Compaq ProLiant 8000 User manual

TECHNOLOGYBRIEF
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June 2000
Compaq Computer
Corporation
ISSD Technology
Communications
CONTENTS
Introduction....................... 3
High-Performance
Technologies ..................... 3
ProLiant 8000 Architecture......4
Pentium III Xeon
Processor Technology...........10
High-Availability
Technologies ....................11
PCI Hot Plug Technology......11
Redundant Array
Controller Technology...........12
Redundant Network Interface
Controller Technology...........12
Redundant Hot-Plug Fans.....13
Redundant Processor
Power Modules.....................15
Redundant Hot-Plug
Power Supplies ....................15
Hot-Plug Hard Disk Drives.....18
Storage
Technologies ....................18
Hard Drive Technology..........18
Array Controller Technology..18
Management
Technologies ....................19
Remote-Flash
Redundant ROM...................19
Auto-Default
ROM Configuration ...............20
Integrated Management
Display.................................21
Integrated Remote Console...21
Remote Insight
Board/PCI Option .................21
Serviceability
Features............................22
Conclusion........................22
Compaq ProLiant 8000 Server Technology
This technology brief describes the high-performance, high-availability, storage, and
management technologies built into the Compaq ProLiant 8000 server. The high-
performance technologies include a new 8-way system architecture driven by the
Profusion chipset codeveloped by Compaq, Intel, and Corollary, as well as Intel’s
Pentium III Xeon processors. In addition, new disk drive technology and a new extended
SCSI controller with redundancy capability allows the ProLiant 8000 server to deliver
maximum highly available internal storage capacity.
The high-availability technologies include redundant internal array controllers; PCI Hot
Plug technology; redundant hot-plug power supplies, drives, and fans; and redundant
processor power modules. The ProLiant 8000 design also contains easy-access
components that reduce downtime for service or upgrades. Key management
technologies, such as the Integrated Remote Console, Integrated Management Display,
Remote-flash Redundant ROM, and auto-default ROM configuration, further enhance
availability.
The intended audience for this paper is engineers and system administrators familiar
with existing Compaq technology and servers. For those less familiar with Compaq
technology, please see the related technology briefs referenced in this document. For
more information about the ProLiant 8000 server, see the complete list of features at
http://www.compaq.com/products/servers/ProLiant8000/quickspecs.html.
Please direct comments regarding this communication to the ISSD Technology Communications Group at this Internet
address: TechCo[email protected]m

TECHNOLOGY BRIEF (cont.)
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NOTICE
The information in this publication is subject to change without notice and is provided “AS IS”
WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. THE ENTIRE RISK ARISING OUT OF THE USE
OF THIS INFORMATION REMAINS WITH RECIPIENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL COMPAQ
BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, PUNITIVE
OR OTHER DAMAGES WHATSOEVER (INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION,
DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF BUSINESS PROFITS, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION OR LOSS OF
BUSINESS INFORMATION), EVEN IF COMPAQ HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
The limited warranties for Compaq products are exclusively set forth in the documentation
accompanying such products. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting a further or
additional warranty.
This publication does not constitute an endorsement of the product or products that were tested.
The configuration or configurations tested or described may or may not be the only available
solution. This test is not a determination of product quality or correctness, nor does it ensure
compliance with any federal state or local requirements.
Compaq, Contura, Deskpro, Fastart, Compaq Insight Manager, LTE, PageMarq, Systempro,
Systempro/LT, ProLiant, TwinTray, ROMPaq, LicensePaq, QVision, SLT, ProLinea, SmartStart,
NetFlex, DirectPlus, QuickFind, RemotePaq, BackPaq, TechPaq, SpeedPaq, QuickBack, PaqFax,
Presario, SilentCool, CompaqCare (design), Aero, SmartStation, MiniStation, and PaqRap,
ProSignia, Concerto, Vocalyst, and MediaPilot are registered with the United States Patent and
Trademark Office.
Change is Good, Compaq Capital, Colinq, Armada, SmartQ, Counselor, CarePaq, Netelligent,
Smart Uplink, Extended Repeater Architecture, Scalable Clock Architecture, QuickChoice,
Systempro/XL, Net1, LTE Elite, PageMate, SoftPaq, FirstPaq, SolutionPaq, EasyPoint, EZ Help,
MaxLight, MultiLock, QuickBlank, QuickLock, UltraView, Innovate logo, and Compaq PC Card
Solution logo are trademarks and/or service marks of Compaq Computer Corporation.
Microsoft, Windows, Windows NT, Windows NT Advanced Server, SQL Server for Windows NT
are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
NetWare and Novell are registered trademarks and IntranetWare, NDS, and Novell Directory
Services are trademarks of Novell, Inc.
Pentium is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation.
Other product names mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their
respective companies.
©2000 Compaq Computer Corporation. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A.
Compaq ProLiant 8000 Server Technology
Second Edition (June 2000)
Document Number TC000603TB

