Up to 1,020 logical processors can be linked together into a single fault tolerant cluster with a maximum of 32TB of memory and up to 4,080 Itanium cores across that cluster.
These logical processors can have from 8GB to 32GB of logical memory, and they are then linked with the Expand-over-IP network stack into a larger cluster over the Gigabit Ethernet backbone implemented by the IP Cluster I/O module, or I/O CLIM for short. The NonStop machines create a logical processor, which can have from two to four cores and therefore from two to four nodes. (You need at least two nodes to be fault tolerant.) Rather than using the high-end ServerNet clustering that is at the heart of the larger NonStop machines, HP has cooked up a variant cluster technology called Expand-over-IP that allows regular Gigabit Ethernet links and outboard switches for linking I/O, storage, and telecom switching systems. This is a two-socket server, just like the blade servers that other Integrity machines are, but HP only puts one processor in the system and, depending on the model, only activates one, two, or four cores in that single socket.īy the way, according to Randy Meyer, director of product management for the NonStop line within HP's Business Critical Systems division, you can't activate those latent cores in an NS2100 or NS2200 node. The NonStop 2100 is based on the rx2800 i2 rack-mounted server, which debuted back in April 2010 with the rest of the Integrity and Superdome servers sporting Intel's "Tukwila" quad-core Itanium 9300 processors. The company is offering a geared-down NS2100 server, a follow-on to the previously smallest NonStop system in the lineup, the NS2200, which HP started selling in February and which it did not publicly announce. This ported NonStop environment would, for instance, go very nicely with the future "Project Odyssey" Xeon-based servers that the company is working on.īut, alas, that is not what HP is doing today. I'll go one further and say that maybe HP needs to buy Cray specifically for this Linux layer and build an entirely new server business from Cray and Tandem.
#HP NONSTOP SOFTWARE#
The NonStop machines use fast networking and clustering technology to make a parallel database look like a single database to applications the software has fault tolerance, which means if you lose a server node in the network, processing continues on the remaining nodes without crashing the application. And clustering technology from Tru64 Unix is the underpinning of Oracle's Real Application Clusters thanks to a licensing deal with Compaq that predates the HP takeover of Compaq.
Oracle also controls the RDB relational database for OpenVMS, too. As is the case on AIX and Solaris, Oracle's 10g and 11g databases are by far the preferred databases on HP-UX and a fair amount of HP-UX business is driven by Oracle's myriad application suites. Unlike the HP Integrity and Superdome servers that run HP-UX and the OpenVMS variants of the Integrity machines, the NonStop platform that started out as Tandem and came to HP through its acquisition of Compaq more than a decade ago is one that HP absolutely controls and that Oracle can't really do much to. And now, in a hope to offset declines on its HP-UX Itanium server business and get its NonStop Integrity machines into emerging markets, HP has trimmed down the configurations and prices on the NonStops so they are within economic reach of more customers. Hewlett-Packard's NonStop servers tolerate faults even though new CEO Meg Whitman and Wall Street, which is breathing down her neck, can't.