SQL Server Magazine

The HP Netserver LT 6000R 6-way server is Hewlett-Packard's (HP's) entry into the 4-way SMP server market. The Netserver's simple, lateral processor-placement design mitigates architectural constraints related to physical bus length and electrical specifications. The 4U (7") rack-mount server uses ServerWorks' ServerSet III HE chipset to accommodate two more processors than a 4-way system. These innovations let you place as many as six Intel Pentium III Xeon CPUs on a 26cm bus and leave adequate space for cooling.

The Netserver maintains a gated 100MHz path between the processor and RAM (you can't sidestep the Xeon processor's bus-speed limitation of 100MHz), but utilizes a 133MHz bus between I/O and RAM. The server's internal workings are innovative. Overall, the physical design simplifies installation and maintenance with tool-less rack-mount hardware and tool-less access to major assemblies within the unit. When you need to repair or upgrade major assemblies, you also can remove them from the chassis. Before you open the chassis, however, you need to unplug the I/O and power cables.

An integrated LCD control panel and three color-coded LEDs work together to display system status on the front panel, on which you also find the power and reset buttons and switches for operating the LCD control panel. You can open the hinged front panel to access a 32X CD-ROM drive and a 1.44MB 3.5" disk drive. On the back of the server, you'll find the integrated ports: one parallel and two serial ports, PS/2-style keyboard and mouse ports, an SVGA port, and a 10/100 NIC port. To facilitate my benchmark testing, HP installed three additional PCI 10/100 NICs into the unit that I tested.

Scalability Features
The review unit came with six 700MHz Pentium III Xeon CPUs with 2MB of Level 2 cache and 4GB of Error-Correcting Code (ECC) SDRAM. However, the system board can accommodate as much as 8GB of 133MHz ECC SDRAM for memory-intensive applications. The product offers six 64-bit PCI slots—four 33MHz slots and two 66MHz slots—for expansion. Two slots of each speed also support hot-plug PCI cards.

Four front-accessible hot-swappable drive shelves let you attach as much as 72GB of internal storage to the integrated dual-channel Ultra 2 SCSI HP NetRAID Controller. A 9.1GB 10,000rpm SCSI disk, which hosts the network operating system (NOS), occupies one of the four available hot-swappable disk-drive shelves. The test unit had an additional 21 drives of the same type installed in two HP Netserver Rack Storage/12 Ultra 2 chassis. The drives attached to a four-channel HP NetRAID-4M Controller with 128MB of cache. Three channels hosted five drives each, and one channel hosted five drives and a hot spare. I configured three, two-disk RAID 0 sets from the available drives: a set for the Windows 2000 pagefile, a set for the Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 application, and a set for the database. I configured the remainder of the available drives as a RAID 0+1 volume for the database transaction log's use.

Availability Features
Scalability and high performance are built in to the Netserver's 6-way design, but the package also includes a host of features for maximizing availability. The LT 6000R is the basic Netserver platform for high availability and clustering support. Three power supplies, standard on the LT 6000R, provide out-of-the-box redundancy. The Automatic Server Restart (ASR) capability automatically reboots the server if the NOS hangs.

The server's hot-swappable drive bays and integrated HP NetRAID-4M Controller increase storage availability. An advanced cooling system composed of six hot-swappable fans and two redundant fans, all with active fan-speed and -failure sensing, provides proactive defense against temperature-related component failures. The system conforms to the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) specifications for component monitoring and management.

Manageability Features
HP offers an array of Netserver management tools, ranging from setup and configuration utilities to remote control hardware and software. The Netserver Navigator CD-ROM, which HP ships with the system, assists with configuring the server and installing the NOS, management agents, and utilities. The CD-ROM also includes TopTools Auto Alert 5.0, Local TopTools for Servers, TopTools Device Manager, OpenView ManageX Event Manager 4.2, and integration components for leading network- and system-management products. The Integrated Remote Assistant (IRA) provides remote access to the server for troubleshooting. I also looked at the optional TopTools Remote Control Card, which provides thorough remote-access functionality. I began my review of Netserver management with installation and configuration, then tested individual tools. The tools proved helpful, but the tools' names and functions were confusingly similar.

