How to test a Multiprocessor server ?

[Joe Spindler]

Hi,

How can i test the CPU redundancy and perform one CPU failure in a miltiprocessor proliant server ?

[Jeff Wilson_3]

I don't think the fact that the server has multiprocessors means that they are redundant options.

If one fails the servers still dies. (or that what happens to ours.)

[Oleg Mochkin]

SMP is not for redundacy indeed, only for performance increase.

[Steve Carter_2]

As stated multiple CPU's are (hopefully) not redundant but share the processing load between themselves. You can check that they are both working in the task manager. Right click the task bar, you will see all your cpu's working away under performance and Usage history. If you only see one green panel (I'm talking NT/2000 and XP (Pro) here; not linux/unix) then you do not have SMP enabled.

When you have multiple processors you can go to the process and "set affinity" to run that app on a particular cpu. The secret to success in all this is familiarity with your Task Manager and an SMP (Simultaneous Multi Processors) machine.

Regards, Steve.

[Phillip Williams_2]

Jeff:

At the risk of stating the obvious, surely the only ** REAL ** way to test redundancy would be to force a CPU to fail (- yes, ** REALLY ** FAIL ) and see what happens...

Not wanting to do so myself I await your report on your test ;-)

If I were doing it I'd probably disable/slow a fan (or airflow by blocking it..) for a single processor (or some such) thereby forcing failure through thermal surprise ,,, but presumably the 'ole Proliant should spot that & shut (something) down before it gets hurt too bad first.

If I ** DID ** manage the test I'd expect to get fired shortly afterwards... ;-)


Rgds

Phillip

[Chanler Childs]

They are only redundant in the sense that should one fail, you can remove it, restart the server, and continue on with a single processor. There are no hot swap or failover capabilities provided for the cpu.