3: System Overview
System Features
The main features of the Altix 450 series server systems are introduced in the following sections:
•“Modularity and Scalability” on page 72
•“Distributed Shared Memory (DSM)” on page 72
•“Distributed Shared I/O” on page 73
•“Reliability, Availability, and Serviceability (RAS)” on page 74
Modularity and Scalability
The Altix 450 series systems are modular systems. The components are primarily housed in building blocks referred to as individual rack units (IRUs). Additional optional mass storage may be added to the rack along with additional IRUs. You can add different types of blade options to a system IRU to achieve the desired system configuration. You can easily configure systems around processing capability, I/O capability, memory size, or storage capacity. You place individual blades that create the basic functionality (compute/memory, I/O, and power) into IRUs. The
Distributed Shared Memory (DSM)
In the Altix 450 system, memory is physically distributed both within and among the IRU enclosures (compute/memory/I/O blades); however, it is accessible to and shared by all NUMAlinked devices within the
Note the following
•If a processor accesses memory that is connected to the same SHub ASIC on a compute node blade, the memory is referred to as the node’s local memory.
•If processors access memory located in other blade nodes within the IRU, (or other NUMAlinked IRUs) the memory is referred to as remote memory.
•The total memory within the NUMAlinked system is referred to as global memory.
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