TECHNOLOGY BRIEF (cont.)
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INTRODUCTION
In today’s business environment, enterprise customers require powerful servers with fault-tolerant
features to keep their businesses running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They also need servers
that are easy to manage and will scale to meet future requirements.
Providing breakthrough performance, the ProLiant 8000 server offers outstanding scalability from
one to eight Intel Pentium III Xeon processors, up to 16 GB of synchronous dynamic random
access memory (SDRAM), and 11 PCI slots. The ProLiant 8000 server delivers massive internal
storage, with capacity for more than 380 GB of internal Wide Ultra-3 SCSI hot-plug storage. A
new extended SCSI array controller provides cable-free connections to the drive cages and allows
all three drive cages to be configured as a single contiguous array or as separate arrays. High-
availability features, including optional redundant array controllers, push-button PCI Hot Plug, hot-
plug redundant fans, redundant hot-plug power supplies, Compaq Remote-flash Redundant ROM,
and redundant processor power modules (PPMs), keep the ProLiant 8000 server up and running in
the most demanding 7x24 environments.
The ProLiant 8000 server provides all of the high-availability and manageability features of the
ProLiant 7000 server with added performance and scalability—all in a similar price class. In
addition, Compaq delivers on its commitment to superior investment protection by offering a
ProLiant 7000 in-chassis upgrade to 8-way architecture. Customers can leverage their ProLiant
7000 investment by keeping the chassis and serial number and replacing only select components for
the upgrade. For more information, see the 8-way upgrade website at
http://www.compaq.com/upgrade/8-way.
This technology brief explains the features of the ProLiant 8000 server and describes the
management and storage technologies that enhance performance and availability. Many of these
technologies are covered in more detail in separate technology briefs, which are referenced in this
document.
HIGH-PERFORMANCE TECHNOLOGIES
The Compaq ProLiant 8000 server is a powerful, industry-leading technology solution for
distributed enterprise computing. A revolutionary new 8-way system architecture allows the
ProLiant 8000 server to deliver unsurpassed performance. This new architecture is the first
implementation in the industry of the Profusion chipset and features Pentium III Xeon processors.
Compaq servers using this architecture provide new levels of performance without requiring
modifications or special releases of operating systems (OSs) or applications. The Compaq 8-way
architecture provides nearly linear scalability for up to eight processors running under Microsoft
Windows NT 4.0, Microsoft Windows 2000, Novell NetWare, or SCO UnixWare. The 8-way
architecture delivers superior performance and price:performance for processor-intensive
applications such as Microsoft Terminal Server and Oracle databases; for memory-intensive
applications such as Lotus Notes, Microsoft Exchange, and SAP solutions; and for input/output
(I/O) intensive applications such as Microsoft SQL Server.
PCI – peripheral component
interconnect
SCSI – small computer system
interface
ROM – read only memory

TECHNOLOGY BRIEF (cont.)
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ProLiant 8000 Architecture
The system architecture is the key to the high level of performance offered by the ProLiant 8000
server. Compaq worked closely with Intel and Corollary for three years to perfect the 8-way
symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) architecture so that the processors, memory, and I/O subsystem
work in harmony to deliver breakthrough levels of performance. Figure 1 illustrates the
architecture used in the ProLiant 8000 server. The essential features of the architecture include:
•Profusion five-point crossbar switch
•Dual 100-MHz processor buses
•Dual 100-MHz memory buses, each with its own memory controller
•Dedicated 100-MHz I/O bus
•Support for up to eight Pentium III Xeon processors
•Support for up to 16 GB of two-way, cache-line interleaved SDRAM
•Dual cache accelerators
•I/O filter
•Three Compaq designed host-to-PCI bridges
Left Cache
Accelerator
Left Cache
Accelerator Right Cache
Accelerator
Right Cache
Accelerator
SDRAM
SDRAM SDRAM SDRAM
800 MB/s
Pentium III
Xeon Pentium III Xeon Pentium III Xeon Pentium III Xeon Pentium III Xeon Pentium III
Xeon Pentium III
Xeon Pentium III Xeon
800 MB/s GTL+ left bus 800 MB/s GTL+ right bus
Profusion
Profusion
64-bit, 33-MHz PCI
266 MB/s 64-bit, 66-MHz PCI
533 MB/s
Compaq
Host-to-PCI
Bridge
Compaq
Host-to-PCI
Bridge
Compaq
Host-to-PCI
Bridge
Compaq
Host-to-PCI
Bridge
Compaq
Host-to-PCI
Bridge
Compaq
Host-to-PCI
Bridge
800 MB/s GTL I/O bus
32-bit, 33-MHz PCI
133 MB/s
2-Way Cache-Line Interleaved
Figure 1: Block diagram of the ProLiant 8000 system architecture.

TECHNOLOGY BRIEF (cont.)
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Profusion Chipset
At the heart of the 8-way architecture is the Profusion chipset. The chipset uses a five-point
crossbar switch (Figure 2) to connect processor buses, memory ports, and the I/O bus. The
crossbar switch contains static random access memory (SRAM) with ten ports—five read and five
write—that appear as five bidirectional ports, one for each of the processor, memory, and I/O
buses. The switch may connect two ports directly or may store data from the originating bus in the
SRAM before it is transferred to the destination bus. This nonblocking design allows simultaneous
read and write accesses from all five buses, which results in better system performance.
10-Port SRAM
I/O Interface
Memory Interface Memory Interface
Processor Interface
Processor Interface
Right Processor Bus
Left Processor Bus
I/O Bus
Right Memory PortLeft Memory Port
Figure 2: Block diagram of the Profusion crossbar switch.
The Profusion crossbar switch provides direct paths from each memory bus to each processor bus
and to the I/O bus. Depending on the status of the system, the direct paths can be used to bypass
the SRAM, thus reducing latency and improving performance. The direct paths are used only to
read data. To improve processor utilization and performance, write data is always posted to the
SRAM and written to main memory later.
The Profusion crossbar switch consists of two physical chips—the memory address controller
(MAC) and the data interface buffer (DIB). This functional partitioning of the application-specific
integrated circuit (ASIC), as shown in Figure 3, improves system performance. For every
transaction from a processor or an I/O controller, the address and command portions are routed
through the MAC and the data is routed through the DIB. The MAC manages the external cache
accelerators and tracks the information stored in the DIB. The DIB allows simultaneous data
transfer on all five ports, has 64-cache-line buffers, and uses error-correcting code to maintain data
integrity. The cache-line buffers can be used by any transaction for any device on any bus; and
since there are no dedicated queues between buses, the efficiency of the buffers is high. This
improves system performance.

