Page 2 - White Paper; Table of Contents
2 BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper www.hitachi.com Table of Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Executive Summary ........................................................................................
Page 3 - Chapter 1; Introduction; Executive Summary
www.hitachi.com BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper 3 Chapter 1 Introduction Executive Summary Blade servers pack more compute power into a smaller space than traditional rack-mounted servers. This capability makes them an attractive alternative for consolidating servers, balancing or optimi...
Page 4 - Figure 1. BladeSymphony 1000 front view; Enterprise-Class Capabilities; Performance
4 BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper www.hitachi.com BladeSymphony 1000 (Figure 1) is the first blade system designed specifically for enterprise-class, mission-critical workloads. It is a 10 rack unit (RU) system that combines Hitachi’s Virtage embedded virtualization technology, a choice ...
Page 5 - Reliability; Data Center Applications; Consolidation
www.hitachi.com BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper 5 • Reliability — Reliability is increases through redundant components and components are hot- swappable. Other reliability features include: – Hitachi’s mainframe-class memory management – Redundant switch and management modules – Extreme...
Page 6 - Chapter 2; System Architecture Overview
6 BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper www.hitachi.com Chapter 2 System Architecture Overview BladeSymphony 1000 features a very modular design to maximize flexibility and reliability. System elements are redundant and hot-swappable so the system can be easily expanded without downtime or unn...
Page 7 - Figure 3. Logical components of the BladeSymphony 1000
www.hitachi.com BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper 7 Figure 3. Logical components of the BladeSymphony 1000 The following chapters detail the major components of BladeSymphony 1000, as well as management software and Virtage embedded virtualization technology. • “Intel Itanium Server Blade”...
Page 8 - Chapter 3; Intel Itanium Server Blade; Figure 4. Intel Itanium Server Blade; Item; Processors
8 BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper www.hitachi.com Chapter 3 Intel Itanium Server Blade The BladeSymphony 1000 can support up to eight blades for a total of up to 16 Itanium CPU sockets, or 32 cores, running Microsoft Windows or Linux. Up to four Intel Itanium Server Blades can be connect...
Page 9 - Table 2: Main components of the Intel Itanium Server Blade
www.hitachi.com BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper 9 Table 2 provides details on each of the components in the Itanium Blade. Memory Capacity Max. 64 GB/server blade (if 4 GB DIMM is used) Type DDR2 240-pin registered DIMM, 1 rank, 2 rankFrequency: DDR2-400 3-3-3Capacity: 512 MB, 1 GB, 2 GB...
Page 10 - Intel Itanium Processor 9100 Series; Component
10 BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper www.hitachi.com Intel Itanium Processor 9100 Series The Dual-Core Intel Itanium 9100 series 64-bit processor delivers scalable performance with two high-performance cores per processor, memory addressability up to 1024 TB, 24 MB of on-die cache, and a 6...
Page 11 - Cache
www.hitachi.com BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper 11 The Intel Itanium is optimized for dual processor-based platforms and clusters and includes the following features: • Wide, parallel hardware based on Itanium architecture for high performance – Integrated on-die cache of up to 24 MB, ca...
Page 12 - Intel VT Virtualization Technology; virtual; Demand Based Switching; Hitachi Node Controller; Table 3: Bus throughput from the Hitachi Node Controller; Bus; Processor bus
12 BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper www.hitachi.com Enhanced Machine Check Architecture provides extensive error detection and address/data path correction capabilities, as well as system-wide ECC protection. It detects bit-level errors and manages data corruption, thereby providing bette...
Page 13 - Baseboard Management Controller; Figure 5. Memory configuration
www.hitachi.com BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper 13 Baseboard Management Controller The Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) is the main controller for Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI), a common interface to hardware and firmware used to monitor system health and manage t...
Page 14 - Chipkill; SMP Capabilities
14 BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper www.hitachi.com • ECC — The ECC can correct an error in consecutive four bits in any four DIMM set (i.e., a fault in one DRAM device). This function is equivalent to technology generally referred to as Chipkill and allows the contents of memory to be re...
Page 15 - PCI Bus
www.hitachi.com BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper 15 Figure 6. Hitachi Node Controller connects multiple server blades By dividing the SMP system across several server blades, the memory bus contention problem is solved by virtue of the distributed design. A processor’s access to its on-bo...
Page 16 - SMP Configuration Options; • 256 GB memory (64 GB per server blades x 4); NUMA Architecture
16 BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper www.hitachi.com SMP Configuration Options BladeSymphony 1000 supports two socket (four-core) Intel Itanium Server Blades that can be scaled to offer up to two 16 core servers in a single chassis or eight four core servers, or a mixture of SMP and single...
Page 17 - Figure 8. Full interleave mode and non-interleave mode
www.hitachi.com BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper 17 • Full interleave mode (or SMP mode) — Intended for use with an OS without support for the NUMA architecture or with inadequate support for NUMA. In full interleave mode, main memory is interleaved between CPU modules in units. Since mem...
