Chapter 4 PA-RISC Computer Systems - OpenPA.net

HP/Convex SPP2000 (S-Class/X-Class) External connectors
– 640 SCSI drives
� Clustered SPP2000s/X-Class are ccNUMA computers; they are not fully conformant to the PA-
RISC 2.0 specification (and thus do not run standard HP-UX).
� Multiple systems are connected via two CTI rings: these links attach to the eight memory controllers
of a node. A single system attaches to other single “nodes” and their respective crossbars
with a node-to-note data rate of 3.8 GB/s.
� The two rings are called X-ring and Y-ring.
� The links are implementations of the IEEE SCI from Convex — Convex Toroidal Interconnect.
� Each node’s main memory is globally accessible from other nodes on the CTI network (that is,
local memory is globally shared).
� A part of each system’s main memory is reserved for cache memory for the CTI network (configured
statically at boot time).
4.49.4 External connectors
� 68-pin VHDCI Ultra LVD external SCSI
� Three DB9 male RS232C serial (local console, remote console, general purpose) via a DB25 “M
cable”
� 10/100 Mbit Ethernet TP/RJ45
� 10/100 Mbit Ethernet TP/RJ45 LAN console
4.49.5 ROM update
There is an firmware update available for the SPP2000 which contains the latest version 4.2.1.
� PF_CV220421.txt 217 has details about the contents and installation of the patch.
� PF_CV220421.tar.gz 218 contains the patch.
4.49.6 References
Articles
� Exemplar System Architecture 219 Hewlett-Packard/Convex (Januar 1997, archive.org mirror, access
August 2008)
� SPP 2000 Architecture 220 presentation (FTP, Postscript) Beth Richardson (N.d.: NCSA. Google
archive accessed August 2008)
� A Comparative Evaluation of Hierarchical Network Architecture of the HP-Convex Exemplar 221
(Postscript) Robert Castaneda, et al. (1997: in Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on
217 ftp://ftp.itrc.hp.com/firmware_patches/hp/cpu/PF_CV220421.txt
218 ftp://ftp.itrc.hp.com/firmware_patches/hp/cpu/PF_CV220421.tar.gz
219 http://web.archive.org/web/19970629221930/www.convex.com/prod_serv/exemplar/sx-class/exemplar2.html#sclass
220 ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/ncsapubs/HPCTraining/SPP2000.ps
221 http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/hpcs/WWW/HTML/publications/papers/TR-97-6.ps.Z
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