8-way Systems Enable Enterprise Applications

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+3ý 1HW6HUYHUý /;Uýåèíí FXVWRPHUýXVDJHýJXLGH åðZD\ý6\VWHPVý(QDEOHý(QWHUSULVHý$SSOLFDWLRQV VHSWHPEHUýìäää Executive Summary The HP NetServer LXr 8500, an 8-way capable server, makes available unprecedented levels of computing performance and scalability. The server supports either a Microsoft® Windows™ NT, Novell® NetWare, SCO® UNIXware or Linux environment. A rich set of available applications and middleware, coupled with the relatively low cost of server hardware and management features, creates a new computing price/performance point. It provides a cost-effective computing platform for the corporate data center. The data center is a demanding technology environment, requiring computing equipment that is extraordinarily reliable, scalable and manageable. In a data center, various applications are run on server equipment and each application puts different demands (server resource utilization) on the equipment, depending upon whether it is processor (CPU), memory, network or input/output (I/O) intensive. It is important that the server equipment be able to support these loads in an optimized and balanced manner. The HP NetServer LXr 8500 is an ideal solution for both centralized and distributed computing challenges that customers confront today. The HP NetServer family of servers can play a leading role in client/server application environments such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), on-line transaction processing (OLTP) with database management systems (DBMS), data warehousing and data marts and thin client services. The additional capability provided by the HP NetServer LXr 8500 includes the latest in computing technology: Intel® Pentium® III Xeon™ processors, the Intel Profusion chipset, 64-bit 66 MHz PCI I/O and support for very large physical memory up to 32 GB. The server is optimized for data centers and designed to meet their performance, scalability, storage density and high availability needs. This white paper provides an overview of several application areas where the HP NetServer LXr 8500 can provide a highly capable and cost effective solution. The paper examines the nature of the application requirements (resource utilization) for server resources. Opportunities for server consolidation are also examined. The paper concludes with a discussion of the features of the HP NetServer LXr 8500 that support and meet these demands. 1 FXVWRPHUýXVDJHýJXLGH +3ý 1HW6HUYHUý /;Uýåèíí A Closer Look Industry Trend: Data Center Needs Server consolidation is an important trend that impacts the data center in several ways. Applications running on less powerful previous generation servers can be combined onto a single new server with several times more processing power. Consolidation of a server environment can occur in one of several ways: logical, physical or recentralization. The data center, as a repository of information assets, is an integral component of the enterprise infrastructure. It generally consists of mission critical, application-specific data stored in large databases and on file servers. Current technology trends such as network computing, the Internet and massive data growth are dramatically increasing the demands on this environment. Logical consolidation attempts to normalize or standardize aspects of the server environment, such as management or backup procedures, and in so doing, achieve a reduction in staff workloads. In a physical consolidation, the servers are re-located into a centralized data center to be "racked and stacked”. The immediate benefits are improved physical security, lowered system management complexity across the servers and a more efficient sharing of peripherals. The third type of server consolidation, re-centralization, involves collapsing the processing loads from several different servers onto a single, larger server (or servers). This approach is used to reduce the number of dedicated servers or to respond to changing business flows. Re-centralization achieves the greatest return on investment (ROI) benefit and is most suitable for 8-way server configurations. All three methods require that companies employ a consolidation approach that encompasses technology, process and people in order to achieve the benefits (reduced staff workloads, improved manageability and floor space utilization) attributed to server consolidation. Companies must pay attention to not only their hardware and software choices but also service and support options to dependably deliver the information critical to today's business needs. Selecting the appropriate server equipment that resides at the center of this information fabric is critical. Data centers have three core needs for this server equipment: performance (data processing capacity), high availability and scalability. Performance for the data center is the ability to process and transfer