K370 HP Server
Written: Mar 28 '02 (Updated Mar 28 '02)
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Pros: Reliable, dependable and stable system running HP-UX
Cons: Very big, takes up a lot of space, expensive, and now outdated
The Bottom Line: HP has very dependable products with a staff that can stand behind their product and have the knowledge to help you do what you want to do.
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| WildBillm's Full Review: HP 9000 K Class K370 |
For those of you who are not the technical type, you may want to venture into this review with caution. This article is about a somewhat high end computer server and its functionality. I will discuss later in this article the purpose to of this server and this will probably be the least technical part.
This is the predecessor to the N Class line of server products which is also reaching its pinnacle. This K Class server falls under the category of what Hewlett Packard calls the HP 9000 Enterprise Server line of products.
Hewlett Packard is or at least was a very reputable company when dealing with high end servers. The reason I say this is that there is a merger underway. Hewlett Packard is trying to save a former competitor corporate giant, Compaq. When a huge organization like Compaq is at risk of bankruptcy, I say let them sink. That may seem kind of cruel, but that is the nature of the beast. For a company like Hewlett Packard to merge with them to bail them out of this downward spiral is a risky move. It will come with repercussions. You can’t do this without causing your own company (in this case Hewlett Packard) to have a ripple effect in their own company.
If HP decides to abandon their server line and go with Compaq architecture, we will probably be looking for another manufacturer.
Details of The K Class Systems
There are various other K Class systems that have been broken down into the number of processors they support, the type of RAM shipped with the system and the clock speed. I will just list them for you just to give you an idea:
6 Processors:
Models, memory and clock speed that come standard
K370= 128mb ECC, 200MHz
K380= 128mb ECC, 240MHz
K570= 256mb ECC, 200MHz
K580= 128mb ECC, 240MHz
There are also 11 models that contain a maximum of 4 processors, and 1 system that is a uniprocessor system that I will not go into detail on. Since the K370 is in the 6 processor category, I feel this is enough detail for this review.
Specs of Our System :
CPU: We have 4x 200MHz PA-RISC CPUs. This is upgradeable to a total of 6x 200MHz processors.
OS: HP-UX 10.20 (Hewlett Packard’s version of unix)
RAM: ECC memory used, 4x 256MB ECC memory sticks installed. (Total of 8 slots)
SPU: This unit has a System Processing Unit, system console, and external UPS.
This SPU has one front control panel, a key switch with three modes (Standby, ON, Service), and an LCD. The key switch modes are as follows:
1.) Standby – a warm up mode that supplies power to the LCD and internal components and not the CPU
2.) ON – For standard full operation
3.) Service – This is to check the status of the system components and functions while running diagnostics.
System Console :
This system comes with your basic console with your choice of a single color of amber, green, or white (similar to a monitor, but has a 9 pin connector that plugs into the system and a keyboard). It has a power button, brightness and contrast controls just like your standard monitor. The biggest difference between a console (sometimes called a terminal) is that a keyboard plugs into the console and not into the computer itself. I believe the reason being that some rack mounted servers are pretty big. If you plugged the keyboard into the back of your computer like a desktop, that would require a long cable running to the back of the system. Many rack mounted servers have a cabinet and the console sits on top of the rack system or on a tray. It is easier to plug the keyboard into the monitor than trying to maneuver your way to the back of the system.
The only thing I really don’t like about consoles in general are their refresh rates. If you have a fairly large list of files in a folder and run the list command in unix “ls” to see what you have, it takes a long time. So I usually try not to do very much work on the console itself. I usually telnet into the system from my desktop which has a nice Dell monitor with good refresh rates and do most of my work from there. My boss even made a comment of how fast the list came up when he saw me call type “ls –las” from my workstation.
The Rack:
The rack that comes with the K370 is a customized rack specifically for this system. It is not your typical cabinet where expansion is performed by simply bolting down a device into its proper place. Everything is HP specific. We have an additional cabinet on the side that houses all of our hard drives, controllers, fans and power supplies.
