HERA-B Bologna Computing System
HERA-B Bologna
HERA-B Bologna
Computing System
HERA-B Bologna Computing System is based on superscalar RISC
machines and UNIX Operating System.
It now consists of:
- A new HP 9000/800/K250 Symmetric Multiprocessing
( SMP) server, equipped
with:
- 960 Mbps (peak) processor bus with split read transaction;
- 288 Mbps multi-channel I/O sub-system;
- 2 (two) 20 Mbps Fast & Wide Differential SCSI disk channels;
- 8 Mbps SCSI-2 channel for slow devices (tapes and CD-ROM)
- 4 (four) 64 bit
PA-RISC 8000 CPUs (expansible to 6 PA-RISC 8200 CPUs);
- 1+1 MB Instruction+Data Cache for every CPU;
- 640 MB RAM (expansible to 8 GB);
- 72 GB Hard Disk (expansible to 35.5 TB) on Fast & Wide (20Mbps)
SCSI bus (12 GB internal + 60 GB external);
- CD-ROM Driver;
- 8/16 GB DAT DDS Tape driver;
- 20/40 GB DLT Tape driver.
- 35/70 GB DLT Tape driver.
- UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) whith automatic end-of-charge
shutdown feature
- MDP (Modem Distributor Panel), multiplexer (MUX) equipped with 8
RS-232 serial port
- 2 HP workstation (model HP 9000/735/99 and HP 9000/712/60).
- 13 X-terminal (5 HP Entria, 6 HP Entria Plus and
2 HP Entria II).
- hp8hb1 (HP 9000/800/K250) is:
- boot server for the 13 X-terminals xhphb1-xhphb13.
- boot server for the 2 printers lj5 and dj1200.
- font server for the 13 X-terminals xhphb1-xhphb13 and every other X-device.
- file server for hp7obx1 and hp7obx2.
- mail server for hp7obx1 and hp7obx2.
- application server for hp7obx1 and hp7obx2.
- hp7obx1 (HP 9000/735/99) is:
- backup boot server for the 13 X-terminals xhphb1-xhphb13.
- backup boot server for the 2 printers lj5 and dj1200.
- backup font server for the 13 X-terminals xhphb1-xhphb13 and every other X-device.
- anonymous ftp server.
- hp7obx1 (HP 9000/735/99) and hp7obx2 (HP 9000/712/60)
both boot and swap on their own local disk but use hp8hb1 as mail server,
file server and application server.
- disks of hp7obx1, hp7obx2 and hp8hb1 are cross mounted using NFS,
AutoMounter and Host Mapping.
- xhphb1-xhphb13 HP Entria 19 X-terminals boot from hp8hb1 or hp7obx1
(using either DHCP and NFS protocols or BOOTP and TFTP), load fonts (HP and
DEC) from hp8hb1 or hp7obx1 font server, and may open sessions on every XDMCP
server (like hp8hb1, hp7obx1, hp7obx2, pchb3 but also VAX computers like
axpbo4, vs4ox2, vs4bo5, axobx1, axobx2, axobx3 axobx4. VAX-VMS machines are
used in OBELIX experiment; HP machine are also used for OBELIX Monte Carlo
jobs).
- All HERA-B-Bologna HP X-terminals and computers are equipped with a
PC-101 keyboard, also known as "PS/2-style US keyboard", which is
becoming the de facto standard, and is recommended by CERN.
Such a keyboard is
automatically mapped, at session login time, either as HP-HIL keyboard (if
the session is opened on HP machine) or
DEC-LK201 keyboard (if the session is opened on VAX-VMS machine), using
xmodmap.
- xwobx1-xwobx3 DEC VXT 2000 X-terminals boot from a DEC InfoServer,
load fonts by
InfoServer and may open sessions on every XDMCP server. They lack CDE (Common
Desktop Environment) support and, at present, HP fonts.
- lj5 (HP LaserJet 5 Si MX) and dj1200 (HP DeskJet 1200 C/PS) IP network
printers boot from hp8hb1 using BOOTP and TFTP protocols.
The computing system follow a centralyzed
(rather than distributed)
client-server scheme, where the server is the K250 central
SMP computer and the clients are simple X-terminals.
The same philosophy was chosen by HERA-B collaboration, who bought a
SMP
SGI Power Challenge computer as central collaboration computer.
Printers status
PostScript version
HERA-B Bologna Home Page
June 9, 1997 Domenico Galli
Architecture of Hera-B / Obelix LAN segment