large amounts of data quickly within the various server sub-systems, also expressed as transactions completed per unit of time. Each of the sub-systems in a server must be optimized as well as balanced, so that the system delivers the maximum performance and no one component becomes a bottleneck. Performance also includes the ability of the server system to accommodate peak business periods and occasional spikes in the workload. The more a server is sized for growth, the more likely it will have sufficient headroom and be able to accommodate usage peaks. (See Scalability below.) Availability is a measure of the ability of the server system to deliver constant computing services to clients, also expressed as a percentage of time that the system is “available”. Data center equipment must be highly available (approaching 100% uptime). If an application stops, revenue generation can come to a halt. The design features of reliability, component redundancy, pro-active manageability, multi-node fail-over clustering capabilities and the appropriate levels of service and support combine to produce highly available systems. 2 FXVWRPHUýXVDJHýJXLGH +3ý 1HW6HUYHUý /;Uýåèíí Issues to Consider 9JCV"MKPF"QH"FCVC"GPXKTQPOGPV"GZKUVU CV"VJKU"HCEKNKV[! Is the facility centralized or decentralized? Is it consolidating the servers? What application(s) does it support and are they processor intensive, I/O intensive or network intensive? What are the performance requirements? 9JCV"MKPF"QH"ITQYVJ"KU"GZRGEVGF! Has the organization done capacity planning? Are more servers anticipated? Already ordered? 9JCV"CTG"VJG"CXCKNCDKNKV["TGSWKTGOGPVU! What does it cost the company if the servers are down? What is the level of availability currently on this system and in this facility and how much should it improve? As part of the accumulation and understanding of costs of downtime, it is important to perform a complete risk assessment. Has the organization looked at disaster recovery? Has it addressed the potential for growth and the means for accommodating increased system usage? Scalability means the ability of a server system to expand to meet the growth in the enterprise. This concept is also called headroom and can be a difficult demand to meet. Every significant corporate computing trend of the past decade—LANs, client/server computing and especially the Internet—has required more processing power and more bandwidth than initially forecasted. The Intel Profusion technology provides CPU scalability to eight processors, memory scalability to 32 GB and I/O scalability with ten PCI slots on four 64-bit PCI buses. A server’s ability to support an upgrade to future processor generations is one method that will increase the load carrying capacity of a system. Increased processing power will permit the server to support more users and/or more demanding applications. The ability to upgrade other components, such as controllers and storage, is another way to accommodate growth. The LXr 8500 follows the HP NetServer history of providing investment protection in the form of upgrades, for example, to future Intel Pentium Xeon processors. Client/Server Application Architectures The client/server application architecture is a versatile, message-based, modular infrastructure intended to improve interoperability, flexibility and scalability as compared to more centralized, mainframe-style, timesharing computing. The client/server method of structuring and distributing hardware and software has shown great benefits in the operational effectiveness of business information systems. This architecture is widely used with many off-the-shelf application software packages. There are three major functions that the software performs in the client/server architectural model. These functions, summarized here, reside in different pieces of equipment, depending upon the structure. 1. Presentation - the user interface 2. Business Logic - the application data processing 3. Data Management - A database stores and retrieve information Two common hardware deployment configurations are as a centralized environment (see Figure 1) two-tier client/server and a more distributed environment, three-tier client/server (see Figure 2). 