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Processor
bus
Cache
Accelerator
Processor
bus
address
data
address
data
Memory
Array
Memory
Array
I/O bus data address
AA
DD
Memory Access
Controller (MAC)
Data Interface
Buffer (DIB)
address
Cache
Accelerator
Figure 3: ASIC partitioning in the Profusion chipset.
Processor and I/O Buses
The ProLiant 8000 server includes two 64-bit processor buses and a dedicated 64-bit I/O bus. All
three are 100-MHz advanced Gunning transceiver logic plus (AGTL+) buses with a theoretical
maximum throughput of 800 MB/s. AGTL+ buses facilitate higher clock speeds without
significantly reducing the bus length or number of electrical loads. Each 100-MHz AGTL+ bus
can support a maximum of five loads per bus. This allows four processors and one connection to
the memory controller on each processor bus. The use of two processor buses enables the ProLiant
8000 server to support up to eight Pentium III Xeon processors.
The Profusion chipset joins the two processor buses, the I/O bus, and the two memory ports. The
otherwise independent processor and I/O buses are joined by a logical connection that is made only
when required to transfer data. Each of the three AGTL+ buses has independent access to the two
memory ports. This architecture prevents I/O traffic from consuming bandwidth on the processor
bus. In addition, the use of 100-MHz buses and five independent paths allows the crossbar switch
to deliver an aggregate instantaneous peak throughput of 4 GB/s—unprecedented high performance
for customers.
Memory Subsystem
The ProLiant 8000 memory subsystem includes dual 100-MHz buses, each with its own memory
controller. The use of two memory buses increases memory bandwidth, reduces access conflicts,
and increases the quantity of memory supported. Memory attached to each of the buses is cache-
line interleaved, which means the buses share a common address range. One memory bus responds
to even-numbered cache lines, and the other bus responds to odd-numbered cache lines. This
configuration allows simultaneous use of both memory buses, which theoretically doubles
throughput. It is especially advantageous for applications that access memory randomly. In
random accesses, roughly half the requests at any one time are even-numbered lines, while the other
half are odd-numbered lines.

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The memory subsystem uses uniform memory access, which reduces latency and gives all
processors equal access times to either memory bus. In systems using nonuniform memory access
architectures, a processor has quick access to one memory bus but incurs a lag time (or latency)
when accessing a second memory bus.
The ProLiant 8000 server supports up to 16 GB of error checking and correcting SDRAM that
corrects all single-bit errors and detects double-bit errors. Memory is divided into eight banks,
each consisting of two dual inline memory modules.
Although the Profusion chipset supports up to 32 GB of memory, industry-standard OSs provide
only minimal support and scalability for this memory capacity, and enhanced support will not be
available for an extended period. Also, in discussions with customers, Compaq learned that very
few server implementations are fully configured with memory. With this in mind, Compaq used the
internal server space to provide additional drive capacity in the ProLiant 8000 server. As customer
requirements and OS capabilities increase in the future, Compaq will continue to modify servers to
match these requirements.
Cache Accelerators
One of the main challenges of designing an efficient SMP architecture is maintaining cache
coherency. To allow faster access to memory, most processors write data to cache memory rather
than to main memory. When a processor writes data to its cache, the cache has a newer copy of the
data than main memory. Cache coherency ensures that the most recent copy of the data is read by
any device that requests it. The cache coherency protocol essentially makes the cache look like
main memory. Cache coherency is critical for the proper operation of an SMP architecture, and the
performance and scalability of the architecture is affected by how efficiently it maintains cache
coherency.
With multiple processor buses and a separate I/O bus, it is extremely challenging to maintain cache
coherency in the 8-way architecture. Each memory access must look at, or snoop, the caches on its
local processor bus and snoop all caches on the remote processor bus and the I/O bus. The amount
of snoop traffic can significantly impact the scalability of the system.
The ProLiant 8000 architecture uses cache accelerators to minimize snoop traffic to the remote
processor bus and I/O bus. The cache accelerators store the address and state of the data for all
caches on their respective buses. The Profusion crossbar switch uses this information to determine
whether to snoop the remote processor and I/O buses. Depending on how often a software
application shares data, the reduction in snoop traffic can significantly improve overall system
performance and scalability.
I/O Filter
The ProLiant 8000 server also includes three Compaq host-to-PCI bridges with prefetch buffers, so
they act as caching bridges. The Profusion chipset contains a built-in I/O filter for the caching
bridges on the I/O bus. The I/O filter enhances performance by reducing snoop traffic on the I/O
bus. This I/O filter is designed to work with all three of the Compaq host-to-PCI bridges. When a
processor requests a cache line with the intent to modify it, the MAC performs a lookup into the
I/O filter to determine if that line resides in one of the caching bridges. If it does reside there, the
MAC initiates a transaction on the I/O bus to invalidate that cache line. If the cache line is not
present in one of the bridges, then no transaction is run on the bus.

