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HP Hardware

News Recommended Links HP C7000 enclosure HP  iLO ProLiant BL460c Gen10 Server Blade    
Can not enter iLO3 at bootup How do I reset the HP iLO IP address and password HP Smart Array P410 controller Connecting to HP iLO via SSH ILO 3 NTP configuration What TCP ports ILO3 uses  
Blades  DL360 G7 DL380 G7 DL 580 G7      
ProLiant Support Packs HP SmartStart
Scripting Toolkit
  Smart Update Firmware DVD ILO firmware update Humor

Etc


Introduction

HP servers are generally priced higher then Dell servers. Cost of the support is also higher, and quality is equal or lower.  Reliability is approximately on the same level. Both Dell and Hp servers can work for approximately a decade although in enterprise env they are replaced in approx 5 years. Repairs are very rare. In my experience less then one in a hundred servers requires repair in the first five years on service.  My feeling is that Dell servers produce less troubles if used with Suse then HP servers. 

Dell servers that cost the same amount of money are faster (can be configured with better CPU, more/faster memory, faster/larger drives or combination thereof ) and use more cutting edge technology. See for example R710-DL380-database  report. It was commissioned by Dell but is an interesting reading even in you take into account that who paid the piper. 

We compared the database performance, hardware cost, and power utilization of two servers in similar common enterprise configurations. On our tests of Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 database orders per minute (OPM), the Dell™ PowerEdge™ R710 delivered multiple advantages over the HP ProLiant DL380 G6.

They used the following configuration for PowerEdge R710  and ProLiant DL380 G6 respectively.

The main line of HP servers is Proliant inherited from Compaq acquisition.  And they have some strange features: unlike Dell Drac, HP ILO needs additional license to be functional (remote console capability)

HP sells servers via resellers and that also complicates the picture as differences between configurations are often quite Byzantine. Even for exactly the same product price can differ 10% or more.

Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting can be helped by using Guided Troubleshooting which is somewhat similar to Microsoft approach but weaker.  A sample (ILO Management Interface driver installation)

The iLO 3 Management Interface Driver enables system software such as SNMP Insight Agents to communicate with iLO 3.

The device drivers required to support iLO 3 are part of the PSP located on the SmartStart CD, Management CD, or on the HP website.

All the support drivers for your server and iLO 3 can be downloaded from the HP website:

Click here to download drivers at http://www.hp.com/servers/lights-out

To download the drivers:

  1. Under iLO Support & Downloads

  2. Click the iLO 3 Firmware

  3. Select Operating system to proceed with the download.

Disabling graphical Power on logo

Graphical logo hides several prompts and make administration more difficult. This is junk. disable it.

Manipulation with HP harddrives

Adding drives is more or less safe operation. Preferable done with power off.

As for changing slots in which drives reside (even if the drive in question are not used and for example invisible in p401i BIOS interface)  this is dangerious operation and you can lose all your data in one modent. Essntially what HP create is a parodiy on RAID not a real RAID. Overcompleity can byte here you in the most inopportunme moment. In you are unlacky you get the message

Messages in dmesg

cciss/c0d0: unknown partition table

and if you do not have a backup pay $5K or so for the restoration of perfectly good drives ;-)

So the rules here are:


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Old News ;-)

[Aug 22, 2013] Meg Whitman Trying to Make Hewlett-Packard Less Stupid Pressman

drew

this is a joke... rite? as long as meg is ceo their is no smart hp. she should try her hand at j.c. penny...... dumb as a rock

Frank

Who is trying to make meg less stupid.

Very Old Guy:

This is the poster girl for Corporate malfeasance with the BOD's paying millions of dollars in salaries and bonuses for bad acquisitions, no product development, C-suite hanky panky, corporate jets and expense accounts for inappropriate activities, constant reorganizations to cover up Corporate executives mistakes and lack of management ability demonstrated by constant cutting of the real workforce and punishing the "little people" for the errors of the top people. Sad comment, but typical of the modern American Corporation run by the "ME" people.

Edward W

CEO's with multi million dollar bonuses seem to feel the best way to fix a company is to lay off 29,000 employees, perhaps they should start by cutting their own salaries and eliminate excutive bonuses and keep the people doing the real work around.

michael

Re: #5--the days where HP employees were their "most valuable asset" are decades in the past; the only people that go to HP now are those looking for a cush cubicle job where they can get lost in the bureaucracy and byzantine org structure until they retire. As I've said elsewhere, the innovative areas of the company left a long time ago (e.g. Agilent); what's left is dross.

Ron

People forget that HP is really HP, DEC, and COMPAQ.. they've been cannibalizing decades of technology for the last decade; and now, they're out of left-overs. The execs have left behind a hollow shell of technology while making off with millions.

[Oct 28, 2011] Notice: ProLiant Servers - HP Service Pack for ProLiant 2011.09.0 Is Available Beginning on October 5, 2011 (c03065190)

Products: HP ProLiant DL Servers, HP ProLiant ML Servers, HP ProLiant BL Server Blades, HP ProLiant SL Servers Description: Notice: ProLiant Servers - HP Service Pack for ProLiant 2011.09.0 Is Available Beginning on October 5, 2011

[Jul 12, 2010] Whitepaper Dell Compares Dell 2950 to HP Proliant DL585 G2 VMblog.com - Virtualization Technology News and Information for Everyone

In this whitepaper titled, "Advantages of Dell PowerEdge 2950 Two Socket Servers over Hewlett-Packard Proliant DL 585 G2 Four Socket Servers for Virtualization", Dell attempts to showcase and compare the advantages of moving to a two socket Dell PowerEdge 2950 over the competitor four socket Proliant DL585 from HP.