3 FXVWRPHUýXVDJHýJXLGH +3ý 1HW6HUYHUý /;Uýåèíí Tier Two Servers ERP Central Server Consolidated Servers Application and Database Multiple Applications and Databases Data Management Business Logic Tier One Clients hp-ux Device Management transport PC Clients transport Presentation linux Windows 95/98 UNIX MAC OS Windows NT/2000 (KIWTG"30"%GPVTCNK\GF"'PXKTQPOGPV<"6YQ/6KGT"%NKGPV15GTXGT In the centralized environment, the application presentation component runs on the client with the application business logic and the database management software running on a server system, competing for server resources. In a distributed environment with 3-tier topologies, a database is on the third tier (the database server) and one or more application servers comprise the second tier. Client systems are the first tier in either arrangement. Distributed environments can support several times the number of active users over a centralized system, depending upon the power of the chosen servers. Clearly, the distributed environment requires more hardware but the scalability in terms of the number of users supported or the potential transaction throughput offsets the complexity and the cost. 4 FXVWRPHUýXVDJHýJXLGH +3ý 1HW6HUYHUý /;Uýåèíí Consolidated Servers ERP Tier Three Database Servers Data Management Database Server ERP Tier Two Application Servers transport Multiple Databases Consolidated Servers transport Business Logic Multiple Applications Application Server Tier One Clients hp-ux linux Windows 95/98 UNIX transport PC Clients MAC OS transport Presentation Windows NT/2000 (KIWTG"40"&KUVTKDWVGF"'PXKTQPOGPV<"6JTGG/6KGT"%NKGPV15GTXGT In a centralized environment, especially at peak business periods, the processing demand can put heavy loads on the server. The HP NetServer LXr 8500 is a logical choice for a centralized server system. In both cases the processing demands of the application and the power and capacity of the server hardware along with the network fabric limit the number of users that can be supported. As compute or data access demands increase, many companies feel the pressure for additional hardware. In other cases, the number of application or database servers causes a system management headache. The LXr 8500 8-way capable SMP system offers a viable solution for reducing complexity. Client/server configurations for front-end application servers can be easily scaled by segmenting the applications. Scaling is also accomplished by assigning functions to dedicated servers depending upon the anticipated loads. Back-end database server configurations may be either single machines with multiple databases or multiple machines with single databases, again depending upon the size of the environment and service level requirements. In a data center environment, both types of servers are typically rackmounted, symmetric multiple processor (SMP) machines. Application servers require large amounts of memory but typically have minimal massstorage needs. Database servers are sometimes configured as high availability clusters, providing insurance against a single point of failures. Both types of servers require rapid I/O performance (network and mass storage), necessary for access to the databases. 5 FXVWRPHUýXVDJHýJXLGH +3ý 1HW6HUYHUý /;Uýåèíí Servers in high demand environments will be configured with multiple processors (SMP machines), equipped with high-speed, high capacity, backup and restore devices. Different applications make demands on different aspects of the server system. Some rely heavily on memory while others are processor-intensive or require frequent and rapid access to storage. (See Table 1 for a summary of server resource utilization by application type.) As applications increase in complexity and capability, server requirements also increase. Companies that rely on these applications can benefit by installing 8-way servers in their IT environments. Several application environments, highly amenable to larger systems, are discussed in some detail in the following sections. 6CDNG"30"5GTXGT"TGUQWTEG"WVKNK\CVKQP"D["CRRNKECVKQP"V[RG Server Resource Utilization CPU Power Memory Usage Disk I/O Network I/O File & Print Low Low Med. Low Consolidated Server Multiple-Application High High High Med. Small Application Low Low Med. Low E-Commerce Web Server High High High High Intra/Internet Dynamic Web Server Med. Med. Med. Med. Domain/Proxy/Firewall, etc. Med. Low Low Med. Terminal Server High High Med. Low Messaging E-mail Services Med. Med. High Med. Collaboration Med. Med. Med. Med. Data Warehouse High High High Low ERP Application Server High High Low Low ERP Central Server Application and Database High High High Med. Medium Database <.5TB (ERP, OLTP, Data Mart) Med. Med. Med. Low Large Database .5 - 1TB (ERP, OLTP, etc) High High High Low Application Server Type Low: 1 CPU, Med.: 2-4 CPUs, High: 4-8 CPUs Applications’ Resource Utilization are "typical" 6 FXVWRPHUýXVDJHýJXLGH +3ý 1HW6HUYHUý /;Uýåèíí 'PVGTRTKUG"4GUQWTEG"2NCPPKPI"*'42+ ERP is a class of business management software that integrates many facets of a manufacturing business, including planning, inventory management, workflow on the manufacturing floor, financial reporting and other aspects of fast moving businesses. HP has partnered with most of the ERP vendors and supports the hardware needs of their software. (Several success stories about these installations are available on the HP web site.) Issues to Consider 9JCV"CTG"VJG"UGTXGT"OCPCIGOGPV KUUWGU"HQT"VJKU"QTICPK\CVKQP! Is the organization aware of the benefits of managing both NOS and applications with a convenient set of tools? Are there clustering management requirements? Is this data center a heterogeneous environment that needs tools that can manage a variety of devices and platforms? Is it a distributed environment that can benefit from remote management options? 