IBM 71413SU - System x3950 M2, Reference

Page 1: ...t 6 Multinode configurations 7 Front and rear layouts 11 Current models 12 IBM XA 64e fourth generation chipset 14 Processors 16 XceL4v Dynamic Server Cache 21 System memory 21 SAS disk subsystem 29 PCI subsystem 32 Broadcom dual Gigabit Ethernet controller 34 Redundancy 34 Light path diagnostics 35 Baseboard Management service processor 36 Remote Supervisor Adapter II 37 Trusted Platform Module 3...

Page 2: ...ls of the x3950 M2 supporting Windows Server 2003 DataCenter Edition page 12 Processor options for the x3950 M2 models page 17 New 8 GB memory DIMMs to allow up to 256 GB of RAM per chassis page 21 The stripe size of the LSI 1078 Integrated RAID controller is 64 KB and cannot be changed page 29 Added the FRU number for the battery backup unit for the ServeRAID MR10M page 31 Added links to the Serv...

Page 3: ...tabase mid tier application services or terminal services With its extensive chipset development experience industry leading performance and availability breakthroughs IBM is uniquely positioned to propose a robust and powerful server offering innovation that delivers real business and IT results The x3850 M2 is a standalone server with four processor sockets up to 32 DIMM sockets The x3950 M2 als...

Page 4: ...t swap and hot add and ChipKill Seven half length 64 bit PCI Express x8 slots two of which are hot swap Integrated LSI 1078 serial attached SCSI SAS controller Supports the RAID 0 and the RAID 1 standards To enable additional RAID features and a 256 MB battery backed cache an optional ServeRAID MR10k RAID controller is available Four internal hot swap drive bays for up to 584 GB of internal storag...

Page 5: ...he ScaleXpander Option Kit 44E4249 Disk subsystem Adaptec AIC9410 SAS LSI 1078 SAS External disk port No Yes SAS x4 RAID support Standard not supported only via optional ServeRAID 8i Standard RAID 0 and RAID 1 additional RAID features via optional ServeRAID MR10k PCI X slots Two or six depending on model None PCI Express slots Some models have four PCI Express x8 full length slots Seven PCI Expres...

Page 6: ...33 MHz 64 GB maximum per node 512 GB maximum with 8 nodes 32 DDR2 DIMM sockets per node Maximum of 4 memory card each with 8 DDR2 DIMM slots running at 533 MHz 256 GB maximum per node 1 TB maximum with 4 nodes Internal disks Six hot swap bays Four hot swap bays Disk subsystem Adaptec AIC9410 no external port LSI 1078 external SAS 4x port RAID support Standard not supported only via optional ServeR...

Page 7: ... capable systems with processors memory and I O devices The x3950 M2 is the building block that allows supported 8 way 12 way and 16 way configurations by adding additional x3950 M2s as required Unlike with the System x3950 and xSeries 460 there is no special modular expansion enclosure for the x3950 M2 The multinode configuration is simply formed by using another x3950 M2 or an x3850 M2 that has ...

Page 8: ...8874 and 8879 are not supported Processors Each x3950 M2 server must have either two or four processors installed and all processors in the complex must be the same speed and cache size Memory For performance reasons you should have the same amount of memory in each node However a minimum of 4 GB of RAM is required in each node because otherwise the node will not be able to join the multinode conf...

Page 9: ...BIOS diagnostics BMC firmware and RSA II firmware must be at the same level across all systems Memory settings for HPMA HAM FAMM in BIOS must be standardized across all systems in the multinode configuration while the nodes are still logically separate that is pre merge Refer to Table 11 on page 28 for details about this topic You will need separate KVM connections to each node Alternatively you c...

Page 10: ...e light path diagnostic panel showing a link failure and the server will disable the failing port and switch traffic to the remaining path There will be a slight performance degradation in this mode After the cable is reattached the server will re enable the path and clear the error from the light path diagnostic panel In multinode configurations the inbound communication between each node now is ...

