K260 upgrade thought

[Steven Chen_1]

Hi,

This subjet has been haunting me: can K260 hpux10.20 be upgraded to hpux11# so that Oracle 9i (8i?) can be installed on the box? Our present 10.20 on K260 is 32 bit, I think. Could that box be 64 bit by upgrading hpux OS?

Please help me out.

Thanks,

Steven

[paul courry · Accepted solution]

Nope. The K260 is not capable of being a 64bit OS. I believe it has to be a minimum PA8200 chip in a K-class to run at 64 bits.

[Patrick Wallek]

Check out this link. According to this, the K260 is capable of being a 64bit machine (sorry Paul Corry).

http://devresource.hp.com/STK/serversupport.html

If you happen to be interested in workstations, here's that link too:

http://www.hp.com/workstations/products/unix/operating/support_matrix/update.html

[Bill Hassell]

The K260 has a PA 8000 chip, the minimum needed for 64-bit support. So it will indeed run 8i and 9i 64-bit Oracle. However, as you start planning for the upgrade, be sure to understand that memory requirements for 64 bits, especially Oracle, are much, much greater.

While you can load and run HP-UX 64 bits in as little as 128 megs, the performance will be awful. Think in terms of 6-16 Gbytes of RAM depending on how your DBA sets up the SGA for Oracle.

There is nothing that can be done in the kernel to make Oracle run faster without enough RAM installed.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Hi Steven,

You bet, I use an old K-260 as onr of my sandboxes and it is running HP-UX 11i 64-bit as we speak. In fact, K-250 will also run 64-bit but the K220 (PA7200 processor will only run 32-bit).

The only gotcha is that you need to make sure the macine id in stable storage is lowercase k260 rather than uppercase K260 becuase otherwise the 64-bit OS will not load. The install software will think it is not a capable 64-bit box. You can check the id string using online diagnostics or boot the machine to firmware.

Regards, Clay

[Steven Chen_1]

Thanks for all the help.

About the firmware: how do I know if ours is capable to be upgraded to 64 bit?

About the memory chip: I know the k260 slot have been matched up with all cheap chip, so by adding more, do I need to replace them with higher capacity chips? That is not cheap, anyway? Anyone get idea?

Steven

[paul courry]

Ouch!!! That will teach me to answer before double checking my answer. My apologies to you Steven for giving you a bum steer. As for you Patrick... "Me 'ats off to 'da Duke"

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Hi again,

The minimum firmware level for your K260 is 37.40; I'm running 39.12 in my K260 sandbox.

Since a K2xx only has 1 memory carrier and all your slots are full you have no choice but to go to higher density memory it you need it. You can purchase HP memory fairly cheaply on the used market.


Clay

[Steven Chen_1]

Clay or someone,

I would like to know if I have matched up all slots by using the following mem chips (without opening the box):

4 x 128M
2 x 256M

They are on K260 server.

On the other hand, I guess I am OK to put in 256M chip if I need to (firmware should be all right for I check that 256M chips are there).

Please comment as you could.

Steven

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Hi again Steven,

If I understand your last posting, you should have 2 more pairs of slots for additional memory. Available slots go from 0a/b to 7a/b.
The only rule is that the largest SIMM's go in the lowest numbered slot pairs.

You can check the memory from online diagnostics or from firmware.

Clay

[Michael Francisco]

Here is the link to the System Memory Upgrade Guide for the K box:

http://docs.hp.com/hpux/pdf/A2375-90009.pdf

I did a similar upgrade (HPUX 10.20 to 11.00, Oracle 7.3.4 to Oracle 8 64bit, and 1GB mem to 2GB) several months back on our K260. Thing I remembered from my upgrade:

1. I made the mistake of purchasing a second memory carrier - K260 can only hold one.

2. When you read the above doc, watch your terminology -
A. SIMM is equilivant to DIMM in the doc
B. Module is TWO SIMMs (or DIMMs)
C. Pair of Modules is FOUR SIMMs (or DIMMS)
(in your question, you refered to memory chips - I'm assuming you mean modules???)

3. For optimium performance, you will need to install the memory in a particular order - not necessarily largest to smallest. Best performance is when you install PAIRS of modules (four SIMMs) in highest density to lowest density order before installing non paired or single modules (two SIMMs) in hightest density to lowest density order - see above doc for examples.

The K box will detect if memory is not optimized when it boots.