9JCV"CDQWV"VJG"UGTXGT"XGPFQT! Does the vendor have a proven track record of making customers successful with demanding enterprise environments and applications? Is the vendor capable of consistently manufacturing highquality, tested, integrated products that minimize failure opportunities? Does the vendor have the necessary expertise and support capabilities that are required for the enterprise data center environment? Two trends are changing the nature of ERP applications. Software suppliers continue to expand the breadth of functionality to areas such as human resources, supply chain management and sales force automation. E-Commerce and intra-business capabilities via the Internet, including Web-based user interfaces, are being added. These additional capabilities require more data processing power concentrated at database and application servers. ERP vendors are also downsizing their offerings, making them more attractive to companies requiring little or no customization. Companies may be already running their servers with Windows NT and are looking to improve their overall effectiveness by deploying ERP applications. In fact, ERP is one application area that is becoming more “NT-centric”, due to the potential sales volume. The overall ERP software and equipment market is growing at approximately 25% per year, while the market for NT-based server systems is estimated to be growing at a 50% compounded annual growth rate. ERP applications are large and complex, requiring server system resources adequate to process transactions from all points in the business value chain. Referring to table 1, we see that these applications need high CPU power and large memory configurations to support the community of users. Growth is also a significant factor, both in terms of volume of transactions as a business grows, but also in terms of additional application functions and the number of active users. Note that the users’ community is now expanding to those outside a company (Extranet) as well as those inside (Intranet). Server systems need to be sized not only for today’s needs, but also in anticipation of near future additional computing demands. HP’s NetServer LXr 8500 is a wise choice given the capability to scale from one to eight processors and to grow the system memory. Furthermore, the advent of Microsoft Windows 2000 data center edition will bring larger memory access where the capability of the LXr 8500 to accommodate up to 32 GB of RAM will provide years of load carrying capacity. 7 FXVWRPHUýXVDJHýJXLGH +3ý 1HW6HUYHUý /;Uýåèíí Nordson Corporation, a multinational manufacturer of industrial process equipment has deployed SAP R/3, a well-known ERP application, on a HP NetServer LXr 8500 in its SAP test and development center. The trial has been so successful that the company is going live with three racks of HP NetServer LXr 8500s (9 servers and EMC storage). Nordson chose these servers for three key reasons: increased computing power, superior scalability and excellent price/performance compared to RISC/UNIX systems. More information is available in the Nordson customer story on the HP NetServer web site. (The URLs for all sites referenced in this paper are listed in the section titled For More Information on page 15.) &CVCDCUG"5GTXGTU Relational database management systems (DBMS) are at the core of many modern application systems. They offer ease of storage and flexible access to complex sets of information. ERP applications depend upon databases. Other important applications that employ databases include transaction processing and data warehousing (discussed in more detail below). Transaction processing is a class of computing that facilitates many types of business needs in a wide range of industries, including on-line or ATM banking, airline and car rental reservations, and inventory management in areas as diverse as supermarkets and manufacturing. Databases employ thousands of lines of software code dedicated to facilitating storage and ad hoc retrieval of all the elements of business transactions in planned and unplanned combination. Databases require processing power far beyond the basic demands of a file server due to the database infrastructure of indexes and links, which are often constantly changing but designed to provide fast entry and retrieval over large (tens of millions of elements) volumes of data. A database is typically designed to efficiently accommodate the addition, modification and access to stored information. Server systems that house these databases are typically multi-processor systems that will improve parallelism in processing a number of pending requests for a wide variety of transactions. Large RAM memories facilitate rapid retrieval of often used information. More memory in the server means a better chance of a fast response. This is another environment where the HP NetServer LXr 8500 excels, providing the multiprocessing capability that maintains service levels during peak periods and the memory and I/O capacity that allows fast storage and retrieval of vital data. Couple the processing power of 8 Intel Pentium III Xeon processors with Fibre Channel connected mass storage and the system’s ability to manage large databases is equivalent or better than many RISC/UNIX servers. The cost/performance ratio is far superior, often achieving hardware costs that are one-third that of RISC/UNIX servers with comparable processing power. 