HP server for lab testing

[Latvian]

Hello everyone,

I am totally new to this and this is actually my first interaction with HP in general. I will start by presenting my idea: I want to work as Oracle database administrator and so far I have used Oracle 10g/11g on Linux and on Solaris. Now, I want to learn how to manage Oracle on HP-UX and I thought I could install the OS on VMware, like what I did in the case of Linux/Solaris, but it seems that it's impossible to run HP-UX on VMware, Oracle Virtual Box or similar virtual environments. So, I have decided to by HP server (or build one, whichever the cheapest method) so here I am. My question is: What is a good, cheap HP server that I can buy to learn managing Oracle database on HP-UX? Is it cheaper to buy an old used box or to build one myself? I have been googling and came across many "Blade Servers" and one of them which is somehow reasoably priced is HP ProLiant DL360. Can I run a blade as a stand alone server or does it have to be in a rack in order to function approiapertley?

Thanks all in advance.

P.S This thread has been moved from General to Integrity Servers - HP Forums Moderator

[Torsten.]

A blade server (BL8x0c or BL8x0ci2) needs a C7000 or C3000 enclosure,

Look for an used Integrity server, e.g. rx1620, rx2620, rx2660, rx4640.

[Matti_Kurkela]

Proliant DL360 is not a blade server: it is a rack-mount standalone server with a Intel x86 processor.

If you want HP-UX, ProLiant hardware is not the way to go. HP-UX does not run on any x86 processors at all: only PA-RISC and Itanium processors can apply. The PA-RISC processor (server model number format: rpNNNN) is now an evolutionary dead-end: Itanium (server model number format: rxNNNN) is the current hardware platform for HP-UX.

HP has also introduced some Itanium blades for the c-class chassis: these are called "Integrity BLnnn" blades, never "ProLiant BL". But if you don't have a spare full-height c7000 or c3000 chassis slot available, these aren't going to be very useful. A blade is a server without a power supply, cooling fans and the "outer" half of NICs and FibreChannel HBAs: the missing parts must be provided by the blade chassis.

The last PA-RISC server models can still run the current latest version of HP-UX, so if you can find a cheap rp3400 or rp3440 server, that might still be somewhat useful for learning the OS. (Just keep in mind that the newer Itanium hardware has a different bootloader and a totally reworked hardware diagnostics system. If you're familiar with the differences between Solaris/SPARC and Solaris/x86, you can expect a similar level of differences.)

As Torsten said, the low-end Itanium server models would be optimal for learning HP-UX in a hardware environment that resembles current production HP-UX systems.

If you're going to use Oracle ASM in a SAN environment, make sure your HP-UX system is either HP-UX version 11.31 (also known as 11i v3) or that the system has an appropriate storage-manufacturer-specific multipath solution installed (EMC PowerPath for EMC storage arrays, HP Secure Path for HP XP arrays, etc.).

Before version 11.31, there was only one way to do multipathing at the base OS level, and that was integrated into HP-UX LVM and only provided path failover, not true active/active multipathing. (Alternate paths for LVM PVs.)

With ASM, you need exactly one multipath-aware disk device node per LUN, and in HP-UX 11.23 (aka 11i v2) and older, this means either LVM or a manufacturer-specific multipath solution is required. With 11.31, HP-UX can natively provide the kind of disk device nodes ASM wants to see.

[Emil Velez_2]

Having used Oracle on Linux, solaris Windows and Hpux you would be suprised how similar oracle is on each platform except for special products like Oracle RAC. The basic difference will be the system admin tols and the way you manage disks and basic clustering features like setting up a oracle database to failover using hp serviceguard. In fact i have a solution for that Hp serviceguard is available on linux and failover oracle databases are setup the sam as hpux in fact serviceguard is the same between hpux and linux. Hpux is a good platform but you said you wanted to focus on oracle not system admin