Obviously, I read this whitepaper already knowing what the conclusion would be. Afterall, it was written by Dell. I knew the paper would be written based on fact, but the fact of the matter is had the conclusions drawn all been in favor of the HP over the Dell, I suspect that the test would have ended there without a paper being written up and distributed.

Nonetheless, this 16 page paper was a good read. For the most part, I liked the way the tests were developed and implemented.

The paper states:

There is a lot of debate these days around what is the optimal hosting platform for a virtualization deployment. Most of this debate is centered around the decision to deploy either 2 socket or 4 socket building blocks as the basis of the infrastructure. In order to illustrate the advantages of using two-socket servers for virtualization over four-socket servers, a test was conducted with VMware Infrastructure 3 on the Dell PowerEdge 2950 and the HP ProLiant DL585 G2.

The results of these tests show that three PowerEdge 2950 two-socket servers can provide up to 44% more performance, 57% more performance per watt and a 95% average advantage in price / performance than two HP ProLiant DL585 G2 four-socket servers. Another stumbling block to the adoption of one platform over another is the node count and the perceived complexity of managing more nodes in a virtualized farm. With the maturity of VMware's management stack in VMware Infrastructure 3 and in particular with Distributed Resource Scheduler, a new paradigm of pooled resource management is possible. Large farms of servers faced issues with complexity in the past, but the policy based management capabilities of VMware Infrastructure 3 greatly reduce these administrative issues. This then enables the further acceptance of farms of smaller, lower cost building blocks, such as the Dell PowerEdge 2950, as the preferred solution for virtualization deployments.

The Dell group concludes:

In terms of performance, power consumption, and costs the Dell PowerEdge 2950 two-socket, quad-core servers are a much better solution for virtualization than the HP Proliant DL 585 G2 four-socket dual-core servers. This is shown in the results of the testing with the two-socket virtualization solution from Dell providing up to 44% more performance, 57% more performance per watt and a 95% average advantage in price / performance than the HP four-socket solution.

To check out the entire white paper and how they came to this conclusion, download and read the following white paper.

Published Sunday, January 14, 2007 10:58 AM by David Marshall

Competing with HP ProLiant, Dell PowerEdge, and Sun x64

PowerEdge 2950 vs Proliant DL385 G2 with Exchange - The Dell TechCenter

This page is the wiki home for a whitepaper that compares the price/performance of the Dell™ PowerEdge™ 2950 and HP Proliant DL385 G2 using Exchange 2007 as the workload. The complete paper with all details is linked and a summary / highlights of the paper are included directly on this page.

Discussion and questions about the paper can be written in the discussion threads area at the bottom of this page.

Exchange Server 2007 Performance Comparison of the Dell PowerEdge 2950 and HP Proliant DL385 G2 Servers -
While the Dell PowerEdge 2950 and the HP Proliant DL385 G2 are both two-socket x86-based servers, they are based on different processor-to-memory interconnect technologies. This difference can result in very different application performance when cost- and energy-efficient one-processor configurations are compared. For example, the Dell TechCenter lab ran tests simulating 4,000 e-mail users, and determined that running Exchange Server 2007 on the HP DL385 G2 server can cost up to 21 percent more than on the Dell PowerEdge 2950.

HP Proliant compatible system...HP vs. Dell! - PowerEdge General HW Forum - Servers - Dell Community

A PE2900 is NOT comparible to an HP ML350G4. It is way overkill for that. A PE1800 is more in line comparible to a Proliant ML350G4. The 2800 and now the 2900 is more comparible to a Proliant ML370G4 except the Dells give you a couple more drive bay slots.

I built an office system for an local surgeon around a PE1800 and it is working perfectly and is a great performer with excellent reliability. You can match the systems almost exactly feature for feature on a PE1800 with the HP ML350G4, and the PE 1800 will end up beating the HP's price too.

Do not skimp on the redundant power supply... I consider that to be an essential feature well worth the extra couple hundred bucks.

Also, I do not like internal tape drives. Spend the extra money and get an external LTO2 drive. The ability to power-cycle a stuck tape drive without touching the server itself is absolutely essential.

PS: Fill the machine with 4GB memory instead of only just 2GB. Memory is cheap these days, and if you intend to run both the Exchange Server and MS SQL that come with 2003SBS Premium edition, you'll need all the ram you can get and 4GB is the max supported by standard and SBS versions of Win2003 server.

Message Edited by NumberNine on 09-11-200604:54 PM

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Bulletin:

Vol 25, No.12 (December, 2013) Rational Fools vs. Efficient Crooks The efficient markets hypothesis : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2013 : Unemployment Bulletin, 2010 :  Vol 23, No.10 (October, 2011) An observation about corporate security departments : Slightly Skeptical Euromaydan Chronicles, June 2014 : Greenspan legacy bulletin, 2008 : Vol 25, No.10 (October, 2013) Cryptolocker Trojan (Win32/Crilock.A) : Vol 25, No.08 (August, 2013) Cloud providers as intelligence collection hubs : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : Inequality Bulletin, 2009 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Copyleft Problems Bulletin, 2004 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Energy Bulletin, 2010 : Malware Protection Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 26, No.1 (January, 2013) Object-Oriented Cult : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2011 : Vol 23, No.11 (November, 2011) Softpanorama classification of sysadmin horror stories : Vol 25, No.05 (May, 2013) Corporate bullshit as a communication method  : Vol 25, No.06 (June, 2013) A Note on the Relationship of Brooks Law and Conway Law

History:

Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds  : Larry Wall  : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOSProgramming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC developmentScripting Languages : Perl history   : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history

Classic books:

The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-MonthHow to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater’s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite

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The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D


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Last modified: March 12, 2019