8 FXVWRPHUýXVDJHýJXLGH +3ý 1HW6HUYHUý /;Uýåèíí &CVC"9CTGJQWUKPI1&CVC"/CTVU A Data Warehouse is the data center main repository of information. A Data Mart is simply a smaller data warehouse for specific sub-organizations (i.e. marketing) or departments. Data warehousing emphasizes the capture of data from diverse sources for storage and analysis. Data from various applications is stored and then selectively organized in the data warehouse database for use by business analysis and unanticipated queries. This store of information enlarges a company’s capability to enhance it’s “Business Intelligence”, identifying positive and negative sales trends, customer demographics and other profitable subjects. Data warehouses once required mainframe scale computers due to their size and the prodigious processing need. Today, Microsoft Windows NT or Novell NetWare servers are becoming viable and incredibly cost effective solutions in this area for all but the largest warehouses. Intel-based servers have been effective tools to fill the role of the front-end or application server, which directs storage to and queries from the warehouse and may perform computationally intense data transformations. This portion of the server market is forecasted to be growing at more than 50% per year. The growth of data warehouses in both size and analytical utility makes the LXr 8500 well suited for companies where this function can improve their competitiveness. Again, the inherently high processing power and capacity for system growth at a reasonable cost makes the HP NetServer LXr 8500 an attractive choice. HP has developed a program to enable deployment of SAP’s Business Information Warehouse. This module integrates data warehousing into the SAP R/3 ERP program. HP has developed a suite of services and support tuned specifically for SAP environments. This offering combines hardware (including the HP NetServer LXr 8500), software, and HP and third party consulting. 6JKP"%NKGPV15GTXGT/$CUGF"%QORWVKPI Microsoft Windows Terminal Server is a Windows NT server extension that creates a multiuser environment where all users share the hardware and software resource on the terminal server machine. Applications are run on the server, and even the graphical user interface (GUI) is server-resident, pushed to the clients. Microsoft Windows NT Server Terminal Server Edition supports a full range of clients from legacy personal computers to the new and cost effective “thin clients”. Using Citrix Meta-Frame software in addition to Terminal Server, customers can gain access to server resources from clients’ devices running even non-Microsoft OS (i.e. Mac, Unix). In addition, using Meta-frame, customers can balance loads between servers in a farm to deliver optimal performance to end-users. 9 FXVWRPHUýXVDJHýJXLGH +3ý 1HW6HUYHUý /;Uýåèíí Data Management Terminal Servers Tier Two Servers Business Logic Terminal Servers Presentation Device Management transport Thin Clients Tier One Clients hp-ux linux Windows 95/98 UNIX transport PC Clients MAC OS Windows NT/2000 (KIWTG"50"6GTOKPCN"5GTXGT"6JKP"%NKGPV A thin client is basically a simplified desktop device that provides reliable and fast access to networked resources. Thin clients have no local hard drive, no local storage and do not require a large or complicated desktop operating system to function. Thin clients rely on the speed and availability of the server infrastructure to deliver maximum computing performance to users. For example, HP Entria thin-clients offer out-of-the-box connectivity and HP's award-winning industry-standard manageability. Add to that legendary HP quality and reliability, and you have great value in a thin-client computing solution. In Figure 3 above, the central or terminal server is often referred to in industry jargon as a “Fat Server” set up to serve “Thin Clients”. The server, unlike a central server in a typical ERP environment, must also provide the processing power to construct and update the graphical user interface. Thin clients address the need for an extremely reliable, secure and compact desktop device that offers the familiarity of a windows-type graphical user interface. Thin Clients are often deployed in situations where the users access one or a few specific applications. With no