Looking at your configuration (assuming you are using the word chip to mean module (two SIMMs)), your configuration should be:

SLOT SIMM
0a/0b 128/128
1a/1b 128/128
2a/2b 64/64
3a/3b 64/64
4a/4b 64/64
5a/5b 64/64
6a/6b empty/empty
7a/7b empty/empty

If you are adding a single 256MB module (two SIMMs) then I believe you would put them in slots 6a/6b because all the other modules are paired. I guess an interesting question to the 9000 hardware guys/gals would be this: Will there be a performance gain in a K box with paired modules versus unpaired modules? If so, you might be better (although you limit your future expansion) to install a pair of 128MB modules instead of an unpaired 256MB module.

Hope this help!
Michael

[Michael Francisco]

I posted my answer before reading Clay's, and I'm not sure I agree. Page 2-18 (page 26 of the PDF) shows an example where smaller memory is installed before larger memory.

http://docs.hp.com/hpux/pdf/A2375-90009.pdf

Michael

[Steven Chen_1]

Micheal,

Thank you so much to share us with your experience with K260 upgrade.

I guess you are right about our mem arrangement, but I am not sure. Now I have 1G memory in total and I only know that I have had 4x128M and 2x256M. My goal is to upgrade to at least 2G, better off like said, 4G..

Then how many low capacity mem chip I have to replaced? Or if I only have two slots left, can I use 256M/@ with the present firmware (version)?

Last question: Do we need to buy hpux11 based on our existing 10.20?

Steven

[Michael Francisco]

Steven,
The cheapest way to get to 2GB with your current configuration is to replace the four 128MB Modules with 256MB Modules and purchase two additional 256MB Modules for the two empty pairs of memory slots.

To get to 4GB in a K260, you have no choice but to remove all of your memory modules and purchase 512MB Modules. I looked into purchasing these modules a while back and remembered that they were rather expensive. An alternate route that I didn't investigate would be to purchase a used upgrade to a K460. The K460 contains two memory carriers (total of 16 pairs of memory slots). It is possible that the price difference between 256MB Modules and 512MB Modules may be high enought to offset the price of the K460 upgrade. If you investigate this, please let me know!

Michael

[Michael Francisco]

Oops...I forgot to answer your second question on HP-UX 11.00. If your system is under software maintenance with HP, you can order the software upgrade free of charge.

http://itrc.hp.com

-> maintenance and support
-> updates (software update manager)

Otherwise, you will need to order HP-UX 11 to take advantage of 64 bit features.

Good Luck!
Michael

[Steven Chen_1]

Very interesting: I just talked to HP Sales who helped to find out K260 processor not able to be upgraded to hpux11i of 64bit, but only to hpux11.0.

I am confused of yes or not (you can upgrade to 11i but you can not take advange of 64bit, that is what he said).

Thanks Michael for the great help.

Steven

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Hi again Steven,

Go find another HP Rep. The 'HP-UX 11i Installation and Update Guide' clearly states under System Requirements than the Kx50,Kx60,Kx70, and Kx80 is compatible with both 32-bit and 64-bit 11i. Thew Kx00,Kx10, and Kx20 will only run 32-bit 11i as they are not PA-8000 boxes. Moreover, someone better tell my K260 not to run 64-bit 11i because it's doing it right now. The only gotcha, as I mentioned before is the lowercase 'k' (k260 NOT K260) in stable storage. If it is K260 have you HP guys come out and change it and 64-bit 11i would load and run like a charm.

Regards, Clay

[Steven Chen_1]

Clay,

Thank you for the help. But can you elaborate what you mean by "macine id in stable storage is lowercase k260 rather than uppercase K260"?

Steven

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Hi again Steven,

You determine the Model String (Or Machine ID String) by interrupting the boot and getting to the INformation menu. Then PRocessor and Model String or Machine ID. I'm glad you asked me this because I checked my notes when I first fought this problem and it turns out I had this backwards! It should be K260 not k260.
Evidently, I was one of the first to load 11 on a K260 and the HP guys and I almost never figured out what was wrong. I first loaded 32-bit on it and that went perfectly but every time I tried to load 64-bit I got an error saying this machine was not supported for 64-bit. It turned out that some months earlier, the HP guys had changed my system board and set the model string to "9000/879/k260" instead of "9000/879/K260". As soon as that was reconfigured the 64-bit version loaded and has run perfectly.

Sorry for getting this backwards; always check your journals first.

Clay

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Steven:

Before you buy more memory for the aging K-class, you might want to get a quote on an L- or N-class replacement. I'd wager that your K260 isn't worth more than about $7,500 US dollars. The cost of maintenance and support escalates as servers age and the cost of adding more memory may exceed the value of the server as it stands.

For more information on the L- and N-class servers see:

http://www.hp.com/products1/unixservers/entrylevel/lclass/

http://www.hp.com/products1/unixservers/midrange/nclass/

Regards!

...JRF...