topic PARISC processors to Itanium processors in Operating System - HP-UX

PARISC processors to Itanium processors

catastro — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 14:09:39 GMT

Hi all.
I am planning on migrating one of my rp4440 servers from 2 Dual core PARISC processors to 2 Dual Core Itanium processors.
I believe this can be done as the server has on the processor I/O Module a switch for PARISC or Itanium mode. Am I right?

I have HP-UX 11iv1 running with all the upgrades that are on the web. My next question now is, do I have to do a cold install or upgrade (or something like that), or after changing the CPU the Operating System will come up again with no problems? I mean the base Operating System and it's applications.

Another question now, is that I have Oracle 10 running on this server as well. I know Oracle 10 for PARISC and Itanium are different.
If I install the Oracle10 for Itanium on another directory than PARISC, after that I can point the Oracle to get that data from the Oracle PARISC directory and so on?

I have as well on this server my ignite server and OVO server running. Am I going to be able to make them run on the new Itanium Plattform?

For last, I attach a swlist output from this server. I know many of my actual applications have to be changed, but I woul like to know all this questions.

Thanks in advance

Re: PARISC processors to Itanium processors

Patrick Wallek — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 14:22:55 GMT

You will have to completely reinstall the operating system after install Itanium CPUs.

The PA-RISC version of the OS absolutely WILL NOT work.

There will probably have to be some firmware upgrades as well since Itanium servers use the EFI boot loader.

I honestly think you would be better off buying a NEW Itanium server, installing HP-UX, installing Oracle, OVO, etc and migrating your data.

I know it sounds like a lot of work, but at least your rp4440 with the current database and applications would be up and running and not down for a few days while you upgrade and re-install all necessary applications.

Re: PARISC processors to Itanium processors

catastro — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 14:37:41 GMT

Many thanks Patrick. That's all I needed to know about it. Now it's time for my bosses to decide wheter buy new PA-RISC processors, new Itanium ones or a completely new server.

Re: PARISC processors to Itanium processors

Torsten. — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 19:42:58 GMT

It is possible to convert a rp4440 into a rx4640, but it is a special procedure.

After this is done, you need to cold install the OS.

Re: PARISC processors to Itanium processors

rick jones — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 00:24:42 GMT

Depending on how many cores I thought I would need, I would probably replace an rp4440 with either an rx6600, rx3600 or rx2660. One advantage (IMO) in thost newer, still on the CPL systems, is the presence of the wizzy web-based iLO stuff - I use vmedia all the time for installs because I am always doing one-shot installs.

They also have the added bonus (depending on your point of view) of having beefier I/O slots in either PCI-X or PCIe flavors, and an ability to have up to 16 (limit is 8 on the rx2660) internal 2.5" discs.