ISS Technology Update, Volume 7 Number 2 - Newsletter

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ISS Technolo

y Update

Volume 7, Number 2

Keeping you informed of the latest ISS technology

Concurrent sessions on HP BladeSystem Onboard Administrator .............................................................1

The story behind the Active Cool fan design for the HP BladeSystem........................................................2

Air ducting in HP BladeSystem enclosures................................................................................................3

Energy efficiency – HP ProLiant DL servers take honors ............................................................................6

Why Choose HP Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager?............................................................................11

HP Insight Management WBEM Providers ..............................................................................................13

ProLiant management tip of the month..................................................................................................15

Recently published industry standard server technology communications ..............................................18

Contact us .............................................................................................................................................18

Concurrent sessions on HP BladeSystem Onboard Administrator

When running concurrent sessions on an HP BladeSystem Onboard Administrator (OA), the BladeSystem OA network and

processor workload may affect the number of users able to log in. There is no built-in restriction on the number of logins to a

BladeSystem OA; however, the number of logins can be limited by heavy network and processor workloads.

• Command-line logins: Command line logins to the BladeSystem OA, including processing “connect” commands to server

blades or switches, are the least demanding on network and processor bandwidth.

• Graphical user interface (GUI) logins: GUI logins are a little more demanding because multiple connections are necessary to

carry event data (logins to multiple enclosures linked together will add to the workload). The BladeSystem OA should support

a dozen or more GUI logins.

• Enclosure DVD: The Enclosure DVD login uses the highest workload because the BladeSystem OA is servicing connections to

multiple servers sharing the CD or DVD media in a DVD drive attached to the BladeSystem OA USB port in the HP

BladeSystem c7000 Enclosure or HP BladeSystem c3000 Enclosure. The enclosure DVD can be attached to all the servers;

however, this will likely slow down the response time of concurrent GUI sessions. The fastest shared enclosure DVD

performance is obtained when all the servers are rebooted to the enclosure DVD at the same time to minimize DVD seek time

(many of the requests will be serviced from the OA file cache instead of requiring a seek to a different spot on the DVD disk

which slows down all the other pending requests).

Summary of content (18 pages)