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Compaq Host-to-PCI Bridges
The Compaq host-to-PCI bridges included in the ProLiant 8000 server were engineered to enhance
performance of the Profusion chipset. They include the following features:
•64-bit, 66-MHz PCI support with a theoretical peak throughput of 533 MB/s
•Delayed transaction support
•Asynchronous design to accommodate multiple bus frequencies
•Multiple prefetch buffers
•PCI Hot Plug technology
•Peer-to-peer transaction support
64-Bit, 66-MHz PCI Support
Compaq licensed the host-to-PCI bridges to Intel, and they will ship with a Compaq logo on top in
servers produced by other original equipment manufacturers. The bridges are compliant with the
PCI 2.2 Specification1and support 64-bit, 66-MHz PCI transactions.
The ProLiant 8000 server supports three bridges with up to eleven I/O expansion slots. PCI Bus 1
operates at 33 MHz and includes one 32-bit PCI Hot Plug slot and three 64-bit PCI Hot Plug slots.
PCI Bus 2 is also a 33-MHz bus and includes five 64-bit PCI Hot Plug slots. PCI Bus 3 operates at
66 MHz with two 64-bit PCI Hot Plug slots.
The Compaq 8-way architecture will support up to four Compaq host-to-PCI bridges. However, by
incorporating only three host-to-PCI bridges, the ProLiant 8000 server has room on the I/O board
to deliver an additional PCI slot, a meaningful advantage for enterprise customers who consistently
request additional capacity.
Delayed Transactions
One of the most important features of Compaq’s host-to-PCI bridge is that it supports delayed PCI
transactions, which improve bus performance. In a delayed PCI transaction, the device that
initiates the transaction polls the host-to-PCI bridge to determine if the requested data is there,
rather than holding the bus while waiting for the data. This allows other devices to use the bus
while the transaction is completed. To further improve bus efficiency, Compaq built in additional
features to reduce the amount of polling.
Asynchronous Design
The bridge is split into two sections: upstream (host I/O side) and downstream (PCI side). All the
functions on the upstream side are in the host processor clock domain at 100 MHz. All functions
on the downstream side are in the PCI clock domain at up to 66 MHz. This asynchronous design is
a flexible solution for supporting multiple clock speeds.
Multiple Prefetch Buffers
The Compaq host-to-PCI bridge is designed with multiple prefetch buffers to ensure optimum I/O-
to-processor performance. Each buffer can hold multiple cache lines. These buffers are sized to
provide optimal performance at a reasonable and cost-effective die size. Because of the delayed
transaction support, the bridge can get data for multiple PCI devices concurrently. Other
controllers can hold only a single cache line and a single request at a time.
1PCI Local Bus Specification, Revision 2.2, announced January 25, 1999, PCI Special Interest
Group.

TECHNOLOGY BRIEF (cont.)
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PCI Hot Plug Technology
The host-to-PCI bridges include electronics to support PCI Hot Plug technology, which was
pioneered by Compaq. PCI Hot Plug technology provides the ability to remove, replace, upgrade,
and add PCI adapters without shutting down the server. Any PCI adapter can be placed in a PCI
Hot Plug slot; however, PCI Hot Plug device drivers and OS support are required to enable PCI
Hot Plug functionality.
Peer-to-Peer Transactions
The host-to-PCI bridges also support PCI peer-to-peer transactions. They allow communications
between two devices on the same PCI bus segment. They also allow communication across the I/O
bus between PCI devices on different PCI bus segments (Figure 4).
PCI Device 1
Host-to-PCI Bridge
I/O 100 MHz Bus
Processor Bus
PCI Bus
Host-to-PCI Bridge
PCI Device 2
PCI Device 3
PCI Device 4
PCI Bus
PCI Device 5
Figure 4: Schematic of peer-to-peer communications between PCI devices on different I/O bus segments.
Microprocessors embedded in the PCI devices make these devices “intelligent” and perform the
communication tasks otherwise handled by the processors. Thus, the host-to-PCI bridges enhance
performance by freeing the system processors to do other work.

TECHNOLOGY BRIEF (cont.)
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Pentium III Xeon Processor Technology
The Pentium III Xeon processor is based on the Pentium II Xeon processor cartridge form factor.
The Pentium III Xeon processor provides a higher internal core frequency than the Pentium II
Xeon processor and includes 70 new streaming instructions that permit more efficient use of
memory above 4 GB. The Pentium III Xeon processor includes the following features:
•Minimum 550-MHz core frequency
•330-contact slot connector form factor (formerly called Slot 2)
•Full-speed cache on module
•512-KB (550-MHz only), 1-MB, or 2-MB Level 2 (L2) cache
•Katmai core logic
Level 2 Cache
Each Pentium III Xeon processor includes an L2 cache sized at 512 KB, 1 MB, or 2 MB that
operates on a full-speed backside bus. The large cache size and full-speed backside bus enable
very efficient access to the most frequently used data. This reduces traffic on the host bus and
notably enhances performance.
Katmai Core Logic
Aside from speed and cache size increases, the main difference between the Pentium II Xeon and
Pentium III Xeon processors is the migration to the Katmai core logic. The Katmai core logic adds
the following enhancements to the existing Intel core:
•Memory streaming
•Concurrent Single Instruction Multiple Data – Floating Point (SIMD-FP)
•Katmai New Instructions (KNI)
Memory Streaming
Memory streaming is a set of techniques that increase the utilization of the memory bus during
memory reads and writes. Processors must frequently wait for data not stored in cache memory to
be retrieved from system memory. Because the system bus connecting the memory to the processor
is slower than the processor core speed, this results in a performance bottleneck. Katmai’s memory
streaming enables the processor to prefetch data from system memory to cache memory.
During writes to memory, other new instructions can tell the processor to bypass the L2 cache and
write data directly back to memory. Bypassing the L2 cache frees room in the cache for more data.
This technique is useful when the software programmer knows in advance that the data will not be
requested again in the near future.
Concurrent SIMD-FP
Concurrent SIMD-FP applies the same architecture used by MMX for integer operations to
floating-point numbers. Floating-point numbers are used extensively in 3D graphics and scientific
computations. Katmai processors have eight new registers that can each hold four single-precision
floating-point numbers. Once the registers are filled, a single instruction can be used to add,
subtract, or do other operations between the registers. For example, eight floating-point numbers
could be added together using one instruction call.

