How to parition a rx7640

[K-Dubb]

Hi,

We have an Itanium rx7640 that as I understand can be partitioned into 2 cells, each being completely isolated from the other. We plan to load 2008R2 Itanium on each partition and build a SQL cluster. Is there any documentation on how to partition these servers, or has does anyone have experience with it?

Thanks.

[Torsten.]

There is the nPartioning guide available on hp.com/go/bsc, you need 2 sets of core I/O // MP boards and of course 2 cells - but it makes not really sense to built a cluster in a single box!

[Abu Bakkar Siddik Sarka · Accepted solution]

Hi K-Dubb,
You can look at the chapter 6 of the nPar Admin Guide: http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01868281/c01868281.pdf

Sorry couldn't attache the PDF since it's larger than 1 MB. Please let me know in case you have any difficulty in partitioning the rx7640.

Thanks & Regards,
Abu

[Manix]

rx7640 has 2 cell board. So you can create 2 npar each having 1 cell board.

- Check parstatus to find how many cell board you have on your rx7640.
- if you have 2 cell board: Use parmodify to delete 1 cell from npar 0 (default npar with HP default OS)
- do a reconfiguration reboot. # shutdown -R -y 0

- Once booted create npar1 , with the parcreate command , use the cell 1

- Each npar should have at lease one core cell /core IO card / I guess even 1 MP would do

So you will have, 2 npar:
npar0 ( cell0 )
npar1 ( cell1 )

If there is no npar on the machine you need to create the complex profile again .
MP> CM
CM>cc

Do post further questions.

Thanks
Manix

[K-Dubb]

Thanks everyone! Also, it is my understanding that this server is electrically isolated from one side to the other. With that in mind, it should be a true HA cluster once partitioned correctly.

[Torsten.]

If a partition crashes or panic or something, the other partition will continue to work.

But a hardware problem with "shared" components (power system, backplane, etc ...) will affect the server itself - so don't do this!


There are several scenarios where you need to power off the server - this is not the HA you want to have!

[Robert_Jewell]

Well, its still a single cabinet, or complex as its called.. The rx7640 shares the following hardware components:
- system backplane
- PCI backplane (though its split into two IO chassis).
- MP board (though there is fail-over).

The point is that it is very possible for a single failure to affect both cell boards (such as a system backplane power fault). Even if you take that aside, the complex profile could become corrupt. In that event, the partition definitions might be lost, bringing down both of your nodes. There are other scenarios as well, where the whole complex is affected.

So, all in all, I would not call it true full H/A cluster setup.

-Bob

[K-Dubb]

Thanks for the info. Better than nothing I suppose.