Page 18 - L3 Cache Copy Tag; Figure 10. L3 cache copy tag process; Intel Itanium I/O Expansion Module
18 BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper www.hitachi.com L3 Cache Copy Tag The data residing in caches and main memory across Intel Itanium Server Blades are kept in sync by using a snooping cache coherency protocol. When one of the Intel Itanium processors needs to access memory, the requeste...
Page 20 - Chapter 4; Intel Xeon Server Blade; Figure 13. Intel Xeon Server Blade; Dual Core Intel Xeon Processor; Series
20 BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper www.hitachi.com Chapter 4 Intel Xeon Server Blade The eight slot BladeSymphony 1000 can accommodate a total of up to eight Dual-Socket, Dual-Core or Quad-Core Intel Xeon Server Blades for up to 64 cores per system. Each Intel Xeon Server Blade supports ...
Page 21 - Intel Xeon 5200 Dual Core Processors; Capacity
www.hitachi.com BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper 21 Intel Xeon 5200 Dual Core Processors The Dual-Core Intel Xeon 5200 Series processors utilizes two 45 nm Hi-k next generation Intel Core microarchitecture cores. The processors feature fast data throughput with Intel I/O Acceleration Tech...
Page 22 - plug; Intel Xeon 5400 Quad Core Processors; Other features include:; Memory System
22 BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper www.hitachi.com • Intel VT Flex Migration — Intel hardware-assisted virtualization provides the ability to perform live virtual machine migration to enable fail-over, load balancing, disaster recovery, and real-time server maintenance. • New features in...
Page 23 - Advanced ECC; Table 5: Online spare memory supported configurations; Bank
www.hitachi.com BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper 23 Advanced ECC Conventional ECC is intended to correct 1-bit errors and detect 2-bit errors. Advanced ECC, also known as Chipkill, corrects up to four or eight bits of an error that occurs in a DRAM installed on a x4- DRAM or x8-DRAM type ...
Page 24 - Memory Mirroring
24 BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper www.hitachi.com For example, in Configuration 1 the shaded BANK 4 is a spare bank. Assume that the memory correctable errors occur frequently in a memory on BANK 3. BIOS, which keeps counting the memory correctable errors on each bank, activates the onl...
Page 26 - Chapter 5
26 BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper www.hitachi.com Chapter 5 I/O Sub System I/O Modules Hitachi engineers go to great lengths to design systems that provide high I/O throughput. BladeSymphony 1000 PCI I/O Modules deliver up to 160 Gb/sec. throughput by providing a total of up to 16 PCI s...
Page 27 - PCIe I/O Module Combo Card; Figure 17. PCIe I/O Combo Card block diagram; Embedded Fibre Channel Switch Module; Name; PCI Hot Plug; Flash
www.hitachi.com BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper 27 Table 6 provides information on the connector types for PCI-X I/O Modules. PCIe I/O Module To provide more flexibility and to support newer PCI cards, a PCIe I/O module is available. The PCIe I/O Module supports eight PCIe cards in total...
Page 29 - Figure 20. Embedded Fibre Channel Switch Module block diagram
www.hitachi.com BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper 29 Figure 20. Embedded Fibre Channel Switch Module block diagram The Embedded Fibre Channel Switch Module is configured with three components: A Brocade Fibre Channel switch, Fibre Channel HBAs, and network adapters. Directly connecting the...
Page 30 - Table 7: Embedded Fibre Channel Switch Module components; Function
30 BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper www.hitachi.com Figure 21. Embedded Fibre Channel Switch Module connection diagram, eliminating 16 cables Table 7 provides the details on the features of the Embedded Fibre Channel Switch module. Table 7: Embedded Fibre Channel Switch Module components ...
Page 32 - Management Software; Table 8: Hitachi FC Controller FC-HBA functions
32 BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper www.hitachi.com The Hitachi FC Controller FC-HBA supports the functions in Table 8. Management Software Developed exclusively for BladeSymphony 1000, the BladeSymphony management software manages all of the hardware components of BladeSymphony 1000 in a...
Page 33 - Embedded Gigabit Ethernet Switch
www.hitachi.com BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper 33 Embedded Gigabit Ethernet Switch The Embedded Gigabit Ethernet Switch is contained in the Switch & Management Module and is a managed, standards-based Layer 2 switch that provides gigabit networking through cableless LAN connections....
Page 34 - SCSI Hard Drive Modules; Table 9: Embedded Gigabit Ethernet Switch features
34 BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper www.hitachi.com SCSI Hard Drive Modules The BladeSymphony 1000 supports two types of storage modules containing 73 or 146 GB 15K RPM Ultra320 SCSI drives in the type B chassis only. The 3x HDD Module can have up to three drives installed. The 6x HDD mod...
