Compaq ProLiant 7000 PCI Hot Plug Technology - Page 3

ECG080/0698 TECHNOLOGY BRIEF (cont.) ... INTRODUCTION Customers today need high-availability solutions that minimize or eliminate downtime. PCI Hot Plug technology allows a PCI adapter to be added, upgraded, or replaced while the host system is running and while other adapters in the system provide uninterrupted service. PCI Hot Plug technology adds to other high-availability solutions presently available from Compaq such as Recovery Server Options, Redundant Netelligent Network Interface Controllers (NICs), hotpluggable power supplies, hot-pluggable fans, and hot-pluggable SCSI drives. Three PCI Hot Plug Capabilities PCI Hot Plug technology provides for three major capabilities: hot replacement, hot upgrade, and hot expansion. Hot replacement is the process of removing a failed or failing PCI adapter and inserting an identical adapter into the same slot while the server is operating. Hot upgrade is the process of replacing an existing adapter with an upgraded adapter or replacing the adapter's device driver with an upgraded device driver while the server is operating. Hot expansion is the process of installing an additional adapter into a previously empty slot while the server is operating. Synergistic High-Availability Techniques PCI Hot Plug technology represents a significant advance in fault-tolerant systems. To provide even greater benefit, PCI Hot Plug technology can be combined with redundant controller configurations, such as Compaq Redundant Netelligent NIC technology. Compaq Redundant Netelligent NIC technology allows two similar NICs to share a single instance of device driver code. One NIC becomes the active network controller, and the other NIC acts as a standby controller. If the active NIC fails, the network traffic can be switched automatically to the standby NIC. With PCI Hot Plug, the failed NIC can be replaced without shutting down the system. Thus, the end user can have continuous service and the administrator can eliminate both planned and unplanned downtime. PCI HOT PLUG: COMPAQ STRATEGY Compaq's decision to develop PCI Hot Plug technology is focused on addressing a key customer issue: as computing environments grow more complex, the business costs of unplanned system downtime are soaring. The increasing cost of unplanned downtime in business-critical environments, compounded by the time spent tracking the source of network or component failures, is creating a greater need for high-availability solutions like PCI Hot Plug. In the past, reliable and powerful around-the-clock performance was available only from expensive, proprietary systems. Although these proprietary solutions may give the developer an initial competitive advantage, they generally have not been well received by customers. Proprietary solutions tend to be more costly and less accessible. They also require the customer to be wary of compatibility issues. An open, industry-standard approach, such as Compaq's PCI Hot Plug effort, has multiple benefits. First, customers benefit from the increased availability of the hot-plug solution. Because PCI Hot Plug is an open, industry standard, it allows multiple system providers, operating system (OS) developers, and adapter suppliers to implement PCI Hot Plug solutions. Additionally, customers have investment protection because hot plug is compatible with previous PCI standards. Therefore, any new hot-plug system hardware, OSs, or adapter device drivers are PCI compliant and will work with existing PCI-compliant systems. The entire system does not 3