Installation and configuration. After I set up the hardware, I placed the Netserver Navigator CD-ROM in the server's CD-ROM drive and powered on the system. The server booted from the CD-ROM and brought up the Netserver Navigator Main Menu screen. A dialog box informed me that the CD-ROM contained a newer version of the system BIOS than the BIOS detected on the server. I clicked Help, which brought up a discussion of different methods for updating the BIOS; I decided to run the Configuration Assistant in Custom mode to perform the upgrade. I returned to the Netserver Navigator Main Menu screen and clicked Configuration Assistant and Installation Assistant. I selected Custom from the Configuration Assistant menu to begin the wizard-driven configuration.

The first phase of configuration gathered information about the type of NOS that I wanted to install. I selected Win2K Advanced Server, which resulted in a message recommending a fix for a Win2K- hardware compatibility issue and referring me to a Microsoft article describing the fix. Then, another message informed me of a possible system hang during the NOS installation. In the next Configuration Assistant screen, I chose automated mode for my NOS installation, which would eliminate the hang possibility and automatically apply the fix. The next screen displayed BIOS versions of different components in the system. The system BIOS was the only BIOS that required an update, which I performed by clicking Update. A process that took about 15 minutes updated the system BIOS and utility partition.

The server rebooted from the Netserver Navigator CD-ROM and displayed the next Configuration Assistant menu. The menu categorized configuration tasks—each of which had a button—as essential steps or recommended steps. The recommended steps included Update System BIOS (which I had completed already), Install/Update Utility Partition, Show System Information, and Show NOS Installation Instructions. After I completed these steps, I performed the three essential steps, which were Configure Remote Management, Configure Disk Array, and Install NOS.

I clicked Configure Remote Management, which brought up the configuration utility for IRA. Within that utility, I configured communication settings, administrator access, and event-management options.

I returned to the Configuration Assistant wizard and clicked Configure Disk Array, which launched the HP NetRAID Assistant program. HP NetRAID Assistant is an intuitive GUI for managing disks attached to the integrated NetRAID controller. I chose Wizard from the Configuration menu to simplify drive setup. After the new arrays were initialized, I exited the HP NetRAID Assistant and let the system perform the required reboot.

The system again booted to the Netserver Navigator CD-ROM and presented the Custom Configuration menu, from which I chose Install NOS. The automated NOS installation, which I had selected in an earlier configuration step, created a 2GB partition and formatted the partition with the FAT file system to accommodate the installation files. The system rebooted and launched the Installation Assistant. The Installation Assistant asked me to choose the file-system type for the Win2K AS partition and specify a new partition size. The automated-mode installation copied necessary files from the Netserver Navigator CD-ROM, then prompted me to put the Win2K AS CD-ROM in the CD-ROM drive. An Installation Assistant dialog box prompted me to enter addresses for one or more management consoles. These management consoles would be the recipients of Netserver alert messages.

I accepted the default setting to install Netserver Agents and Local TopTools for Servers, and the automated installation began. The Netserver Agents are behind the scenes but at the core of HP's management offerings; Netserver Agents monitor the system and communicate with the various management tools. Other than the usual questions I needed to answer about licensing and domain membership, the Win2K AS setup ran without intervention and installed all necessary drivers.

TopTools Auto Alert. I installed TopTools Auto Alert from the Netserver Navigator CD-ROM. Auto Alert provides alerts and advice to help prevent potential hardware and system problems. After I performed the required reboot, Auto Alert automatically launched and prompted me to name servers to monitor. I entered the Netserver's system name and immediately received a list of current alerts for my system. I could read advice about an alert, print an alert, clear an alert, or clear all alerts. If you configure a TopTools server to manage the Netserver, you can establish a connection to the managing server through Auto Alert. The Auto Alert utility is most useful for environments that don't have proactive management plans. The utility provides a simple way to monitor and manage a small office server for an organization that might not have a staff dedicated to IT management.

