ch03.htm

this describes managing multivendor networks

Like the C - class, the J- class also supports IEEE 802.3/Ethernet
network connections.
<H3><A NAME="Heading6"></A><FONT COLOR="#000077">Midrange Offerings</FONT></H3>
<P>The HP 1000 midrange line was quite popular, and enjoyed a long and successful
life. However, it has largely been replaced with the HP 9000. The HP 1000 was found
mainly in technical environments--on the shop floor or in medical labs controlling
sophisticated instruments. A backplane-oriented, interrupt-driven machine that is
vaguely reminiscent of 1960s technology, the HP 1000 was a real-time machine with
interfaces to a variety of instruments. The machine was highly reliable and had a
published mean time between failure (MTBF) of nine years. HP has since positioned
the HP 9000 Series 700/800 computers as a replacement for the HP 1000 line.</P>
<P>The operating system for the HP 1000, Real Time Executive (RTE), is ideal for
handling real-time operations. But, from a human interface perspective, it is appealing
only to those who have long memories for short and cryptic commands.</P>
<P>The HP 3000, on the other hand, is a general business computer that marked HP's
entry into the midrange market. In discussing the HP 3000 line, however, it is important
to distinguish the old technology models from the new ones.</P>
<P>The first HP 3000 was introduced in 1972 as a general-purpose, 16&#160;-bit business
minicomputer. This represented a significant departure for HP, which had previously
stayed in more specialized markets. The operating system for the HP 3000 was termed
MultiProgramming Executive (MPE). MPE was created by a group of engineers who had
previously designed the Burroughs Corporation Master Control Program (MCP) operating
system. A head-to-head comparison of MPE to MCP, however, would reveal far more differences
than similarities.</P>
<P><A HREF="javascript:if(confirm('http://docs.rinet.ru:8080/MuNet/ch03/03fig01.gif  \n\nThis file was not retrieved by Teleport Pro, because it was redirected to an invalid location.  You should report this problem to the site\'s webmaster.  \n\nDo you want to open it from the server?'))window.location='http://docs.rinet.ru:8080/MuNet/ch03/03fig01.gif'" tppabs="http://docs.rinet.ru:8080/MuNet/ch03/03fig01.gif"><B>FIG. 3.1</B></A> <I>HP 9000 J-Class Workstation</I></P>
<P>Unlike its relatives, the HP 9000 and the HP 1000, the HP 3000 was not designed
to run special interfaces or highly complex, concurrent hardware activities. The
HP 3000 is a general-purpose business machine designed to accommodate concurrent
users working at administrative and business applications. Each user has a session
environment from which he or she works independently of other users.


<BLOCKQUOTE>
	<P>
<HR>
<FONT COLOR="#000077"><B>Taking a RISC</B></FONT><BR>
	The introduction of RISC architecture really shook up the HP 3000 product line and
	its market. Inside HP, this project was known as &quot;Spectrum.&quot; As previously
	discussed, HP had incorporated the RISC architecture into the HP 9000 earlier in
	the 1980s under the terminology HP Precision Architecture (HP-PA). Introducing RISC
	to the HP 9000 line, however, was not a great risk (no pun intended) because of the
	specialized hardware used in engineering workstations. After all, the more unique
	a workstation's hardware, the more likely the technical market will notice and accept
	it.</P>
	<P>This same philosophy of &quot;newer is better,&quot; however, is not prevalent
	in the general business computer market. End users are not interested in the possibilities
	of running the financial affairs of their companies on some new and not widely accepted
	computer architecture. Thus, crossing RISC into the HP 3000 was risky. Certainly,
	it did not require a massive hardware reengineering effort (the HP 9000 and HP 3000
	RISC machines are built from the same base hardware components). HP was taking chances
	in two areas: customer acceptance of the new design, and reengineering MPE to function
	on a new hardware platform dramatically different from the old HP 3000 models. 
<HR>