TECHNOLOGY BRIEF (cont.)
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Katmai New Instructions
KNI refers to the addition of 70 new instructions to the MMX instruction set. The new instructions
primarily refer to the new SIMD-FP registers, but some new integer instructions also have been
added. The new instructions are particularly useful for multimedia applications such as 3D
rendering and video encoding and decoding.
HIGH-AVAILABILITY TECHNOLOGIES
Tolerance of server downtime continues to decrease, as companies become more global,
decentralized, and aware of downtime costs. The ProLiant 8000 server answers the demand for
high availability by incorporating the following features into the server hardware:
•PCI Hot Plug technology
•Redundant array controller technology
•Redundant network interface controller (NIC) technology
•Redundant, hot-plug fans
•Redundant PPMs
•Redundant, hot-plug power supplies
•Hot-plug drives
Redundant components help ensure that the server is highly fault tolerant. In redundant
configurations, if a power supply, fan, or PPM fails, the redundant standby component can take
over operation with no downtime to the server. With the addition of hot-plug capabilities, server
downtime can be eliminated while components are being replaced, added, or upgraded.
PCI Hot Plug Technology
The Compaq ProLiant 8000 server incorporates industry-standard PCI Hot Plug technology. This
technology, pioneered by Compaq, adds hot-plug capabilities to existing PCI adapters for increased
system availability and serviceability. Compaq led the industry by licensing its PCI Hot Plug
implementation to Intel, thus broadening customer access to this industry-standard technology.
Compaq’s implementation of PCI Hot Plug incorporates electronics into the server to control each
PCI Hot Plug slot individually, so that a single slot can be powered down without affecting the
operation of the other slots. Compaq’s implementation of the PCI Hot Plug standard allows the
following capabilities while the system is running:
•Hot replacement – replacing a single PCI adapter with a similar adapter
•Hot upgrade – replacing a PCI adapter with an upgraded adapter
•Hot expansion – adding a PCI adapter to an empty slot
The ProLiant 8000 server supports all three hot-plug capabilities for all 64-bit and 32-bit PCI Hot
Plug slots. These capabilities can be added incrementally, depending on the OS implementation.

TECHNOLOGY BRIEF (cont.)
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For more information about major OS vendors that support PCI Hot Plug, refer to the following
Compaq technology briefs:
•PCI Hot Plug Technology, document number ECG080/0698
•PCI Hot Plug Technology with Novell Architecture, document number ECG081/0698
•PCI Hot Plug Technology with SCO Software Architecture, document number ECG082/0698
•PCI Hot Plug Technology with Microsoft Windows Architecture, document number
ECG071/0399
Redundant Array Controller Technology
The ProLiant 8000 server supports up to two Compaq Smart Array 4250ES controllers in a
redundant configuration. The Smart Array 4250ES controller is specially designed for use in the
ProLiant 8000 server. See “Storage Technologies” for more information on the array controller
technology in the ProLiant 8000 server.
Smart Array 4250ES controllers may be used in PCI connectors 10 and 11. These connectors
attach the 64-bit PCI bus and four Wide Ultra-3 SCSI buses to the Smart Array 4250ES controllers.
All five buses are common to both connectors, and thus common to both controllers. Three of the
SCSI buses are routed to SCSI connectors on the I/O board. Cables are preinstalled from these
three SCSI connectors to the three SCSI drive cages. The fourth SCSI bus serves as a link between
the two controllers. This link allows two Smart Array 4250ES controllers to be easily installed in
the ProLiant 8000 server to provide controller redundancy. The Smart Array 4250ES controller is
a Wide Ultra SCSI device so the internal drive cages and the Wide Ultra-3 SCSI buses will run in
Wide Ultra SCSI mode.
The two controllers monitor each other’s status and maintain cache coherency between them. Both
controllers (the primary and secondary controller) are attached to the same drives in an active-
standby mode. If the primary controller fails, the secondary controller immediately assumes
command of the drive array with no interruption of server operation or loss of data. PCI Hot Plug
technology allows a failed controller to be replaced without rebooting the server.
The SCSI subsystem uses a simplified cable design that allows the drive cages to be connected
directly to the I/O board. The design eliminates cumbersome loop-back cables while allowing
cable-free redundancy and hot-plug capability.
Redundant Network Interface Controller Technology
Compaq’s redundant Netelligent NIC technology allows two similar NICs to share a single instance
of device driver code. One NIC becomes the active network controller and the other NIC acts as a
standby controller. If the active NIC fails, the network traffic is automatically switched to the
standby NIC. This redundancy eliminates the NIC or cable as a single point of failure. With PCI
Hot Plug technology, the failed NIC can be replaced without rebooting the system. Thus, the end
user can have continuous service and the administrator can greatly reduce planned and unplanned
downtime.
The ProLiant 8000 server supports a Compaq NC3131 Fast Ethernet controller on the PCI local
bus. The NIC has two ports for 10BaseT or 100TX Ethernet. The ports are seen as two separate
local area networks, both supporting full-duplex Ethernet (20 Mb/s) and Fast Ethernet (200 Mb/s).
Redundancy is available across the two ports with one NIC. In addition, the NIC is upgradeable
with a daughter card to an additional two ports of 100BaseTX Ethernet, a single port of 100
BaseFX, or single-port Gigabit Ethernet SX or LX Fiber support. Redundancy is also available
here; the NIC can be configured to failover from the Gigabit daughter card to the dual 10/100 ports
in the event of a failure, thus allowing continued access to the network.