Page 35 - Figure 25. Connection configuration for HDD Modules
www.hitachi.com BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper 35 A SCSI or RAID type PCI card must be installed in a PCI slot in an I/O module to act as the controller of the storage module. A PCI card is combined with a storage module, as shown in Figure 25, by connecting the SCSI cable from the PCI ...
Page 36 - Chapter 7; Table 10: Chassis specifications; Module
36 BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper www.hitachi.com Chapter 7 Chassis, Power, and Cooling The BladeSymphony 1000 chassis houses all of the modules previously discussed, as well as a passive backplane, Power Supply Modules, Cooling Fan Modules, and the Switch & Management Modules. The ...
Page 37 - Module Connections
www.hitachi.com BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper 37 Module Connections Chassis A can have up to eight server blades mounted, with two PCI-X slots per server blade. Storage modules cannot be mounted on these chassis. Chassis B can have three types of I/O modules mounted. If a PCI-X I/O Mod...
Page 38 - Redundant Cooling Fan Modules; • Control rotation
38 BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper www.hitachi.com power redundancy, it boots the system after issuing a warning by illuminating the Warning LED. Hot swapping is not possible in the absence of redundant power. Redundant Cooling Fan Modules The Cooling Fan Modules cool the system with var...
Page 39 - Chapter 6; Reliability and Serviceability Features; Reliability Features; Table 11: Reliability features
www.hitachi.com BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper 39 Chapter 6 Reliability and Serviceability Features Reliability, availability, and serviceability are key requirements for platforms running business-critical application services. In today’s globally competitive environment, where users a...
Page 40 - Serviceability Features; Switch & Management Module; Figure 28. Switch & Management Module components
40 BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper www.hitachi.com Serviceability Features Switch & Management Module The Switch & Management Module is designed to control the system unit and monitor the environment. Figure 28 shows the block diagram of the module. This module and other system c...
Page 41 - Table 12: Switch & Management Module components
www.hitachi.com BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper 41 SVP manages the entire BladeSymphony 1000 device. It also provides a user interface for management via the SVP console. SVP provides the following functions: • Module configuration management (module type, installation location, etc.) wi...
Page 42 - • Panel control
42 BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper www.hitachi.com • Panel control • Log information management within BladeSymphony 1000 (RC logs, SEL, SVP logs, etc.). • SVP hot standby configuration control • Server Conductor (server management software) interaction function. (Including a function fo...
Page 43 - • Reset control — controlling hard reset and dump reset; Console Functions; workstation; OS Console
www.hitachi.com BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper 43 The Base Management Controller provides the following functions: • Initial diagnosis — initial diagnosis/setting of BMC and BMC's peripheral hardware • Power control — controlling of power input and shutdown for modules • Reset control —...
Page 44 - SVP Console
44 BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper www.hitachi.com SVP Console This function is shared between the Intel Itanium and Intel Xeon Server Blades. SVP console is a console under SVP, and provides a user interface for system management. SVP console provides the following functions: • Setup an...
Page 45 - Chapter 8; Operating System Support; BladeSymphony Management Suite; Figure 30. BladeSymphony Management Suite
www.hitachi.com BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper 45 Chapter 8 Management Software BladeSymphony 1000 delivers an exceptional range of choices and enterprise-class versatility with multi-OS support and comprehensive management software options. Operating System Support With support for Mic...
Page 46 - Deployment Manager; Operations Management
46 BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper www.hitachi.com BladeSymphony Management Suite provides centralized system management and control of all server, network, and storage resources, including the ability to setup and configure servers, monitor server resources, integrate with enterprise ma...
Page 47 - feature with a power control schedule.; Remote Management
www.hitachi.com BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper 47 – Setting a failover schedule for cluster groups, based on specific dates or at specified times on a weekly schedule. The user can achieve more detailed cluster management by combining this feature with a power control schedule. – Using ...
Page 48 - Chapter 9; Virtage; • Increased server utilization rates; High CPU Performance and Features
48 BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper www.hitachi.com Chapter 9 Virtage Virtage is a key technical differentiator for BladeSymphony 1000. It brings mainframe-class virtualization to blade computing. Leveraging Hitachi’s decades of development work on mainframe virtualization technology, Vir...
Page 49 - Dedicated Mode
www.hitachi.com BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper 49 And the host intervention code is tuned for the latest Itanium hardware features, minimizing the performance impact to guests. Virtage offers two modes in which processor resources can be distributed among the different logical partition...
Page 50 - Fiber Channel Virtualization
50 BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper www.hitachi.com Fiber Channel Virtualization Hitachi also offers Fibre Channel I/O virtualization for Virtage. This allows multiple logical partitions to access a storage device through a single Fiber Channel card, allowing fewer physical connections be...
Page 51 - Summary; • Support for dual-core Intel Itanium 9000 Series processors; For More Information
www.hitachi.com BladeSymphony 1000 Architecture White Paper 51 Chapter 10 Summary In the past, inadequate scalability, compromises in I/O and other capabilities, excessive heat generation, and increased complexity in blade environments caused many data center managers to shy away from using blade se...