</BLOCKQUOTE>

<P>When the HP 3000 RISC machines were introduced as the 900 Series, they were released
with MPE-XL. This RISC-specific version of the operating system is capable of running
in MPE compatibility mode to provide migration. Programs running in this compatibility
mode do not achieve the same performance benefits as those programs running in native
mode MPE, but portability was critical to the success of the product.</P>
<P>The release of the 900 Series did not bury the older, 16-bit CISC models of the
HP 3000. In fact, HP continued to offer a low-end line (the MICRO 3000LX, 3000GX
and 3000XE) as well as the midrange HP 3000 Series 70. These machines, renamed the
Classic 3000 line, were released with support for the then current MPE-V operating
system.</P>
<P>The HP 3000 continues to be widely respected as a strong and reliable general-purpose
midrange system. However, there are very few new sales of the HP 3000 line, as new
projects are more often based on UNIX Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS)
and applications. However, HP continues to support existing HP 3000 customers, the
majority of whom plan to continue using their HP 3000s for many years. Although there
are few new sales of HP 3000s, the existing customer base remains loyal. HP plans
to continue offering enhancements to the HP 3000's integrated systems software, operating
environment, and network database. For those HP 3000 users that require connectivity
to UNIX-based RDBMS products, HP provides the means to interoperability.</P>
<P>The HP 3000 was never intended to be a platform for portable, third-party RDBMS
products. The HP 9000, on the other hand, is HP's leading product for running RDBMS
products from companies such as Oracle, Informix and Sybase. The hardware is basically
the same in the HP 3000 and HP 9000; the different operating systems provide different
personalities for the two environments. The HP 3000 offers tight integration between
its MPE/iX operating system and the IMAGE/SQL network database, ALLBASE/SQL relational
database, and other software components. In addition, HP has added POSIX APIs to
MPE/iX and SQL access to IMAGE/SQL, which makes it easier for independent software
vendors to port their applications to the HP 3000 platform.</P>
<P>The HP 9000 K-Class Symmetric Multiprocessing Server is a powerful midrange performer,
based on the PA-7200 RISC processor and featuring a 64-bit design. The K-&#160;class
is designed for high-speed networking, and includes optional high-speed FDDI, ATM
and Fibre Channel networking capabilities, in addition to standard IEEE 802.3. The
K-&#160;class expands up to four-way symmetric multiprocessing and supports the HP-UX
UNIX operating system.
<H3><A NAME="Heading7"></A><FONT COLOR="#000077">Top-end Offerings</FONT></H3>
<P>HP's latest plan involves moving its largest customers to parallel processing.
The HP 9000 EPS20 Enterprise Parallel Server (see Figure 3.2) is suitable for data
warehousing and online transaction processing applications, or compute-intensive
applications such as simulation or scientific visualization. HP offers two migration
paths. The first combines multiple existing HP 9000 SMP servers into parallel clusters
and the other solution deploys multiple HP 9000 T-class or K-class SMP servers as
nodes, connected with a Fibre Channel link. Because this design allows sites to use
their existing systems, moving to parallel clustering is fairly straightforward.
Clusters can be created without new hardware, unlike massively parallel processing
(MPP) systems, which require new hardware to be purchased.</P>
<P><A HREF="javascript:if(confirm('http://docs.rinet.ru:8080/MuNet/ch03/03fig02.gif  \n\nThis file was not retrieved by Teleport Pro, because it was redirected to an invalid location.  You should report this problem to the site\'s webmaster.  \n\nDo you want to open it from the server?'))window.location='http://docs.rinet.ru:8080/MuNet/ch03/03fig02.gif'" tppabs="http://docs.rinet.ru:8080/MuNet/ch03/03fig02.gif"><B>FIG. 3.2</B></A> <I>HP 9000 Model EPS20</I></P>
<P>The HP 9000 EPS20's parallel architecture differs from traditional parallel architectures,
which often use loosely coupled uniprocessor nodes. By tightly coupling CPUs in an
SMP infrastructure, a higher level of performance can be achieved. Additional SMP
modules can be added as needed, and scaling is almost linear in most cases. The EPS
can be seamlessly integrated into an existing multivendor environment and runs HP-UX,
enabling it to support the thousands of existing commercial applications available
for that platform.</P>
<P>Bundled with the EPS is HP's MC/System Environment (MCSE) administration software,
which includes several system management tools and provides a centralized point of
control for a variety of administrative tasks. MCSE includes the following:

