Thinking of getting a new server

[Gerry Tully]

Originally, I was thinking of an RX system but was wondering if that's still the latest and the greatest for mid-range servers? Anyone with any info? Thanks

[Patrick Wallek · Accepted solution]

First you have to decide if you want to go with the newer Itanium architecture or the PA-RISC architecture. The rx series machines are Itanium based machines. The rp series are PA-RISC based. For mid-range and rp54XX series are good bets in my book.

[Pete Randall]

Gerry,

Pure opinion:

The RX servers use the Itanium or IA64 chip and, at this point in the development of same, I would tend to stick with the PA-RISC versions (RP). The RISC chipset is proven, well supported by most all software vendors, performs well, and is reliable. The RX chipset, while promising great potential, is still in it's infancy.


Pete

[Steven E. Protter]

The supposedly unified operating system, HP-UX 11i v2 was announced in May(I think). What that suppsedely means is the OS works exactly the same way on both PA-RISC and Itanium.

The first generation of Itanium was simply not accepted by the market. Dell Computer didn't even bother to release an Itanium based server and their sales did not suffer.

The risk at going with Itanium is that Itanium 2 will not gain wide acceptance and you'll end up running your enterprise on dead end hardware. Think alpha chip here.

The obvious advantage of Itanium is its got great Linux support, if that is the road you are thinking about.

It depends on your tolerance for risk and what you plan on doing, which way to go.

We are running rp5450 PA-RISC servers with heavy duty Oracle Applications and are quite pleased with the performance.

SEP

[Rita C Workman]

Well...I'm looking at picking up an RP54xx to replace an older box here.
But of late the RP8400's and RP7410 I got in recently - are my latest and favorite. I went for physically dividing the partitions for hardware redundancy in our cluster environment. They are great !!

Hoping to head up to a Superdome....but so far, only in my dreams...

Rgrds,
Rita

[Tim D Fulford]

Hi

The above replies are great, good conservative advice. However, Looking at tpm-c figures

rp54xx, 4x750MHz is about 50,000
rx56xx, 4x1.5GHz is about 120,000
rp8400, 16x750MHz, is about 140,000

Both rx56xx & rp54xx systems are similar in $$ cost ($130,000). There is a whopping 2.4 times factor in tpm-c there! Furthur to this if you were to try to get a similar tpm-c figure on rp (PA-8700 or PA-8700+) series you would be looking at 14x750MHz rp8400!!!. rp8400 is about 5 times the price of rp 54xx. (~ $580,000)

So the rewards in going rx (Itanium2) are POTENTIALLY massive.. My advice, get a 1-2 CPU rx server with 11i and see how well your apps run on it, if there is no difference you havent wasted too much money. That said, my company are playing conservative & won't consider doing this!!!

Good luck

Tim

[Tim D Fulford]

Hi

The above replies are great, good conservative advice. However, Looking at tpm-c figures

rp54xx, 4x750MHz is about 50,000
rx56xx, 4x1.5GHz is about 120,000
rp8400, 16x750MHz, is about 140,000

Both rx56xx & rp54xx systems are similar in $$ cost ($130,000). There is a whopping 2.4 times factor in tpm-c there! Furthur to this if you were to try to get a similar tpm-c figure on rp (PA-8700 or PA-8700+) series you would be looking at 14x750MHz rp8400!!!. rp8400 is about 5 times the price of rp 54xx. (~ $580,000)

So the rewards in going rx (Itanium2) are POTENTIALLY massive.. My advice, get a 1-2 CPU rx server with 11i and see how well your apps run on it, if there is no difference you havent wasted too much money. That said, my company are playing conservative & won't consider doing this!!!

Good luck

Tim

[Tim D Fulford]

Hi

The above replies are great, good conservative advice. However, Looking at tpm-c figures

rp54xx, 4x750MHz is about 50,000
rx56xx, 4x1.5GHz is about 120,000
rp8400, 16x750MHz, is about 140,000

Both rx56xx & rp54xx systems are similar in $$ cost ($130,000). There is a whopping 2.4 times factor in tpm-c there! Furthur to this if you were to try to get a similar tpm-c figure on rp (PA-8700 or PA-8700+) series you would be looking at 14x750MHz rp8400!!!. rp8400 is about 5 times the price of rp 54xx. (~ $580,000)

So the rewards in going rx (Itanium2) are POTENTIALLY massive.. My advice, get a 1-2 CPU rx server with 11i and see how well your apps run on it, if there is no difference you havent wasted too much money. That said, my company are playing conservative & won't consider doing this!!!

Good luck

Tim

[Ivajlo Yanakiev]

hi

Itanium 2 have problem with SCSI bus.
Also there si problem with some FW.
I think that itanium 2 is not ready for final fight :)