ISS Technology Focus, Number 11
ISS Technology Focus
Number 11
In this issue:
»
New HP Advanced
Memory Error
Detection Technology
»
Meet the Expert—
Melvin Benedict
»
Recent publications
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New HP Advanced Memory Error Detection Technology
More than a decade ago, HP introduced the industry’s first pre-failure
notification system, Pre-Failure Alert, to monitor and predict potential
problems with critical components such as system memory modules
(DIMMs). The notification system sends an alert to a system
administrator when a DIMM exceeds a predefined threshold for
correctable memory errors. This lets the administrator proactively
schedule server maintenance to replace a DIMM that may fail,
avoiding unexpected interruption of business operations. In the past
few years, memory errors have increased significantly throughout the
entire industry due to the growth in overall memory demand and the
increase in the number of bits per DRAM chip. This article describes
why memory errors are occurring more frequently. It also describes
the history of HP memory technology innovations and the new HP
Advanced Memory Error Detection Technology, which addresses the
growing number of memory errors.
Memory errors are on the rise
The growth of high-performance computing and highly virtualized IT
environments is driving the demand for higher DRAM chip density and
greater server memory capacity. Over the past few years, DRAM
density has increased from 512 Mb per chip to 4 Gb per chip. In the
last 5 years, the average memory capacity per server has grown by
more than 500%—from 5.6 GB to 33 GB per server across all HP
ProLiant servers. The memory capacity per application type has
grown even more. Maximum server memory capacity has also
increased to meet these demands. In fact, an HP ProLiant DL580 G7
server fully populated with 32 GB DIMMs contains 2 TB of system
memory, which translates to 18 trillion memory cells.
Because of these trends, memory errors are occurring more
frequently in the industry.
HP memory technology innovations
The only true protection from memory errors is to use a memory error
detection or correction protocol. Over the past 18 years, HP has
introduced several memory technology innovations to ensure data
reliability and protection:
•
In 1993, HP introduced Error Correction Code (ECC) to detect both
single-bit and multi-bit errors. ECC can correct single-bit errors.
•
In 1996, HP introduced Advanced ECC technology to improve
memory protection beyond standard ECC.