The good thing is it makes everything look nice and aesthetically pleasing to the eye. The bad thing is you can only put HP parts into it.
Hard Drives
Since this is our production server, we need a lot of hard drive space and the ability to swap out drives when they go bad. So we actually have a side cabinet that houses all of our drives. The top portion of the cabinet is labeled by HP as “Storage Enclosure” and it contains 2x 4.3GB DF (Differential SCSI) drives, 2x fans, and 2x power supplies.
We also have a “Surestore E Disk Array 12H” right below the drives listed above. This contains 12X 9.1GB SE (Single Ended SCSI) drives, 2x 96MB SCSI controller cards, 3x fans, and 3x power supplies.
All of the parts listed are hot swappable.
UPS
Since this system is almost expanded to its capacity, an Uninterruptible Power Supply system needs to be in effect to minimize downtime during power outages. To ensure we do not lose any power to our system, we have 2x Power Trust UPS systems in place. We have a Power Trust UPS for all of the drives, fans, power supplies and controllers and one for the server itself. Basically this is one for each cabinet.
Of course, the UPS system will not keep the systems up for long periods of time and the purpose of a UPS is to give you the time to properly shutdown your system before loss of power and to prevent a power surge from damaging your system.
The Power Trust seems to do well, we have not tested the actual rated up time (which I have not been able to find) during a power outage, nor do we intend to. It’s a production server for goodness sake.
We seem to have other issues dealing with power outage other than not having enough time to shut the systems down. In the past three months, we have had 5 power outages. Two of the outages happened around 11pm to 1am. These two outages would of course shutdown the two AC units in our small server room. Since the UPS units on our three big rack mounted systems do their job, they keep the systems running regardless of whether there is no AC to keep them cool. This brings me to my next topic, “Over Temperature Critical Threshold”
Over Temperature Critical Threshold
This basically is the temperature at which the system is entering a dangerously high temperature area. The system is programmed to shutdown when operating temperatures exceed 120 degrees.
This is good thing because you don’t want your production system to operate at high temperatures and die on you from being overheated. The only problem is it does not do a proper shutdown because that takes 20 minutes. So many times we have had corrupted files that had to be repaired or deleted. This of course is a small price to pay when it is compared to possible damage to your system boards and CPUs.
Support
Since this system is our production server, we do not want to have any down time. Of course, since this is not possible we want the next best thing. Hewlett Packard has what they call “Critical System Support.” What does this mean? It means big bucks. It also means we have emergency response service 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. If something happens to the system that I can’t handle, I call the CSS team and the problem gets fixed pronto.
Here is an example of a somewhat critical situation. We had our HP DLT 4000 tape drive go out and noticed the logs in the morning that indicated this. So at 9am I called our CSS team and reported the incident, and at 11am a rep was installing a new tape drive. If it was a real critical situation they could have been out here quicker, but I let them no we just needed it done that day.
What are we doing with a system like this?
Numerous things… I work for a government agency and we house a lot of sensitive data on this system. We have an Oracle database that is maintained by a DBA and 2 oracle database programmers. We have Netscape Enterprise Server running on the system to port out the database into a browser environment for easy input and data retrieval. We have various other agencies that fax data into this system via 4 modems tied into the system using a fax server software. This is a server that is used state wide. So it boils down to this, big projects are used by big systems.
Satisfaction
I am not sure if I am satisfied with this product and the support because of the treatment we receive based on the amount of money we spend a year in maintenance costs. I do know that the service we have received up to this point has been great. I have called support on numerous situations and they have always had a solution to my problem and an answer to my question. It doesn’t always come that day, but it has been in a timely manner.
If you have the money to spend and you want fast reliable service, HP has it today. I just hope they have it tomorrow.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
WildBillm
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Member: Bill Mounsey
Location: Slidell, LA
Reviews written: 57
Trusted by: 43 members
About Me:
Unix Administrator in Louisiana. Love college basketball, football, baseball and computers.
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