Software Reliability - Compaq 112726-001 - ProLiant - 6500 White Paper

ECG078/0498
W P
HITE APER
. .
. .
ProLiant server models, in both matched-pair and mixed-pair configurations, and supports
. .
both Uniprocessor-Uniprocessor and SMP-SMP combinations. The Series F also offers a
. .
choice of either Ethernet or ServerNet as the server-to-server interconnect, and provides
. .
. .
Compaq's industry standard fibre channel as the interconnect between servers and storage.
. .
There are currently over 14 certified configurations available. This number will expand as
. .
. .
new servers and combinations are introduced. Compaq is the first company to receive
. .
certification on Microsoft's NT Cluster Server with a storage system based on the Fibre
. .
. .
Channel technology standard.
. .
. .
The ProLiant Cluster/"Series S" solutions are also based on MSCS and support a broad range
. .
. . of ProLiant servers. S Series clusters are characterized by the use of SCSI technology as the
. .
server to storage interconnect, and support Ethernet as the server-to-server interconnect.
. .
. .
Level 4 of Compaq's availability involves scalability clusters that deliver increased
. .
. .
performance and high availability. Each node in a scalability cluster is active on a separate
. .
"copy" of the same application. Since more than one node works on the same application,
. .
. .
more computer resources can be applied to the same application, thus increasing
. .
performance. Also, since separate copies of the same application reside on all nodes in the
. .
. .
cluster, a failure or crash of one node in the cluster will not cause an application outage.
. .
Recovery, therefore, is very rapid. Performance Scalability clusters are available now from
. .
Compaq for Unix, including Tandem Unix, and will be available in 1999 for NT.
. .
. .
. .
Level 5 HA solutions, also known as Geographically Dispersed Clusters (GDC), are single
. .
clusters, a collection of servers connected by a very high speed interconnect and sharing a
. .
. .
single heartbeat. In GDCs, the nodes of a cluster are distributed not merely building to
. .
building, as in a campus cluster, but city to city, or state to state, or region to region. In the
. .
. . event of failure, the automatic failover will then occur in not just node to node in the same
. .
room or building to building, but also city to city, state to state, and region to region,
. .
. . automatically returning compute services back to end users and allowing them to quickly
. .
return to full production work. This level of availability solutions will be available in the
. .
year 2000, if market demand develops.
. .
. .
. .

Software Reliability

. .
. .
. .
A recent customer satisfaction survey demonstrated that Compaq servers provide significantly
. .
higher software reliability than its closest competitors. Competitive servers were twice as likely to
. .
. .
fail as a result of NOS or application software than Compaq servers.
. .
Compaq's extensive work with partners such as Microsoft, SCO, Novell, and others to ensure
. .
. .
integration excellence of their software on Compaq platforms.
. .
. .
. .
Integrated Management Solutions
. .
. .
. . In addition to unprecedented availability and scalability, servers also require integrated
. .
management solutions. Compaq delivers the right combination of management and integration
. .
tools necessary for establishing and maintaining optimized, consistent systems throughout a
. .
. .
customer's distributed enterprise. Compaq's systems management strategy has four major
. .
components:
. .
. .
. .
Engineering manageability built into all Compaq products
. .
. .
Advanced automation for integration and management
. .
. .
Partnering with the leaders in systems management to enable broad management of all
. .
. . Compaq products
. .
. .
1
. .
Survey conducted by Research International, December 1997 (margin of error is plus or minus 10%).
. .
5
. .
C S : E
OMPAQ ERVERS
C S
NTERPRISE LASS YSTEMS
1
This is not surprising given