NonStop NS-Series Planning Guide (H06.04+)

Control, Configuration, and Maintenance Tools
HP Integrity NonStop NS-Series Planning Guide—529567-005
B-7
Fabrics Functional Element
Other hardware modules contain at least one microprocessor and firmware that
performs maintenance functions for their local logic:
•
NonStop Blade Element
•
Logical synchronization unit (LSU)
•
Fibre Channel disk module
The ServerNet fabrics, rather than the dedicated service LAN, provide maintenance
interconnection to the OSM console for these modules.
Fabrics Functional Element
The p-switch contains the functionality of a single-fabric functional element. Each of the
p-switches in the system provides a single-fabric ServerNet interconnect to processor
functional elements, IOAMs, and NonStop S-Series I/O enclosure.
Each p-switch contains a single ME that controls only its internal hardware. The
p-switch provides a communications mechanism to interact with logical processors, but
it does not control, report, or track any attributes within the hardware that makes up a
logical processor (PEs, NonStop Blade Elements, NonStop Blade Complexes, or
LSUs).
P-Switch ME Firmware
ME firmware executes on the microprocessors within the ServerNet switch board that
is implemented with each p-switch (see Processor Switch on page 5-12) and with each
of the two IOAMs within the IOAM enclosure (see I/O Adapter Module (IOAM)
Enclosure and I/O Adapters on page 5-16). However, maintenance firmware within a
NonStop Blade Element, LSU, or Fibre Channel disk module is separate and has no
direct interaction with the ME firmware.
When it is executing within a p-switch, the ME firmware initializes, controls, and
monitors its elements that are local to that p-switch. No direct connection exists to the
other p-switch in the system, so the ME firmware on a given p-switch has no hardware
responsibilities in terms of its peer p-switch. OS clients can attach to either of the two
p-switches, so the ME firmware operates in a primary versus secondary execution
state between peer p-switch ME applications.
At any given time, only one p-switch ME firmware application between peer modules is
in a primary state and is responsible for processor essentials. If a p-switch ME
application executing in the secondary state receives a request for a service that only a
primary can honor, the secondary routes the request via the ServerNet to the primary
ME applications for execution. This routing is automatic, with no intervention required
from the OS or client applications.
I/O Functional Element
The IOAM enclosure contains the functionality of two fabric functional elements. In
addition, each IOAM enclosure is divided into two IOAMs, each of which contains five