PAGE 1
ISS Technology Update Volume 7, Number 2 Keeping you informed of the latest ISS technology Concurrent sessions on HP BladeSystem Onboard Administrator ............................................................. 1 The story behind the Active Cool fan design for the HP BladeSystem........................................................ 2 Air ducting in HP BladeSystem enclosures................................................................................................
PAGE 2
ISS Technology Update Volume 7, Number 2 The story behind the Active Cool fan design for the HP BladeSystem As with most great innovations, the breakthrough design of the HP Active Cool fan was the result of someone taking a fresh look at a growing problem. Over the last few years, the emergence of high-density IT equipment has changed one of the top priorities of IT organizations from optimizing floor space to constraining the cost of power and cooling resources.
PAGE 3
ISS Technology Update Volume 7, Number 2 As expected, the lower CFM exhaust air is hotter. But contrary to the belief that hotter exhaust air will result in higher server inlet temperatures due to mixing, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling shows that the lower flow rate of the exhaust air makes it less likely to be pulled to the front of the servers.
PAGE 4
ISS Technology Update Volume 7, Number 2 Figure 3-1. Rear view of the HP BladeSystem c7000 self-sealing enclosure Air ducting in the enclosures optimizes cooling capacity using unique mechanical designs (Figure 3-2). Cool air is pulled through slots in the front of the enclosure (A). The air moves to the interconnect modules in the rear of the enclosure, and then into the central plenum where it mixes with the servers’ airflow. The exhaust air exits through the fans at the rear of the enclosure.
PAGE 5
ISS Technology Update Volume 7, Number 2 This innovative design opens new opportunities for system designers. For instance, PARSEC architecture empowered engineers to design heat sinks that closely match the requirements of particular server blades and processor architectures. Such was the case for the Intel® Xeon® based HP BladeSystem BL460c server blade. In this server, HP engineers were able to use a more compact processor heat sink than that used in traditional 1U rack-mount servers (Figure 3-3).
PAGE 6
ISS Technology Update Volume 7, Number 2 Energy efficiency – HP ProLiant DL servers take honors Four HP ProLiant servers take top honors with the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC) SPECpower_ssj™2008 benchmark testing (Figure 4-1): • HP ProLiant DL180 G5 server — #1 in worldwide energy efficient performance • HP ProLiant DL160 G5 server — #2 in worldwide energy efficient performance • HP ProLiant DL360 G5 server — highly rated in two-socket energy efficient performance per watt benchmark r
PAGE 7
ISS Technology Update Volume 7, Number 2 ProLiant DL180 G5 server The ProLiant DL180 G5 server, designed for high performance computing, achieved a world record for energy efficient performance with the SPECpower_ssj™2008 benchmark. The two-processor performance results of 778 overall ssj_ops/watt beat out competitors, including Dell and Fujitsu Siemens (Figure 4-2). Figure 4-2.
PAGE 8
ISS Technology Update Volume 7, Number 2 ProLiant DL160 G5 server The ProLiant DL160 G5 server, designed for high performance computing, achieved a world record for energy efficient performance with the SPECpower_ssj™2008 benchmark. The two-processor performance results of 698 overall ssj_ops/ (Figure 4-3). These results beat out competitors, including Dell and Fujitsu Siemens. Figure 4-3.
PAGE 9
ISS Technology Update Volume 7, Number 2 ProLiant DL360 G5 The ProLiant DL360 G5 is a feature-rich server that is optimized for space-constrained data center installations. The ProLiant DL360 G5 demonstrated energy efficient performance with a two-processor performance of 662 overall ssj_ops/watt (Figure 4-4). Figure 4-4.
PAGE 10
ISS Technology Update Volume 7, Number 2 ProLiant DL580 G5 server The ProLiant DL580 G5 server accomplished outstanding energy efficient performance with a four-processor performance of 546 overall ssj_ops/watt (Figure 4-5). The ProLiant DL580 G5 achieved the highest 4P result and demonstrated how HP fourprocessor servers optimized the latest Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® technology for energy efficiency and high performance computing. Figure 4-5.
PAGE 11
ISS Technology Update Volume 7, Number 2 Why Choose HP Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager? Data center simplification There is a growing need to simplify system interconnections as data centers become increasingly dense and complex.
PAGE 12
ISS Technology Update Volume 7, Number 2 Powerful features VCEM offers a full range of data center management capabilities that make it a natural choice for enterprise installations: • Allows management of up to 100 c-Class enclosures from a single console (up to 1600 server blades) • Works at wire speed without performance degradation • Increases operational automation and IT productivity to meet changing workload demands • Central resource pool for LAN and SAN address administration that eliminates conf
PAGE 13
ISS Technology Update Volume 7, Number 2 HP Insight Management WBEM Providers Traditional management products are built on Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), which has become a pervasive management technology. However, SNMP-based management solutions have received increased scrutiny for their simple structure and weak security protocol relative to current alternatives. These limitations prevent rich, comprehensive, industrystandard, and secure system management.
PAGE 14
ISS Technology Update Volume 7, Number 2 Architectural overview The following architecture diagram (Figure 6-1) gives an overview of some of the components that make up Insight Providers for Windows. The diagram is color-coded to distinguish between Microsoft-provided components, existing HP components, and ProLiant WMI components. Figure 6-1. WBEM Providers overview Software installation methods There are a number of ways to install HP Insight Management WBEM Providers version 2.1.0.
PAGE 15
ISS Technology Update Volume 7, Number 2 ProLiant management tip of the month Tip #1: Solving a sluggish HP Systems Insight Manager Central Management Server If you are confident that you are using adequate resources for hosting HP Systems Insight Manager (HP SIM), but your server still seems sluggish, you might have a Central Management Server (CMS) that is being overwhelmed by too many SNMP traps. This can be caused by having the Windows SNMP service Send authentication trap option enabled.
PAGE 16
ISS Technology Update Volume 7, Number 2 To disable the Send authentication trap option on several servers, HP SIM can perform a Replicate Agent Settings task to broadcast the setting to all of your servers. To disable sending SNMP authentication traps, clear the Authentication Trap checkbox on the Replicate Agent Settings window (Figure 7-2). Figure 7-2.
PAGE 17
ISS Technology Update Volume 7, Number 2 Tip #2: Change in SQL Server 2005 default setup affects HP SIM installation During installation of HP SIM 5.2 with SQL Server 2005 it is possible that you may receive an error message stating that “The specified database account credentials are not valid.” This occurs because SQL Server 2005 (unlike SQL 2000) does not automatically enable the SQL Browser.
PAGE 18
ISS Technology Update Volume 7, Number 2 Recently published industry standard server technology communications Title URL Implementing Microsoft Windows Server 2008 on HP servers – Integration Note http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00710 606/c00710606.pdf Implementing Microsoft Windows Server Hyper-V Public Beta on HP ProLiant servers – Integration Note http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01286 554/c01286554.