TECHNOLOGY BRIEF (cont.)
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Redundant Hot-Plug Fans
The ProLiant 8000 server has four primary hot-plug fans (external) and four redundant fans
(internal) for the processor and memory section. The rear pair of primary hot-plug fans for the
processor and memory section is enclosed in a single fan unit (Figure 5). This unit can be easily
removed by means of a single thumbscrew. The front pair of primary hot-plug fans is enclosed in
another single fan unit (Figure 6), which can be easily removed by means of a latch. The primary
hot-plug fans spin under rotor control while the internal, redundant fans spin freely in the server
airflow because they are not required for cooling. If the primary fan unit fails, the redundant fans
will start automatically. The hot-plug light-emitting diodes (LEDs) indicate the status of the fans:
green indicates the fans are functioning properly, and amber indicates the fans have failed.
Primary fan unit
Redundant fan unit
Thumbscrew
for removal
Hot-Plug LEDs
Figure 5: Rear hot-plug fans for the processor and memory section of the ProLiant 8000 server.
Hot-Plug LEDs
Latch for removal
Primary fan unit
Redundant fan unit
Figure 6: Front hot-plug fans for the processor and memory section of the ProLiant 8000 server.

TECHNOLOGY BRIEF (cont.)
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The server also has two hot-plug fans for the I/O board in the upper section of the server (Figure 7).
Only one operating fan is needed to cool the I/O board. The other fan provides redundancy. If the
operating fan should fail, the other fan would start automatically and continue cooling the I/O
board. When the failed fan is replaced, redundancy is restored.
Hot-Plug LEDs
Figure 7: Hot-plug fans for the I/O section in the ProLiant 8000 server.
The fan control logic operates independently from the system processor and OS. Regardless of
which OS is running or its condition, the fan control logic and the server temperature monitoring
circuitry work together to cool the server effectively.
The fans have two speeds: normal and high. Under typical operating conditions, the normal fan
speed is sufficient to cool up to 8 processors, 21 hard disk drives, and 11 I/O expansion boards. As
a precaution against increases in ambient air or localized internal temperatures, Compaq
established three thermal trip points, as shown in Figure 8. If the first thermal trip point is reached,
the fans adjust automatically to high speed to increase cooling.
Users can select whether to enable a server response to the second thermal trip point. When
enabled, if the internal air temperature exceeds the second trip point, the OS initiates a controlled
shutdown of the server. Simultaneously, a warning message is sent to the Integrated Management
Display (IMD) and Compaq Insight Manager. The server restarts automatically when it has cooled
sufficiently.
Finally, in the unlikely event server temperature continues to rise, a third trip point shuts down the
power supplies to protect critical components from overheating. The server restarts automatically
when it has cooled sufficiently.

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System Boards
Ambient Probe
Power Supplies
Processors
Power
Supplies
Temperature Monitoring
Circuitry
Fan Control Logic
System Fans
OS
•
Sp
e
•
S
y
•
Har
d
•
Re
s
- Hardware shutdown
- Restart when cool
- Graceful OS shutdown
- System alert
- Restart when cool
- Speed up fans
Figure 8: Schematic diagram of fan control logic.
Redundant Processor Power Modules
Each processor in the ProLiant 8000 server has its own redundant PPM. An additional PPM is
included in the server to power the system board. PPMs are also known as voltage regulator
modules. The PPMs deliver the precise voltage required by the processors.
Compaq PPMs are programmable and support all current and future versions of Xeon processors.
Each PPM has redundant circuitry. If a failure occurs in one circuit of the module, the other circuit
automatically takes over the task of regulating power to the processor.
Redundant Hot-Plug Power Supplies
The ProLiant 8000 server uses one of the newest Compaq technologies to reduce downtime:
intelligent, redundant, hot-plug power supplies. The server ships standard with two dual-rated
1150-watt/500-watt power supplies and supports three power supplies for an N+1 redundant
configuration. The power supplies are connected to a separate power backplane in the server and
include new handles for easier insertion and removal. If one of the power supplies fails, its internal
fans will continue to operate and help cool the server.
The power supply has an embedded microcontroller and an inter-integrated circuit bus that
communicates the status back to the system health drivers.2The health drivers then send status
information to the IMD and to Compaq Insight Manager.
2For additional details about Compaq’s intelligent power supplies, see the technology brief
Intelligent Power Supply Technology, document number ECG016/0198.