Page 11: ...0 M2 Figure 6 shows the major components at the rear of the server Figure 6 Rear panel of the x3850 M2 and x3950 M2 1 2 3 4 Operator information panel USB connectors DVD ROM drive Four hot swap disk drive bays Gigabit Ethernet 2 Gigabit Ethernet 1 SMP Expansion Port 1 SMP Expansion Port 2 SMP Expansion Port 3 USB SAS System serial Power supply 1 Power supply 2 Remote Supervisor Adapter II Video co...

Page 12: ...enses This applies to Windows Server 2003 R2 or previous editions Standard Enterprise and Datacenter editions as virtual instance The Unlimited Virtualization High Availability Program delivers a complete system configuration that has been both IBM Server Proven and Microsoft Cluster Certified to ensure that every major hardware and software component has been tested together to provide maximum av...

Page 13: ...plies to Windows Server 2003 R2 or previous editions Standard Enterprise and Datacenter editions as virtual instance The IBM Datacenter Unlimited Virtualization Offering delivers a server comprised of components that have been IBM Server Proven but unlike High Availability Program solutions there is no requirement for Microsoft Cluster Certification This offering gives the customer more freedom in...

Page 14: ... Two PCI Express bridges One South bridge Figure 7 on page 15 shows the block diagram of the x3850 M2 and x3950 M2 Model Standard processors L2 L3 cache total per CPU Standard memory With 32 bit Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition 4 socket license for each system 7141 3DY 2x 2 40 GHz Xeon E7330 Quad core 6 MB 8x 1 GB 7141 4DY 2x 2 93 GHz Xeon X7350 Quad core 8 MB 8x 1 GB With 64 bit Windows Ser...

Page 15: ...M2 holds a snoop filter lookup table This filter ensures that snoop requests for cache lines go to the appropriate microprocessor bus and not all four of them thereby improving performance As shown in Figure 7 PCI bridge 1 supplies four of the seven PCI Express x8 slots on four independent PCI Express buses PCI bridge 2 supplies the other three PCI Express x8 slots plus the onboard SAS devices inc...

Page 16: ...n one system is not supported As described in Multinode configurations on page 7 you can connect multiple x3950 M2s to form larger configurations The x3950 M2s must have either two or four identical processors installed The processors are accessible from the top of the server after opening the media hood The media hood is hinged at the middle of the system and contains the SAS drives optical media...

Page 17: ...els announced October 2007 Table 8 lists the processors used in the x3950 M2 models announced in January 2008 Table 8 Processors used in x3950 M2 models announced January 2008 Model Standard CPU dual core or quad core CPU power consumption Part number for CPU option 7141 1RU 2 x 2 40 GHz Xeon E7210 Dual core 80 W 44E4244 7141 2RU 2 x 2 13 GHz Xeon E7320 Quad core 80 W 44E4241 7141 3RU 2 x 2 40 GHz...

Page 18: ...ments the Advanced Transfer Cache technology The L1 execution trace cache in each core is used to store micro operations decoded executable machine instructions It serves those to the processor at rated speed This additional level of cache saves decode time on cache hits The Tigerton processors do not have L3 cache Model Standard CPU dual core or quad core CPU power consumption Part number for CPU...

Page 19: ...egisters issue ports and pipelines for each core A multi core processor achieves more parallelism than Hyper Threading Technology because these resources are not shared between the two cores With double and quadruple the number of cores for the same number of sockets it is even more important that the memory subsystem is able to meet the demand for data throughput The 34 1 GBps peak throughput of ...

Page 20: ...rous other improvements that boost performance regardless of the maximum address size Compatibility mode The second mode supported by Intel 64 Technology is the compatibility mode which is an intermediate mode of the full 64 bit mode described in the following list item To run in compatibility mode you will need to install a 64 bit operating system and 64 bit drivers If a 64 bit OS and drivers are...

Page 21: ...igured as a multinode server this technology dynamically allocates 256 MB of main memory in each node for use as an L4 cache directory and scalability directory In an 8 way configuration this means there will be 512 MB of XceL4v cache Used in conjunction with the XceL4v Dynamic Server Cache is an embedded DRAM eDRAM which in single node configurations contains the snoop filter lookup tables Howeve...