hard disk to fill or fail, and with application access centrally controlled, this type of computing fills many needs once the realm of “dumb” terminals or legacy PCs. The demand for thin client computers and servers to serve them is expected to develop rapidly, with growth for both devices expected to exceed 10% per year. Thin client computing has two primary server resource requirements: CPU processing power and memory capacity. The capacity of a server to support a given number of clients depends directly on both these resources to maintain adequate service levels. If either resource is exhausted, user response time will degrade severely in the case of memory exhaustion and gradually in the case of CPU. 10 FXVWRPHUýXVDJHýJXLGH +3ý 1HW6HUYHUý /;Uýåèíí Multi-processors servers will always provide better response to a number of clients given the capability for parallel task processing. Memory capacity is more critical in that each thin client may require from 4-8MB of RAM for “generic” applications that have not been designed specifically for this type of use. RAM consumption will be considerably less for applications designed specifically for thin client use. Several studies have been done using generic applications to determine recommended client loads for a given server configuration. With adequate server resources, the number of supportable thin clients scales very well with the number of processors and amount of RAM. The HP NetServer family has several models that can well serve user communities of various sizes; for example, well over 400 clients can be supported with an HP LXr 8500 system with 8 processors and 32 GB of RAM (with Microsoft Windows 2000). With Windows NT 4.0 Enterprise Edition, RAM use is limited to 8 GB and the client estimate is 1 about 300. %QPUQNKFCVKPI"#RRNKECVKQPU Server consolidation provides several benefits to the IT department and to the corporation. Physical security improves, system management and hardware resource utilization becomes more efficient, staff workloads can be reduced or redirected and operating costs (especially hardware support and OS licensing costs) frequently decline. Consolidation of applications or user communities to a larger server with faster processors, more processors plus more efficient access to memory, mass storage and the network can significantly improve service levels and reduce data center costs. An 8-way HP NetServer LXr 8500 server also provides enough future capacity to accommodate consolidated applications as well as the planned growth in application types or system usage. HP Philosophy and Strategy HP’s approach to solving computing problems is based first on solid system design and high quality manufacturing and testing of all server components and subsystems. The most effective approach to improving performance, availability and scalability is to prevent faults as opposed to designing to recognize or tolerate faults. HP’s design philosophy for the NetServer LXr 8500 8-way system was simple: lead in all areas of performance, scalability, manageability, availability and reliability. The architecture is a uniquely balanced design where the performance capabilities of the processors, cache, I/O subsystems and memory are well matched to provide optimum throughput. Due to the balanced architecture, our customers do not have to make tradeoffs between CPU and memory capacity or between CPU and I/O capacity to achieve the desired high performance. ýýýýýýýýýýýýýýýýýýýýýýýýýýýýýýýýýýýýýýý 1 Client support capacity (redundant) is dependent upon your application and the intensity of usage. HP’s testing and estimates may not reflect your environment. 11 FXVWRPHUýXVDJHýJXLGH +3ý 1HW6HUYHUý /;Uýåèíí The HP NetServer Solution The HP NetServer LXr 8500 (see Figure 4), the newest server in the L series family of servers, establishes a highly scalable Intel-based architecture for the data center. In the beginning of this paper, data centers equipment needs were listed as performance, availability, and scalability. The HP NetServer LXr 8500 meets these needs in the following manner: • Performance (KIWTG"60"*2"0GV5GTXGT".:T":722 − Up to 8 550 MHz Intel Pentium III Xeon processors, reducing the potential for processor bottlenecks − Up to 32 GB of ECC SDRAM memory on its own 64-bit bus, with interleaving to improve memory bandwidth and reduce access conflicts − Up to 4 host-to-PCI bridge chips, connecting to a 64-bit, dedicated I/O bus, reducing contention between the I/O and processor activity, improving throughput and reducing the potential for I/O bottlenecks. • Availability − Redundancy: fans, power supplies, disk drives, network controllers − Hot swap: fans, power supplies and disk drives so that replacements can be made without bringing the system down. PCI hot plug support so PCI adapter cards can be repaired or replaced while the system is up. − Self-monitoring hardware components (CPU, CPU boards, memory DIMMs, memory