User Guide

Learning about the NetWare Server 17
Server Operating System Administration Guide
103-000148-001
August 30, 2001
Novell Confidential
Manual 99a38 July 17, 2001
Support for pre-emption provides
 An execution environment that allows simplified application
development. Developers can rely on the scheduler to handle pre-
emption.
 A mechanism that prevents ill-behaved modules from monopolizing the
processor.
The kernel itself is not pre-emptible.
Platform Support Module
Besides NetWare, all that is necessary to enable multiprocessing on a
multiprocessor computer is the Platform Support Module (PSM) for your
specific hardware platform and NetWare. No other modules are required.
NOTE: Use the PSMs that load during installation. The PSMs for NetWare 4.11
SMP.NLM do not work for NetWare 5 or later.
The PSM is an interrupt abstraction for multiple processors. As a device driver
for the processors, it shields NetWare from hardware-dependent or platform-
specific details. It enables secondary processors to be brought online and taken
offline.
During installation, NetWare detects multiple processors by reading the MP
configuration table in BIOS and then determines which of the available
NetWare Platform Support Modules (PSMs) matches the MP hardware
platform.
The network administrator then has the option to load the PSM or to run
NetWare on Processor 0 only. The installation program will modify the
STARTUP.NCF file to load the PSM whenever the server is started.
Novell
®
provides MPS14.PSM, which supports any hardware platform that
complies with the Intel* Multiprocessor Specification 1.1 and 1.4. Compaq*
also provides a PSM for its system requirements. Contact Tricord* for
information on their PSM for NetWare.
In addition to scalability, NetWare multiprocessing offers these benefits:
 Backward compatibility for applications written for NetWare 4.11
SMP.NLM. In fact, NetWare supports everything written to CLIB in
previous releases. Older application code is simply funneled to
Processor 0.