Local TopTools for Servers. From the Netserver's Windows Start menu, I opened Local TopTools for Servers, which the initial configuration and installation had set up. Local TopTools for Servers monitors only the Netserver on which it is installed (administrators use this tool from the server console).

Local TopTools for Servers uses a Web browser-based UI and provides interactive local management functions for HP servers. The six tabs at the top of the interface are Identity, Status, Configuration, Report, Tools, and Support. The Identity tab displays typical identification characteristics of the server (e.g., system name, model, uptime). The Status tab, which Figure 1 shows, lists event-log information and the status of storage devices and memory. The Configuration tab lists hardware-configuration information about the server, including details about the DIMM, NICs, drives, controllers, I/O ports, PCI bus, and drivers. The Report tab summarizes the details of server configuration and tracks changes to the configuration. The Tools tab lists other management and configuration utilities, categorizes each tool as online or offline, describes the tool's functionality, and tells you where you can find the tool. The final tab, Support, contains a link to the HP support Web site for the Netserver. The Support tab also includes templates for creating hyperlinks to reseller and internal-support sites.

TopTools Device Manager. Local TopTools for Servers' features might meet the management needs of small environments, but large corporate installations will want to leverage TopTools Device Manager to manage their HP hardware. (HP refers to TopTools Device Manager simply as TopTools.) This feature is a management enhancement that is free to HP hardware customers. Although TopTools can manage a large selection of HP devices, I tested only TopTools's ability to manage the Netserver system. A notable benefit of using TopTools is the ability it affords for managing all your Netserver systems from a centralized, Web-accessible console.

I downloaded TopTools 5.0 from HP's Web site (you can also get TopTools on a CD-ROM) and installed it on a custom-built computer running Win2K Server. After I downloaded the installation source, the installation process took about 5 minutes. The installation wizard was straightforward and prompted me to perform the necessary actions to complete the installation (e.g., insert the Win2K Server CD-ROM to enable SNMP support for TopTools). The final phase of installation required me to configure options for device discovery, including the discovery schedule, SNMP community information, and Desktop Management Interface (DMI) and Windows Management Interface (WMI) interrogation.

After a required reboot, I double-clicked the TopTools icon on my computer's desktop to open the Web browser-based TopTools console. I tested the centralized Web accessibility by opening this console from another workstation on my network. From the workstation, I could log on to the custom-built computer's Web-based TopTools interface, which let me select and manage the Netserver. As a result of the discovery process I had configured, TopTools detected and enumerated about 20 SNMP-enabled devices on the network.

Several methods will get you to the Management Home Page for your managed server. I chose to view devices by type, then selected Servers. I right-clicked the icon next to the Netserver's name and chose Management Home Page from the menu. This action brought up the TopTools page for my Netserver, which provided the same monitoring and management tools as Local TopTools for Servers.

OpenView ManageX Event Manager. Also on the Netserver Navigator CD-ROM is Event Manager, a NOS event-management console (a subset of the complete OpenView ManageX product, which monitors application events in addition to NOS events). I installed Event Manager on the Netserver. The Event Manager main interface contains a Command Queue window, a Device Selector window, and a Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in, from which I could view Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) data and performance data for all the systems on my network.

I followed the online documentation to configure Event Manager. Within the Device Selector window, I created a new alias called Test Servers, which included the Netserver system that I wanted to manage. I then browsed Event Manager's supplied event policies and opened a Windows NT service-related policy to view the events and conditional triggers and actions associated with that policy. Event Manager includes a variety of HP Cluster Management and NOS policies. You can use and modify only these included policies; you can't create new policies. I highlighted the Test Servers alias, right-clicked the policy, and chose Install from the resulting menu to deploy the aforementioned service policy to the aliased domain (which included the Netserver system).

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