boards, cache coherency filters) de-allocate themselves in case of a failure and continue server operations without IT intervention. − “Totally Safe” memory scrubbing utility proactively cleans system memory, eliminating single bit memory errors and minimizing multi-bit induced system failures. − Automated failure recovery, including automatic server restart and ECC memory. Includes One-Button Disaster-Recovery as a tape backup solution to simplify and expedite system restoration after a failure − Server clustering: supports cluster capabilities from several vendors 12 FXVWRPHUýXVDJHýJXLGH +3ý 1HW6HUYHUý /;Uýåèíí • Scalability − Processors: increase from 1 to 8, can be upgraded to next-generation Xeon processors − CPU L2 cache available at 1 MB or 2 MB. − Memory: increase from 256 MB to 32 GB. I/O: Ten hot-plug, full-length PCI slots; four 64-bit, 66 MHz slots; and six 64-bit, 33 MHz slots (one 33 MHz PCI slot used by preinstalled HP TopTools Remote Control Card) • Manageability − Preinstalled HP TopTools Remote Control card for secure remote management − HP TopTools for Servers, a comprehensive server management solution with intuitive browser-based user interface; facilitates troubleshooting, administration, and asset information collection − HP OpenView ManageX/SE Event Manager for complete NOS and Application management − HP Fault Notifier phones home to HP if hardware problems occur. Pre-failure alerts occur on key system components. − Pre-Failure Warranty receives alerts and proactively directs the system administrator to replace hard drives, memory or power supplies before they fail and cause downtime. The performance of this server is enabled by the use of the Intel Profusion chipset architecture. This chipset is a five-ported switch that links five 100 MHz buses in a crossbar switch. The architecture allows direct point-to-point, simultaneous access to all system resources producing a balanced server platform. (The design of the chipset and server is discussed in more detail in the Architecture/Technology Overview, a HP white paper on the Profusion architecture.) This is the second generation of a HP eight-way, SMP processor design, incorporating proven design technology and expertise to produce a highperformance, highly available system. The HP NetServer LXr 8500 brings solid reliability to the demanding data center environment, especially those that support ERP, data mart, OLTP or thin client application environments. The server’s robust design provides the high availability so needed by data centers by using redundant, hot-swappable key components as well as by being certified for clustering on a variety of platforms. Maximum uptime is further enhanced by a comprehensive set of server management tools. 13 FXVWRPHUýXVDJHýJXLGH +3ý 1HW6HUYHUý /;Uýåèíí Conclusion The HP NetServer LXr 8500, an 8-way capable server, is a highly available, scalable and cost-effective solution ideal for several different application areas. It is especially effective for those applications where the demand exists for large amounts of CPU power and memory, or rapid and frequent access to disk I/O or the network. These applications include enterprise resource planning, data warehousing, data marts and data mining, database servers and thin client/server-based computing. The performance of this server is enhanced by the Intel Profusion chipset features and the fastest Intel Pentium Xeon processors as well as up to 32 GB of memory and dedicated I/O and memory buses. Combining the power, performance and availability of the HP NetServer LXr 8500 with the reliability that with every HP NetServer yields the best possible server for demanding applications and environments. 14 FXVWRPHUýXVDJHýJXLGH +3ý 1HW6HUYHUý /;Uýåèíí For More Information HP has several white papers and technology briefs that describe in more detail, the HP NetServer LXr 8500 architecture, memory, processor selection, clustering and availability. These are available in the product information section for the HP NetServer LXr 8500 at: http://netserver.hp.com/netserver/products/papers.asp?pid=lxr8500 These and other papers are also listed in the technical papers section of the HP NetServer web site at: http://www.netserver.hp.com/netserver/papers/ For more information on the customer success stories referred to in this paper, see: http://netserver.hp.com/netserver/solutions/customer_story For more information on data warehousing solutions, see: http://www.hp.com/go/datawarehouse For more information on the HP partnership with SAP, see: http://www.sap.hp.com/public/ Intel is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation. Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of, and Windows NT is a trademark of, Microsoft Corp. All other brand names are trademarks of their respective owners. Technical information in this document is subject to change without notice. ©Copyright Hewlett-Packard Company 1999. All Rights Reserved. 15