TECHNOLOGY BRIEF (cont.)
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The microcontroller performs the following functions:
•Self-test. The intelligent power supplies perform their own power-on self-test (POST) that
checks temperature, RAM integrity, ROM version, analog-to-digital conversion accuracy, and
nonvolatile memory integrity of the power supply.
•Auto Line Sensing. Because the power supplies are rated for both 1150 watts (at 220 volts)
and 500 watts (at 110 volts), a line-sensing feature automatically recognizes which line voltage
is connected. The customer does not need to configure the supply for voltage.
•LED Standby Controls. The microcontroller also drives two status LEDs on the back of the
power supply that indicate power status, as shown in Figure 9. This gives the user vital status
information at a glance.
Clear - Front panel power switch off or open interlock
Flashing Green - Power on delay or software power off
Green - Outputs on and good
Flashing Amber - Failed self test
Amber - Outputs failed
Flashing Amber/Green - Restart failed
Green - AC power good
Clear - AC power not good
Figure 9: Power supply LED status indicators.
Power-Down Controls
As shown in Figure 10, the server power switch connects to the Advanced Configuration and Power
Interface (ACPI) controller rather than directly to the power line. This means that turning off the
power switch does not turn off power instantly. Instead, the ACPI controller communicates with
the system board and the OS. The power-down controls can be configured in one of three ways:
•Secure mode – Power supply will not shut down if power switch is pressed.
•Delay mode – Power supply will shut down after a 10-second delay. This allows time to
reactivate the switch if it was mistakenly pressed.
•Graceful shut down – A 10-second delay counter begins as a message warning of an imminent
power-down goes to Compaq Insight Manager and the IMD. Because of the communication
between the ACPI controller and the OS, the OS can delay the power down until all running
applications have properly closed. Should the OS not be running, the power would go down
when the delay counter expired.
The power-down control feature is supported under Microsoft Windows NT and Novell NetWare.
SCO is planning to implement support for the power-down control in the future.

TECHNOLOGY BRIEF (cont.)
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System
Board
OS
Power
Backplane
Power Supply
AC/DC
Converter AC
DC
Microcontroller
Power
Switch Power On
Soft Power Down
I2C Bus
ACPI
Controller
Figure 10: Power supply schematic.
Load Balancing
The power supplies automatically load balance to within 10 percent of the average current of all
supplies. Before the power comes up, the master power supply matches its output load rails to
those of the other power supplies so that the load is automatically balanced across all power
supplies. If one supply fails, the load balancing feature allows the other supplies to pick up the
remaining power load quickly.
Power Factor Correction
Compaq’s intelligent power supplies have built-in power factor correction to synchronize the
voltage and current phases. This helps ensure that maximum power is available. It also reduces the
return current in the ground line, which reduces the overall power consumption.
Hot-Plug Capability
When a power supply is hot swapped, the microcontroller governs the power-up and power-down
sequences, enables the health drivers to calculate redundancy “on the fly,” and informs the health
drivers of changes in load. Compaq hot-plug power supplies are readily identifiable by their port-
colored bezel, as shown in Figure 11.
Port-colored bezel
Figure 11: Front view of hot-plug power supply with port-colored bezel.

TECHNOLOGY BRIEF (cont.)
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Hot-Plug Hard Disk Drives
The ProLiant 8000 supports up to three Wide Ultra-3 SCSI internal drive cages. Each ProLiant
8000 internal drive cage can support a maximum of seven 1-inch hot-plug drives (for a total of 21
drives with all three drive cages installed). When the server is configured for maximum capacity, it
can support 382 GB of internal storage. Capacity will increase in the future as new drive
technologies emerge.
STORAGE TECHNOLOGIES
As corporations commit more critical information to computers, the requirements for more storage
capacity and faster data movement are increasing at a startling rate. The Compaq ProLiant 8000
server includes new storage technologies that help meet these requirements. New hard drive
technology and a specially designed array controller allow the ProLiant 8000 server to deliver the
highest levels of internal storage capacity faster and with more reliability.
Hard Drive Technology
The Compaq ProLiant 8000 server uses low-voltage differential (LVD) Ultra-3 SCSI hard drives.
These new one-inch drives allow the ProLiant 8000 server to support 21 total drives—three drive
cages with seven hard drives each—for a maximum internal storage capacity of 382 GB of data.
Ultra-3 SCSI hard drives use a 16-bit bus and a double pumped 40-MHz clock rate to achieve
maximum transfer rates of 160 MB/s. This bus speed provides the performance demanded by
today’s data-intensive applications and prevents system performance from becoming I/O limited as
drive throughputs increase.
Although the ProLiant 8000 server supports Wide Ultra-3 SCSI hard drives, the internal drive
cages and the Wide Ultra-3 SCSI buses will run in Wide Ultra SCSI mode with the Smart Array
4250ES controller, which is a Wide Ultra SCSI device.
Array Controller Technology
The ProLiant 8000 server supports up to two Compaq Smart Array 4250ES controllers—providing
high-performance and ease-of-use features. The Smart Array 4250ES controller offers three Wide
Ultra SCSI channels, allowing a single controller to support all three internal hot-plug hard drive
cages in the new ProLiant 8000 server. Since all three drive cages run off the same RAID engine,
all 21 internal hot-plug hard drives can be configured as one massive 382-GB array or multiple
smaller arrays.
Additionally, the Smart Array 4250ES controller uses a 64-bit PCI Hot Plug extended SCSI
connector and a cable-less design that is optimized for the ProLiant 8000 server. The extended
SCSI connector gives customers the flexibility to accommodate both 64-bit and 32-bit technology.
The cable-less design allows the hard drive cages to be directly connected to the I/O board itself,
not the array controller. This means much easier PCI Hot Plug usage and the elimination of
cumbersome loop-back cables.
The Smart Array 4250ES controller supports RAID levels 0, 0+1, 1, 4, and 5. In addition, the
controller uses a Compaq developed RAID 5 engine that optimizes RAID 5 performance. The
controller also supports online spares, which improves overall system fault tolerance by
automatically replacing a failed drive and quickly restoring the system to full RAID protection.
The Smart Array 4250ES controller includes a robust 64 MB of battery-backed read/write cache.
Rechargeable batteries are integrated into the cache, which is actually a removable card installed
onto the Smart Array 4250ES controller base card. The removable DRAM and batteries keep
posted-write data secure in the unlikely event that the base controller board should fail. If a system
RAID – Redundant Array of
Independent Disks

