HP Integrity and HP-UX announcement today

[#1]

By Calvin Zito, @HPStorageGuy  

Tammie Aron, my colleague on our Business Critical Server team, has a blog post today diving into details about an announcement today.  The announcement includes enhancements to Superdome 2, new Integrity blades, new entry level Integrity servers, and HP-UX enhancements.  Here are a few links to help you learn more:

• Tammie's blog post on Mission Critical Computing blog
• hp.com announcement webpage
• Podcast with Chief Technologist and HP Fellow Kirk Bresniker

 Check it out!

[#2]

Hey Calvin!

I found the memory limits on that new Superdome puzzling - only 4TB of ram in 512 memory slots ? 8GB/chip ? Though looks like Sun, I mean Oracle, is in the same boat with up to 4TB of ram with 64 CPU sockets.

Though IBM with their Power 795 busts that wide open going up to 16TB.

When your 4-socket DL580 can get to 2TB, one might logically expect a 32-socket (or 64 in Oracle's case) to go to much higher levels.

I wonder what is holding Itanium back like that - is it the memory controllers? I would imagine even if HPUX could not address more than 4TB with a single instance you could run multiple instances in partitions on the Superdome.

[#3]

Nate

I talked to experts in our business unit and they had the following information for you.

Memory capacity is based on a combination of factors, including maximum OS instance size and customer requirements. Superdome 2 has 16 DIMM slots per CPU socket allowing customers to use very price-effective 8GB DIMMs to address their memory needs. Additional memory sizes continually get added over time to maximize customer value. There is nothing limiting larger memory capacity in Superdome 2 aside from the DIMM choices currently on the ordering menu.

Tammie