Page 22: ...ds both the x3850 M2 and x3950 M2 can be expanded to 256 GB Each x3850 M2 and x3950 M2 must have at least 2 DIMMs and one memory card installed By adding a single fully populated x3950 M2 with 8 GB DIMMs you can expand up to 512 GB and so on up to a maximum of 1024 GB in a four node configuration Each node needs a minimum of 4 GB of memory installed to be able to merge into a single image For perf...

Page 23: ...ry card before adding DIMMs to the next memory card Performance optimized configuration As described in IBM XA 64e fourth generation chipset on page 14 there are eight independent memory ports Therefore to optimize performance you need to install four memory cards and then spread the DIMMs still installed in matched pairs across all four memory cards before filling each card with two more DIMMs A ...

Page 24: ...scrubbing determines if the error is recoverable or not If the error is recoverable Memory ProteXion is enabled and the data that was stored in the damaged locations is rewritten to a new location The error is then reported so that preventative maintenance can be performed As long as there are enough good locations to allow the proper operation of the server no further action is taken other than r...

Page 25: ...ry configuration the server can automatically disable the failing memory bank and continue operating with reduced memory capacity You can manually re enable the memory bank after the problem is corrected by using the Setup menu in the BIOS Memory mirroring Chipkill and Memory ProteXion provide multiple levels of redundancy to the memory subsystem Combining Chipkill with Memory ProteXion allows up ...

Page 26: ...ad operations data is read from the DIMMs with the least amount of reported memory errors through memory scrubbing Table 10 shows the possible BIOS settings for the initialization scrub control The setting is accessed by going to Advanced Setup Memory Settings Initialization Scrub Control Table 10 Initialization Scrub Control DIMM 1 DIMM 2 DIMM 3 DIMM 4 DIMM 5 DIMM 6 DIMM 7 DIMM 8 Memory hot swap ...

Page 27: ... is being removed and power down that card s slot accordingly The overall process to hot swap a failed DIMM is as follows 1 Verify that memory mirroring and hot swap are enabled by checking the memory hot swap enabled LED on the memory cards 2 When a DIMM fails you will be alerted with the memory LED on the light path diagnostics panel and by other means with the service processor if this has been...

Page 28: ...ly for 32 bit operating systems the Physical Address Extension PAE mode has to be enabled to take advantage of the additional memory For information about how to perform a hot add operation and more information about the restrictions refer to x3850 M2 and x3950 M2 User s Guide Memory configuration in BIOS Configure the memory subsystem in the server s BIOS Setup menu by clicking Advanced Settings ...

Page 29: ...SCSI compatibility reliability performance and manageability In addition SAS offers longer cabling distances smaller form factors and greater addressability The x3850 M2 and x3950 M2 have an external SAS x4 port which is used in conjunction with the optional ServeRAID MR10k This external port supports SAS non RAID disk enclosures such as the EXP3000 This port has an SFF 8088 connector The chassis ...

Page 30: ...ached data to a replacement DIMM if that data has not been written to a disk This could be necessary if for example the DIMM fails after an unexpected power failure After you install the iTBBU on the new RAID DIMM it flushes the unwritten data preserved in the cache to the disk through the new DIMM The battery is designed to up to 72 hours cache protection depending on operating environment IBM re...

Page 31: ...x3950 M2 also support the ServeRAID MR10M part number 43W4339 which has the following features PCI Express x8 adapter card Supports SAS and SATA 2 Two external x4 ports using SFF 8088 connectors no internal SAS connectors 256 MB onboard cache using DDR2 memory Onboard battery backup unit power for up to 72 hours replace annually using FRU 43W4342 RAID levels 0 1 10 5 50 6 60 Supports the EXP3000 e...