TECHNOLOGY BRIEF (cont.)
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power outage occurs while write data is stored in the cache, the data will be protected for at least
four days on power supplied by the battery backup system. If the base controller board should fail,
the cache board can be installed on a replacement base card. Once system power is returned, the
posted write data is automatically written to disk.
MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGIES
Fault-tolerant, redundant features are only part of what makes Compaq servers highly available.
Compaq offers a range of hardware- and software-based server management tools that can be used
to reduce downtime and increase productivity. The ProLiant 8000 server includes the following
standard tools available to all Compaq servers:
•Automatic Server Recovery. ASR automatically resets the server after a critical hardware or
software error. ASR can reset the server to the OS or to the System Partition Utilities. The
ASR reset function is based on a hardware timer working in conjunction with the Server Health
Drivers. If the Server Health Drivers can no longer reset the hardware timer after some user-
specified amount of time, the server is automatically reset. ASR can also be configured to
page the administrator when an ASR event occurs.
•System Partition Utilities. These utilities assist the system administrator in diagnosing server
problems, configuring new hardware, and upgrading ROMs. For example, an administrator
can analyze the system configuration files to verify that no interrupts or other conflicts are
causing system failures. The System Partition Utilities are available when the server is reset.
ASR can be configured to reset automatically to the System Partition Utilities; or the
administrator can reboot to the System Partition Utilities through Compaq Insight Manager.
•Compaq Insight Manager. This software-based management tool monitors more than 1,000
management parameters to allow fault prediction and alerting, asset and configuration
inventory, and performance monitoring. Through Compaq Insight Manager, a remote
administrator can request an OS console operation, reset the server, view utilities, and view
system configuration information. See the white paper Compaq Insight Manager, document
number 11CW-1199A-WWEN, for more details.
•Asynchronous Insight Management. Asynchronous Insight Management provides access to
Compaq Insight Manager through a dial-up networking, or asynchronous, connection. This
gives an administrator additional flexibility in troubleshooting problems. If the server OS is
still functioning, an administrator can dial in remotely and access Insight Manager through a
point-to-point protocol (PPP) connection.
In addition to these utilities, the ProLiant 8000 server also ships standard with additional
management technologies that reduce downtime and increase productivity even more. Remote-
flash Redundant ROM allows administrators to update the ROM remotely, and the auto-default
ROM configuration provides default configuration settings for most devices. The IMD and
Integrated Remote Console (IRC) provide essential information at a glance and allow users easy
remote access to their servers. For additional remote management functionality, customers can
request that the optional Remote Insight Board/PCI be added to the ProLiant 8000 server.
Remote-Flash Redundant ROM
The ProLiant 8000 server is equipped with a Remote-flash Redundant ROM that improves
manageability. Using the Compaq Remote ROM Flash Utility, administrators can flash the system
ROMs for a wide range of Compaq servers, locally or across the network. The Remote ROM Flash
Utility is a combination of components that allows administrators to upgrade the system ROMs on
servers from a single point of execution. The ROM upgrades can either be flashed individually or

TECHNOLOGY BRIEF (cont.)
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batched together to perform multiple ROM upgrades in a single step. The following components
are used in the ROM flash process:
•User interface. The user interface is command-line driven and allows administrators to tailor
functionality to a specific environment.
•System ROM Flash Service. The System ROM Flash Service allows the user interface to
perform essential functionality on remote servers for the ROM upgrade process, including
remote system shutdown, mounting, and unmounting the system partition.
•Compaq System Configuration Utility. The latest version of the Compaq System
Configuration Utility is integrated within the Compaq Remote ROM Flash Utility. Parts of this
utility have been enhanced to allow flawless firmware upgrades.
•ROMPAQ Utility and image files. Generally, any version of the ROMPaq Utility and image
files can be used. The latest ROMPaq Utility and images are available from the Compaq
website at http://www.compaq.com/support/files/server/us/index.html. It is possible to
maintain a common collection of ROM images in a particular directory on the local
administrative client or on a shared resource.
All of these components work together to deliver an easy-to-manage solution for administrators
who need to manage large-scale ROM upgrades, like those required for a year 2000 update, or a
few ROM upgrades at a time.
Compaq Remote-flash Redundant ROM provides a unique redundancy feature that helps ensure
system availability. During the ROM flash process, it is possible for a problem to occur.
Typically, a failure during the ROM flash would shut down the server and require the administrator
to replace the ROM. This could be a significant problem if, for example, the flash were scheduled
for a time when the administrator was unavailable. Theoretically, the server could be down for
hours until the administrator became available to manage the situation. Compaq’s unique
redundancy feature helps ensure system availability because it gives the system the ability to
recover the last known good system ROM in the event that the current system ROM is corrupted.
When a ProLiant 8000 server leaves the factory, both system ROMs contain the same image.
Through subsequent boots of the server, if integrity errors are detected by the boot block, the
system will automatically launch the redundant image and continue the POST process. If the
redundant ROM is launched, the user will see an error message identifying the faulty system ROM.
Auto-Default ROM Configuration
When a ProLiant 8000 server is first powered on, the system ROM detects the unconfigured state
of the hardware and provides default configuration settings for most devices. By providing this
initialization, the system can run Diagnostics and other software applications before running the
normal SmartStart and System Configuration applications.
If the user inserts a System Configuration, Diagnostics, or SmartStart CD in the CD-ROM drive
before powering on the server, the system ROM will boot using that CD. If the system ROM does
not detect one of these CDs, the user will be prompted for the intended OS. The system will reboot
if any OS-dependent configurations have changed with the new OS selection. If the selected OS-
dependent configurations match the current configurations, the system will boot normally. The OS
selection may be changed during subsequent reboots.