IBM eServer xSeries 450
IBM's offering in the Itanium 2 market is the IBM eServer xSeries 450. The system is encased in a 4U (7") rack-mount cabinet and supports as many as four Itanium 2 processors at speeds as fast as 1.5GHz. Six PCI-X slots are standard*two 133MHz, two 100MHz, and two 66MHz. IBM's Remote I/O features let you place one 3U (5.25") rack-mount enclosure with 6 or 12 additional PCI-X slots as far as 8 meters away from the system cabinet for enhanced system configuration flexibility. The xSeries 450 supports 40GB of RAM. IBM also offers the IBM eServer xSeries 382, with two 1.5GHz Itanium 2 processors and 4GB of SDRAM in a 2U rack-mount chassis.
IBM built the servers around its XA-64 chipset, which implements IBM Chipkill Memory to offer enhanced 4-bit memory protection when you use industry-standard DIMMs. Chipkill enhances Error-Correcting Code (ECC) memory fault tolerance by correcting multiple single-bit errors that occur on a DIMM. Memory ProteXion lets the system tolerate a memory chip failure by employing otherwise unused bits in ECC memory. The systems also support Level 4 Cache (XceL4 Server Accelerator Cache, as IBM calls it), which enhances system performance through the use of as much as 16MB of Level 4 cache per system. An Ultra320 SCSI controller with integrated RAID 1 support lets you mirror the two hot-swappable SCSI drives that the cabinet supports. Light Path Diagnostics, a hardware feature that helps you determine the cause of problems, provides a visual display of the health of system components on a front diagnostic panel. IBM plans future models that will let you combine as many as 4 of the 4U xSeries 450 systems and enable scaling with as many as 16.
Because of an error that affects the 900MHz and 1GHz Itanium 2 processors, IBM sold earlier xSeries 450 systems only on a case-by-case basis. A workaround configuration drops processor clock speed to 800MHz. The systems are Madison-ready, so existing clients will receive upgraded processors when they become available.
NEC Express5800/1000
NEC offers three Itanium 2 models in its NEC Express5800/1000 server line. Each model supports at least eight processors (either 1GHz or 900MHz versions). The Express5800/1080Rc supports as many as eight processors in an 8U (14") rack-mount cabinet, four internal disk drives, 8GB to 16GB of RAM, and as many as 26 PCI slots. The 1080Rc runs either Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition or Windows 2003, Datacenter Edition (64-bit). The Express5800/1160Xc supports 16 processors, 8GB to 256GB of RAM, and 56 PCI slots. The Express5800/1320Xc supports 32 processors, 8GB to 512GB of RAM, and 112 PCI slots. The 1160Xc and 1320Xc are floor-standing models that run Windows 2003 Datacenter Edition and have six internal hard disk slots.
Models of the Express5800/1000 server line that run Linux are also available, and NEC sells models outside the United States that support HP-UX. According to a NEC spokesperson, the low latency switching architecture that enables communication between each group of four processors (cells) enables single-system configurations with as many as 32 CPUs. NEC also announced a new TX7 series of Itanium 2 (Madison)based servers configured with as many as 32 processors that support only HP-UX and Linux. Initially, these systems will be available only in Japan, according to NEC.
Unisys ES7000 Itanium 2 Systems
Unisys offers several Itanium 2 models in its ES7000 series of servers. The ES7000 Aries 410 system supports four or eight processors, 64GB of RAM, and sixteen 133MHz PCI-X slots. The ES7000 Aries 420 system supports 16 processors (in groups of 4) and thirty-two 100MHz PCI-X slots. The server supports one or two partitions (individually bootable instances of an OS) and 128GB of RAM.
The ES7000 Orion 430 and ES7000 Orion 560 systems are partitionable servers for database, server consolidation, and other high-demand applications. Both support as much as 128GB of RAM in each of two 64-bit power domains (256GB total) with as many as 16 Itanium 2 processors in each domain. You can configure each domain for one or two partitions, dividing the domain's processors between partitions in groups of four. In addition, the Orion 560 supports 16 to 32 Intel Xeon processor MP processors in two 32-bit power domains, supporting as many as eight four-processor 32-bit partitions. You can also add as many as 42 Pentium III 700 blade servers, each with its own memory and network port. All systems include a dedicated service processor and Unisys Server Sentinel software, which enables remote administration, system health monitoring, and "call home" fault notification, which enables the system to call a Unisys service center when it detects a problem.
Xeon Systems
Intel designed its Xeon processor MP for multiprocessor systems. The processor is available at speeds as fast as 2.8GHz and with as much as 2MB of Level 3 cache. Intel calls the collection of features supporting the high clock rate of the Xeon processor MP its NetBurst architecture. The processor is designed to support a 400MHz system bus for improved memory and I/O throughput, including support for 133MHz PCI-X I/O slots. Intel Hyper-Threading Technology also increases processor throughput. Each processor includes the hardware resources necessary to maintain the state of two application threads, which lets them share the same set of processor execution resources more effectively. For pricing information for these systems, see Table 2.
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