[rescue] Re: Throw another packet on the server...

[Gavin Hubbard]

>Kleeorg
>
>Okay... better now.
>
>And my wife thinks I'm a nut for having a few ss20s, u1 u2, few peecees
>and a 2924XL.  Perhaps I'll show her this post... hehe  Hanging out in
>here is making me long for my days at HP Roseville campus.  I used to
>friggin marvel at those (V Class?) servers. I just called them Big Ass
>Cube(tm).  They looked like something that belonged in the engine room
>of the Star Trek Enterprise.
>
>Anybody know the specs on those?
>
>I can see that frequenting this list and working is going to mean I'll
>be forming some new bad habits when I get a job ;)  There has been some
>great DEC/Alpha deals just in the last month.  PA-RISC stuff is still
>expensive mostly, but there has been a few good deals.
>
>-Daniel


Hi Daniel

I own four V-class servers and two of those are currently operational
(three of them are in storage in Australia, and one is in the USA). The
technology wasn't actually produced by HP, they were designed and built by
a company called Convex using their Exemplar technology. HP aquired Convex
so that they'd have an HPC server that could be sold during the period
between the T-class and the Superdome.

There are four types of V-class: the V2200, V2250, V2500, and V2600. The
model numbers refer to the difference between the processor types (200MHz,
250MHz, 440MHz, 550MHz). The V2200-V2250 can hold up to 16 processors each
and the V2500-V2600 can hold up to 32 processors each.

Internally the different V-class models are identical and are based around
a midplane which bisects the case into two separate cavities. The extra
processors in the V2500-V2600 are accomodated using dual-processor
processor boards. The PSUs are 3-phase and will consume around 8.5-10.5kVA
when the system is fully loaded. The I/O is handled by (up to) 48 PCI cards
via expansion cages in each chassis.

Like the SGI Origin servers, the V-class can be NUMA-linked into a large
coupled cluster running a single operating image. The largest commercial
clusters I know of had four system chassis which allowed up to 128
processors. At approximately 40kUSD per processor, not many sites really
tested the full expansion capabilities.

Just for fun, I recently bought a V2500 system in the USA on EBay
(http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3034770667). I don't
live in the USA so I'm going to ship it to a friend who will part out the
sub-assemblies I need so I can upgrade the systems I already have. The
system chassis is 400+kg so I'm not shipping it back to NZ :-)

Regards,

Gavin