 Scalable Systems will have different computing requirements. Consequently,
