High-End Servers

HP ProLiant DL740 and DL760G2
HP offers two high-end eight-way IA-32 servers: the HP ProLiant DL740 and the HP ProLiant DL760G2. The two models have several features in common. Both support four or eight 1.5GHz or 2GHz Xeon processors and as much as 64GB of addressable 133MHz SDRAM. HP designed each system around its F8 chipset, and both support a 400MHz system bus. Both include four 1" hot-pluggable drive bays and an integrated Ultra3 SCSI–based RAID controller that supports RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 0+1, and RAID 5.

Both servers distinguish themselves from earlier designs with support for hot-pluggable RAID memory. RAID memory does for system RAM what a RAID disk controller does for disk storage. In HP's implementation, 40 DIMM slots are divided between five hot-pluggable memory modules. Using RAID 4 algorithms, the system stripes data across four of the memory modules, and the fifth holds parity data. LEDs show the status of each installed DIMM. In the event of a DIMM failure, you simply remove the memory module that holds the failed DIMM, replace the DIMM, and reinstall the module. On the ProLiant DL740, you access the memory modules from the top. On the ProLiant DL760G2, the memory modules are front-accessible.

The ProLiant DL740 has a 4U rack-mount chassis, six 64-bit 100MHz PCI-X slots, two integrated 1GB network ports, and an integrated Remote Insight Lights-Out Edition adapter for remote server management. The ProLiant DL760G2 has a 7U (12.25") rack-mount chassis, ten 64-bit 100MHz PCI-X slots, and one integrated 1GB network adapter. Remote server management is an optional feature that uses the Remote Insight Lights-Out Edition II card, which HP designed to use the server's 33MHz PCI slot.

IBM eServer xSeries 445
The IBM eServer xSeries 445 scales up to a 16-way server when using Xeon processor MP processors that run at speeds of 2.0GHz to 2.8GHz; IBM plans support for 32-way configurations by the end of the year. (The xSeries 445 supports two- or four-way configurations when using the Xeon DP processor at speeds as fast as 3GHz.) Two interconnected chassis make up the 16-way system. Each 4U (7") chassis supports as many as two SMP Expansion Modules, each of which can hold as many as four processors. IBM built the system around a second generation of its XA-32 chipset, which supports a 400MHz system bus. Each chassis supports six PCI-X slots, two each at speeds of 66MHz, 100MHz, and 133MHz. Using the Remote I/O expansion chassis, you can add an additional six PCI-X slots (12 in a 16-way system). Each chassis holds two hot-swap SCSI hard disk drives, supported by an integrated Ultra320 SCSI controller. An integrated RAID module lets you mirror the disks.

The 16-way xSeries 445 supports a maximum of 128GB of RAM, which you can install by placing 2GB DIMMs in the 16 DIMM sockets in each SMP Expansion Module. Each SMP Expansion Module also supports 64MB of XceL4 Server Accelerator Cache for improved system performance. The xSeries 445 has several advanced memory-management features to improve system reliability and tolerance of memory module failures. The memory controller in each SMP Expansion Module supports memory mirroring, which you turn on or off in the system BIOS. When mirroring is turned on for an expansion module, the OS sees half of the memory installed in the expansion module and the controller mirrors the first half to the other half of the installed memory. When a DIMM fails, IBM's built-in Light Path Diagnostics lets you know. The system supports hot-swap memory, which lets you replace a failing module without affecting system operation.

Unisys ES7000 Xeon SMP Systems
Unisys offers five Xeon processor MP–based models in its ES7000 line: the ES7000 Aries 510, ES7000 Aries 520, ES7000 Orion 530, ES7000 Orion 540, and ES7000 Orion 550. All models support either the 1.5GHz or 2.0GHz versions of the Xeon processor MP chip. On the low end, the Aries 510 supports four, six, or eight processors, 16GB of RAM, and eight I/O slots. The Aries 520 supports eight, twelve, or sixteen processors running one or two instances of supported OSs. The Orion 530, which Unisys designed for server cluster operation, supports two 16-processor nodes. The Orion 540 supports from 16 to 32 processors (in four-processor increments) and four OS instances. On the high end, the Orion 560 supports 16 to 32 processors in two domains, 42 Pentium III blade servers, 148GB of RAM, and 138 I/O slots.

ES7000 series processors are built around a 4U (7") rack-mountable cell that contains four to eight processors. You can connect as many as four cells to scale servers to as many as 32 processors. All models include a dedicated service processor for remote management and a version of the Unisys Server Sentinel software. The Orion 530 cluster server supports either Windows 2003 or Windows 2000 Datacenter Server only. All other models support Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition, Win2K Advanced Server, SCO's UnixWare 7.1.3, and SCO Linux Server 4.0. Models 550, 540, and 520 also support Windows 2003 Datacenter and Win2K Datacenter.

Several Great Choices
Hungry for computing power? I've presented just a few of the many solid choices in the high-end server market. At $5999 (for the one-processor configuration), the PowerEdge 3250 is on the affordable end of the Itanium 2 spectrum. For cutting-edge expandability, look to the high-end offerings from HP, NEC, and Unisys. With as many as 64 Itanium 2 processors, these systems give you ample resources for handling server consolidation and demanding database applications. If your preference is for proven technology, Xeon-based alternatives still pack plenty of punch. And, although I didn't discuss them here, AMD Athlon MP and AMD Opteron–based systems will be the right choice for many others.