This manual describes L1 and L2 control levels on SGI Altix 3000 series, Altix 450, and Altix 4700 systems.
 | Note: This manual does not apply to SGI Altix XE systems. It supports the Altix 3000 series, Altix 450, and Altix 4700 systems. For information about SGI legacy systems, see an earlier version of this manual. From the current 007-3938-006 version of this manual on the SGI Technical Publications Library, select the additional info link. Click on 007-4633-005 under Other Versions: |
The L1 controller is designed to manage and monitor the individual bricks or blades in SGI Altix systems.
| Note: The L1 and L2 controller commands do not apply to SGI Altix XE systems. |
The basic building block for SGI Altix 3000 series systems is the NUMAlink interconnect and the C-brick, which is sometimes referred to as the compute node. A C-brick contains two processor nodes. Other bricks, such as the PX-bricks and IX-bricks, provide I/O functionality, M-bricks provide additional memory, R-bricks are router bricks allowing systems to scale are some examples.
In the new SGI Altix 4000 series systems, functional blades - interchangeable compute, memory, I/O, and special purpose blades in an innovative blade-to-NUMAlink architecture are the basic building blocks for the system. Compute blades with a bandwidth configuration have one processor socket per blade. Compute blades with a density configuration have two processor sockets per blade. Cost-effective compute density is one advantage of this compact blade packaging. The SGI hardware manuals contain detailed descriptions of Altix system architecture. For a list of these manuals, see “Related Publications”.
Depending on your system configuration, you can monitor and operate the system using the L1 controller from either the L1 LCD display or the system console serial port.
See Chapter 2, “Using the L1 and L2 Controllers” for details on using the L1 controller, and see Chapter 3, “L1 and L2 Controller Commands” for a list of L1 controller commands.
The following are some of the functions performed by the L1 controller. (For a list of functions that are specific to a product or component, see your server user's guide.
Drives the L1 controller display.
Reports all failure conditions.
Monitors and controls LEDs.
Monitors the power On/Off switch.
Monitors the reset switch, and the nonmaskable interrupt (NMI) switch.
Monitors and acts on the state of the power, reset, and NMI switches.
Drives the reset, soft reset, and NMI signals to the local node electronics on command from software.
Provides the time of day (TOD).
Reads and reports memory and processor configuration within the node. Reads dual inline memory module (DIMM) and system identification (ID) PROMs.
Reads and writes contents of module identification EEPROMs.
Controls voltage regulator modules (VRMs).
Monitors voltage and reports failures.
Controls and sequences DC power output of voltage regulators. Monitors failures and reports them. Drives DC on and failure LEDs.
Controls voltage margining within the brick or server.
Controls and monitors fan speed and reports the number of the failed fan.
Monitors and reports operating temperature and status of 48 VDC input power and DC power.
Provides a high-speed serial channel to communicate between the system controller network and the hub ASIC.
Provides a high-speed serial channel to communicate with the L1 controller as a second brick or server. This is implemented as an RS-485 ICMB interface in the NUMAflex cable.
Controls Joint Test Action Group (JTAG) boundary scan.
Logs information in Non-Volatile Random Access Memory (NVRAM).
Provides a USB slave port to communicate with upstream system controllers.
Provides an external high-speed serial console port.
Provides the ability to flash the system controller firmware, which can be updated.
Reports the population of the PCI cards and the power levels of the PCI slots.
Powers on the PCI slots and their associated LEDs.
Monitors the slot power for PCI boards (currently takes no action).
Reports the power levels of the XIO slots.
Controls the termination voltage margins of the XIO cards.
The L2 controller is designed to monitor and manage one or more L1 system controllers in SGI Altix systems.
| Note: The L1 and L2 controller commands do not apply to SGI Altix XE systems. |
All configurations can be monitored and or operated using the L2 controller using the L2 network port.
See Chapter 2, “Using the L1 and L2 Controllers” for details on using the L2 controller, and see Chapter 3, “L1 and L2 Controller Commands” for a list of L2 controller commands you can use to manage and monitor the different systems.The following are functions performed by the L2 controller. For a list of functions specific to a product or component, see your system user's guide (user's guides for SGI Altix systems are listed in “Related Publications”).
Controls the L1 controllers on the server.
Maintains controller configuration and topology information between multiple L1 and L2 controllers.
Enables the entering of commands to toggle between L2, L1, and the console mode. This means you can power on your server with L1 or L2 controller commands, and monitor the power-on activity by changing to the console mode.
In a system with more than one L2 controller, all L2 controllers are peers and each propagates configuration information to the other L2 controllers. Each L2 controller monitors its associated L1 controllers and propagates this information to the other L2 controllers.
System control on SGI Altix 450 and Altix 4700 systems has changed from previous SGI Altix systems. Their system enclosures contain an embedded microprocessor board and display assembly called the system controller. This microprocessor runs an embedded version of the Linux operating system. The system controller runs off standby power and is running as long as the enclosure is connected to an active power source.
There are two primary applications that run on the system controller. The L1, or Level 1 system controller, is an application that provides control and monitoring functionality for each individual rack unit enclosure (IRU), and communication to other L1s in adjacent enclosures connected via NUMALink 4 cables. The L1 is always resident.
The L2, or Level 2 system controller is an application that provides control over multiple L1s and communication to other L2s. The L2 is resident when the enclosure is connected by an Ethernet connection to a Local Area Network (LAN).
In all Altix 450 and 4700 servers, all the system controllers communicate with each other in the following ways:
All enclosures within an Altix 450 or Altix 4700 system communicate with each other through the NUMAlink connections using low voltage differential signaling (LVDS).
When connecting to the L2 host Ethernet connection on the system control board of an IRU or to a Dense router, the system controller spawns an L2 application providing L2 functionality.
The system controller network provides the following functionality:
Powering the entire system on and off.
Powering individual IRUs and Dense routers on and off.
Monitoring the environmental state of the system
Viewing the system's status and error message information generated and displayed by the SGI system's L1 controller.
For detailed information on system control on an SGI Alitx 450 system, see chapter 4, “System Control” in the SGI Altix 450 System User's Guide.
For detailed information on system control and the levels of control available on an SGI Altix 4700 system, see chapter 1, “Operation Procedures” and chapter 2, “System Control” in the SGI Altix 4700 System User's Guide.