Upgrade From Superdome 16 Way to Superdome 32 Way

[zap_2]

Hi Unix Gurus,I have some questions.
If we want to upgrade from Superdome 16 way PA 8600 552 MHz to Superdome 16 Way PA 8800 sx1000 with dual core CPU of 1.0 GHz.On this upgraded manner, do we must exchange the back plane, cell board, exchange core I/O ???And what hardware that must be exchanged if we want to upgrade from Superdome 16 Way PA 8600 552 MHz to Superdome 32 Way???My last question here is what is the critical difference between Superdome 16 Way and Superdome 32 Way.I am looking forward for your replay.Thanks in advance.

[Alzhy]

Ye$.
Exactly a$ you have $tated.
But this will be a very expen$ive exercise.

Why not just go for an rp8420? TCO is better than the SD... and based on experience - more reliable too.

[Brad Baron]

The back plane is the same across the platforms for 8600 through 8800's.

The back plane for the 16 way has only 4 cell board slots where the 32 way has 8 cell board slots. The product number for a 32way is A5201A. The product number for a 16 way is A6113A. It is possible that the server is tagged as a 16 way because it only has 4 cell boards or because it is actually an A6113A 16 way with only 4 cell board slots. There is an upgrade path from an A6113A to an A5201A.

The upgrade will include a O/S up-rev. The exchange of the Cell boards but retain the memory DIMMS. The Core I/O is exchanged. The Firmware is updated. The I/O Chassis could be exchanged from PCI to PCI-X. This option gives faster slots for the PCI cards but also changes the I/O addressing thus requiring LVM export and import.

Copied from the April 2005 Sales Ordering Guide:

1.0 Superdome 16-socket to Superdome 32-socket Upgrade (for all configurations)
NOTE: can not order 16 to 32-socket upgrade until existing Superdome is
upgraded to the new 500 MHz system frequency cell boards (also called First Performance Enhancement).

The Superdome Solutions Team will put a well designed plan in place and direct all activities unless this is done through a backdoor method. There are trade in procedures for the old Cell boards that will include rebates when the old products are returned.
I recommend that the customer contact their Sales Solution Team.