Page 32: ...porting 32 bit adapters as well Slots 6 and 7 also support Active PCI hot swap adapters The optional ServeRAID MR10k adapter does not use a PCI slot because it has a dedicated slot on the motherboard See Figure 15 on page 33 The PCI subsystem also supplies these I O devices LSI 1078 Serial attached SCSI SAS controller Broadcom dual port 5709C 10 100 1000 Ethernet Six USB ports two on the front pan...

Page 33: ...r faster PCI Express cards per PCI bridge bridge 1 is slots 1 2 3 and 4 bridge 2 is slots 5 6 and 7 with a maximum of four per system Examples of adapter cards that have bandwidth maximums of 8 Gbps or more include 10 Gbps Ethernet card and dual port 4 Gbps Fibre Channel cards PCI Express x8 x8 lanes slot 1 PCI Express x8 x8 lanes slot 2 PCI Express x8 x8 lanes slot 3 PCI Express x8 x8 lanes slot ...

Page 34: ...50 M2 include one dual port Broadcom BCM5709C 10 100 1000 BASE T MAC Media Access Controller on the PCI Express x4 bus The BCM5709C has the following features Supports full and half duplex performance at all speeds 10 100 1000 Mbps auto negotiated Provides two IEEE 802 3 Ethernet MAC addresses Includes integrated on chip memory for buffering data transmissions to ensure the highest network perform...

Page 35: ...950 M2 showing the location of the memory cards power supplies and fans is displayed in Figure 16 Figure 16 Redundancy features of the x3850 M2 and x3950 M2 Light path diagnostics To limit the customer s need to slide the server out of the rack to diagnose problems a light path diagnostics panel is located at the front of the x3850 M2 and x3950 M2 This panel slides out from the front of the server...

Page 36: ...tem check at A C on The BMC monitors critical I2C devices in standby power mode to determine if the system configuration is safe for power on BMC Event log maintenance The BMC maintains and updates an IPMI specified event log in non volatile storage Critical system information is recorded and made available for external viewing System power state tracking The BMC monitors the system power state an...

Page 37: ...850 M2 and x3950 M2 have the Remote Supervisor Adapter II service processor as a standard component This adapter shown in Figure 18 is installed in a dedicated PCI X slot and provides similar functionality as the Remote Supervisor Adapter II PCI option available for other System x servers However only the Ethernet and video connectors are used on the x3850 M2 and x3950 M2 The other external ports ...

Page 38: ...ng system boot loader is secure The Core Root of Trusted Measurements CRTM code is embedded in the BIOS for logging and signing of the BIOS In addition you can enable the ACPI setting in the BIOS disabled by default which will assist any operating system that has support written into its code to use the security features of this module The TPM is TCG V1 2 compliant and is ready for use with softwa...

Page 39: ...author of IBM System x3755 Solution Assurance Product Review Guide He has more than 10 years of experience with System x servers including pre sale and post sale technical support He has been involved with Solution Assurance since 1998 and is currently the EMEA coordinator for the ServerProven Opportunity Request for Evaluation SPORE program Robert s areas of expertise include Novell NetWare and S...

Page 40: ...oduction Randy Kolvick Mark Kapoor Dan Kelaher Colin Mckerrell Vinod Menon Jim Rix Bill Schwartz Ketan Shah Karen Taylor Steve Zaharias IBM Marketing Craig Alexander Jay Bretzmann Mark Chapman Kyle Hampton Beth McElroy Brian Sanders Novell Adam Spiers ...

Page 41: ...eriodically made to the information herein these changes will be incorporated in new editions of the publication IBM may make improvements and or changes in the product s and or the program s described in this publication at any time without notice Any references in this information to non IBM Web sites are provided for convenience only and do not in any manner serve as an endorsement of those Web...

Page 42: ...nergy Manager IBM PowerExecutive PowerPC Predictive Failure Analysis Redbooks Redbooks logo ServerProven ServeRAID System x X Architecture xSeries The following terms are trademarks of other companies AMD ATI ES1000 Radeon the AMD Arrow logo and combinations thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices Inc Microsoft Windows Server Windows and the Windows logo are trademarks of Microsoft Corpor...