SQL Server Magazine

In June 1997, Windows NT Magazine featured a roundup of clustering solutions. For the review, the Windows NT Magazine Lab received an unusual clustering solution from Cubix: RemoteServ/IS, a chassis that supports five to eight load-balanced processing subsystems, depending on your configuration choice. In the fourth quarter of 1997, Cubix introduced a new hardware platform similar to the RemoteServ/IS but offering symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) and uniprocessing power on one platform: PowerSMP Series 4000. PowerSMP Series 4000 consists of five independent servers within an impressive rack-mounted microcomputer chassis. The chassis is a fault-tolerant compact enclosure featuring redundant cooling systems, hot-swappable power supplies, and centralized I/O.

One Box Fits All
PowerSMP supports a Windows NT network that requires multiple servers. For example, a typical network might require an NT Primary Domain Controller (PDC), a Backup Domain Controller (BDC), an Exchange Server system, an Internet Information Server (IIS) system, and a SQL Server system. PowerSMP lets you implement these servers within one platform.

Consolidating multiple servers into a single computing enterprise conserves space and power and centralizes control of network services. The independent servers in the PowerSMP configuration are not fault tolerant; however, you can add fault tolerance through third-party clustering software.

Small Packages
The PowerSMP Series 4000 chassis features a 32-bit backplane architecture that is anchored by a dual-SMP 200MHz Intel Pentium Pro server and is complemented by up to four independent 200MHz Pentium server subsystems. The entire unit is 19" wide, 8.75" high, and 25" deep, and it contains integrated steel slides for easy rack mounting. You can access the chassis by removing the top panel. The redundant load-sharing power supplies are located on the right side of the unit; each power supply has a power cord so that you can draw power from different electric grids. There are nine disk bays toward the front of the unit, one 3.5" floppy drive, one 12X CD-ROM drive, and room for seven third-height 3.5" hard disks. The processor boards are grouped tightly in the rear of the unit, rising vertically from the backplane.

The dual-SMP server actually consists of two expansion cards. The dual processors are located on the DP 6200 processor board, which contains two EIDE drive connectors and four Dual Inline Memory Module (DIMM) slots capable of holding a maximum of 1GB of RAM. Next is the DP 6200 I/O board with two Fast/Wide SCSI connectors, a floppy-drive connector, COM ports, a video controller, and a 100Base-TX/10Base-T LAN interface on the rear bracket.

The uniprocessor servers are on separate cards called the BC Triton processor boards. The processor boards contain the CPU, up to 512MB of RAM on four DIMMs, IDE and SCSI connections, COM ports, and a built-in 10/100Mbps Ethernet port on the rear bracket.

The PowerSMP backplane provides three PCI expansion slots for the independent SMP server and one ISA expansion slot for each of the four uniprocessor servers. Through a backplane shunting technique that lets you link pairs of the ISA slots, you can join some or all of the four ISA slots to the SMP server to provide additional expansion slots. The backplane architecture connects to the integral multiplexer, which supports single-point I/O for video, mouse, keyboard, and floppy drive support; the multiplexer can also support hot-swapping of individual PC cards.

The chassis has an intelligent environment sensor integrated into a printed circuit board that monitors environmental conditions such as temperature, voltage, fan rotation, fuses, and hardware resets for the entire assembly. The front control panel provides easy computer selection, independent processor reset, port diagnostics, and a console lock that prevents unauthorized persons from changing settings.

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