<UL>
	<LI><I>HP TaskBroker.</I> An X/Motif job scheduler and load balancer for distributed
	batch processing.<BR>
	<BR>
	
	<LI><I>Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM).</I> A library of parallel development tools
	for developing parallel applications.<BR>
	<BR>
	
	<LI><I>System Monitor Station.</I> An X/Motif interface application for system monitoring
	tasks.<BR>
	<BR>
	
	<LI><I>System Instant Ignition.</I> Used for automating system configuration, network
	integration, boot-up, and shut-down.<BR>
	<BR>
	
	<LI><I>HP-UX System Administration Manager Utility.</I> An enhancement for performing
	administrative tasks on a multi-computer EPS server.
</UL>

<P>The 64-bit EPS has a maximum external storage capacity of 8.3 terabytes. It has
a maximum of four processors per node, up to eight modules, for a total of 32 120&#160;-MHz
PA-7200 processors. The board can be upgraded to the PA-8000. The PA8000 design will
offer nearly double the performance of a PA-7200 machine, going from 240 Peak MFLOPS
(Millions of Floating Point Operations per Second) with the PA-7200 to 700 Peak MFLOPS
(with the PA-8000).</P>
<P>HP's 64-bit, PA-8000 microprocessor uses a four-way superscalar design. The chip
was designed for commercial data processing and compute-intensive applications, where
data sets would otherwise be too large to fit into an on-chip cache. HP's design
is unique in that it leaves primary instruction and data caches off-chip, thereby
permitting them to be quite large.
<H2><A NAME="Heading8"></A><FONT COLOR="#000077">Strategy for Connectivity</FONT></H2>
<P>Hewlett-Packard's transition from CISC to RISC pales in comparison to the changes
it has made in its overall network architecture. Specifically, HP entered into the
1980s with a simple strategy for the attachment of devices to host computers, with
the most technically interesting interface at that time being HP-IB--HP's implementation
of the IEEE-488 general-purpose interface for high-speed devices (disks, tapes, and
so forth). By the end of the 1980s, however, HP had laid the groundwork for a comprehensive
networking architecture that included LANs, WANs, and sophisticated graphics-based
user interfaces.</P>
<P>HP chose to base its networking products on the IEEE 802.3 standard. The 802.3
implementation closely resembles the Ethernet II implementation used by DEC and others.
In fact, they are so close that both types of networks can coexist on the same physical
network (although they cannot communicate). For HP, the 802.3 implementation enables
many prospective customers to plug HP gear into their existing Digital Ethernet networks.</P>
<P>With the issue of the physical topology of the network resolved, HP then went
on to define the networking services (and software) that it would implement on its
network. HP will unofficially acknowledge (and officially too, under the right circumstances)
that it based its networking services design on the TCP/IP model.</P>
<P>However, in creating its Networking Services (NS) product line, HP sufficiently
deviated from the TCP/IP standard to introduce levels of incompatibility with existing,
competitive TCP/IP products.
<H3><A NAME="Heading9"></A><FONT COLOR="#000077">Application/User Relationship</FONT></H3>
<P>HP's approach to interfacing the human with the program uses a session philosophy
in the multi-user environment. Specifically, the user logs on to the system, providing
a proper user name and optional password, and can then access files or run programs
that he or she has been given authority to read, write, or execute. This approach
holds for the MPE (HP 3000), RTE (HP 1000), and the HP-UX (HP 9000) operating systems.</P>
<P>In this session environment, as far as the user can easily tell, he or she is
the only person accessing that particular program at that time. The interaction between
the user and the program can take on any of the terminal's characteristics (as discussed
earlier in the section &quot;HP Terminals&quot;): the interaction can be free-form
conversational entry, rigid and unforgiving template-based data entry, or virtually
any structure in between. Again, this is one of the difficulties in learning HP--the
wide range of choices can leave you hungering for rigid standards.</P>
<P>From the application's perspective, the program also recognizes only one user