IBM DS8000 manual Front view, Rear view, Processor memory, Service processor and Spcn

Power supply 1

Power supply 2

Front view

Processor cards

Rear view

PCI-X slots

RIO-G ports

PCI-X adapters in blind-swap carriers

DVD-rom drives

SCSI disk drives

Operator panel

Power supply 1

Power supply 2

RIO-G ports

Figure 2-5 Processor complex

Processor memory

The DS8100 Model 921 offers up to 128 GB of processor memory and the DS8300 Models 922 and 9A2 offer up to 256 GB of processor memory. Half of this will be located in each processor complex. In addition, the Non-Volatile Storage (NVS) scales to the processor memory size selected, which can also help optimize performance.

Service processor and SPCN

The service processor (SP) is an embedded controller that is based on a PowerPC® 405GP processor (PPC405). The SPCN is the system power control network that is used to control the power of the attached I/O subsystem. The SPCN control software and the service processor software are run on the same PPC405 processor.

The SP performs predictive failure analysis based on any recoverable processor errors. The SP can monitor the operation of the firmware during the boot process, and it can monitor the operating system for loss of control. This enables the service processor to take appropriate action.

The SPCN monitors environmentals such as power, fans, and temperature. Environmental critical and non-critical conditions can generate Early Power-Off Warning (EPOW) events. Critical events trigger appropriate signals from the hardware to the affected components to

28DS8000 Series: Concepts and Architecture