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supply has a fan. If the temperature rises, the system fan
speeds up; or if necessary to prevent damage, the system shuts
down.
Error handling. Parity and other error conditions are detected
on the PCI bus. The memory checking scheme corrects single-
bit errors and detects double-bit errors. Multiple ECC
corrections to single-bit errors detected by the operating
systems help in determining where in the system the error
originated. Errors are logged for analysis.
Uninterruptible power supply. An external UPS can be
purchased to support critical customer configurations. Because
power is maintained for the entire system (CPU, memory, and
I/O), power interruptions are completely transparent to users.
Clustering
A cluster is a loosely coupled set of systems that behaves (is
addressed and managed) like a single system, but provides
high levels of availability through redundant CPUs, storage,
and data paths. Clusters are also highly scalable; that is, CPU,
I/O, storage, and application resources can be added incre-
mentally to efficiently increase capacity. For customers, this
translates to reliable access to system resources and data, and
investment protection of both hardware and software.
Clustering allows multiple computer systems to communicate
over a common interface, share disks, and spread the comput-
ing load across multiple CPUs.
PCI to Memory Channel Interconnect
Under Tru64 UNIX and OpenVMS, you can build high-avail-
ability clusters using the PCI to Memory Channel interconnect.
The Memory Channel interconnect is a high-bandwidth, low-
latency PCI-based communications interconnect for up to eight
AlphaServer systems. Data written to one computer’s memory
is shared by other computers on the
Memory Channel bus.
The PCI adapter is the interface between a PCI and a Memory
Channel bus. This bus is a memory-to-memory computer
system interconnect that permits I/O space writes in one
computing node to be replicated into the memories of all other
nodes on the Memory Channel bus. A write performed by any
CPU to its reflected address region results in automatic
hardware updates to memory regions in other nodes. One
node’s write is “reflected” to other nodes as a direct side effect
of the local write. This provides a memory region with
properties similar to a high-performance shared memory
across a group of nodes.
Operating System Support
For clustered Tru64 UNIX systems, TruCluster Software
solutions allow users access to network services and provide
further failover recovery from server, network, or I/O failures.
Tru64 UNIX cluster systems use the SCSI bus and/or PCI to
Memory Channel interconnect bus between disks and systems.
OpenVMS cluster systems use the CI, SCSI, Ethernet, FDDI,
and Memory Channel as the interconnect between disks and
the system.
The primary means of clustering AlphaServer DS10 systems
depends on the operating system.
• Ethernet, OpenVMS
• CI clusters, OpenVMS only
• Memory Channel, Tru64 UNIX and OpenVMS
• SCSI clusters, Tru64 UNIX and OpenVMS
Performance
Compaq has an ongoing program of performance engineering,
using industry-standard benchmarks that allow comparisons
across major vendors’ systems. These benchmarks against
competitive systems are based on comparable CPU perform-
ance, coupled with comparable memory and disk expandability.
See Table 1 for the performance numbers of the AlphaServer
DS10 systems. System performance, however, is highly de-
pendent upon application characteristics. Thus, benchmark
information is one helpful “data point” to be used in conjunc-
tion with other purchase criteria such as features, service, and
price.
Sources of Performance Information
Performance information is available on the Internet.
http://www.compaq.com/alphaserver/performance/index.html
http://www.ideasinternational.com/benchmark/spec/specfp_s2000.html
Information for Partners
If you are a Channel or Reseller Partner, you can find the tools,
resources, and information you need to conduct business
online on the secure Compaq Business Partner site:
http://bps.compaq.com/businesspartner
Also see the following:
Compaq Solutions Alliance site at http://csa.compaq.com
and HP’s Developer and Solution Partner Portal (DSPP),
http://www.hp.com/go/partners