HP Convex SPP2000 S-Class, X-Class

Quick Facts
Introduced 1997
Period Maturity (III)
Series Mainframe
CPU 4-16 64-bit
PA-8000
180 MHz
Caches 1/1 MB L1
RAM 16 GB
Design Crossbar
Drives 20 SCSI
Expansion 28 PCI
I/O SCSI
Console
SCI (CTI)

Convex Exemplar SPP2000 and SP2200 are large, scalable 64-bit PA-RISC servers based on Convex Exemplar technology, integrated into HP’s lineup after the acquisition of Convex. HP named them S-Class and X-Class as the predecessors of later HP 9000 V-Class V2200 and V2500 servers.

Convex SPP2000
X-Class © Hewlett Packard 1999

Developed based on Convex Exemplar SPP1000 technology, HP SPP2000 and S-Class use a similar crossbar architecture. This crossbar uses central internal switching to connect resources to each other by forming matrix connections between input and output ports. A single SPP2000 can hold up to sixteen 64-bit PA-8000 processors with 16 GB memory in a single Node, called S-Class.

SPP2000s can form large-scale systems by connecting single nodes with SCI links into larger clusters of up to 32 nodes and 512 processors. The resulting system is called X-Class, ccNUMA computers. The clustering capabilities of their successors, the V2500, were reduced significantly — in contrast to the 32-node maximum of SPP2000 clusters, V2500s only can be clustered into groups of four.

SPP2000/S-Class were operated and controlled via so-called teststations, Unix workstations that connect to a central management board in single nodes which provides booting, system monitoring and diagnostics and console. Teststations were either IBM RS/6000 AIX systems or more commonly HP 9000 workstation running HP-UX.

System

Processors

System Type CPU Speed L1 Cache
SPP2000 S-Class Node 4-16 PA-8000 PA-RISC 64-bit 180 MHz 1/1 MB off-chip
SPP2000 X-Class Cluster/Wall 32-512 PA-8000 PA-RISC 64-bit 180 MHz 1/1 MB off-chip
SPP2200 X-Class Cluster/Wall 32-512 PA-8200 PA-RISC 64-bit 200 MHz 1/1 MB off-chip

Chipset

SPP2000 are based on Exemplar crossbar architecture which connects CPU and I/O to system main memory. 

     (CPU1-2 aggregate 960MB/s)          
         //
        //  ______          _______            ________     ______
 CPU1----\_|Agent1|        |       |          |        |   |Memory|
          _|Data  | 1.9GB/s| Cross | 1.9GB/s  |Memory  |---|Board1|
 CPU2----/ |Mover |========|  bar  |==========|Control1|   |______|
           |______|        |       |          |________|
              |            |       |            |     |
              |            |       |            |     |
            240MB/s        | 15.3  |           SCI   SCI 
              |            |  GB/s |          X-Ring Y-Ring
             PCI1          |       |
              .            .       .            .              .
              .            .       .            .              .
              .            .       .            .              .
            ______                             ________     ______
 CPU15---\_|Agent8|        |       |          |        |   |Memory|
          _|Data  | 1.9GB/s| Cross | 1.9GB/s  |Memory  |---|Board8|
 CPU16---/ |Mover |========|  bar  |==========|Control8|   |______|
           |______|        |       |          |________|
              |            |       |            |     |
              |            |       |            |     |
            240MB/s        |       |           SCI   SCI 
              |            |_______|          X-Ring Y-Ring
             PCI8

Convex SPP2000 Crossbar Architecture System Architecture

System buses

Expansion

Memory

Expansion cards

Storage

I/O ports

Clustering

Multiple Exemplar SPP2000/HP S-Class systems can be connected together to form a single large system, a Wall/X-Class.

Operating systems

Convex SPP Exemplar with PA-RISC processors exclusively run SPP-UX, a scalable Unix based on Mach, developed by Convex for SPP1000 and SPP2000 mainframes with up to 512 processors, released between 1993 and 1999. SPP-UX implemented a distributed architecture that emulated HP-UX for developers but was very different below the userland.

Performance

Convex SPP Exemplar were impressive but expensive scalar RISC servers, the second generation much faster than other RISC architectures like UltraSPARC, MIPS and Intel. Convex with PA-RISC Exemplar technology competed on floating-point use cases (MFLOPS) with supercomputers, a long Convex tradition.

PA-RISC SPEC95 rate scores, Linpack MFLOPS (TPP) and HPLinpack GFLOPS (Rmax) scores
System Processor SPEC95
rate int/fp		 Linpack
TPP  Rmax
SPP2000
S-Class
X-Class		 1 PA-8000 180 MHz
2 PA-8000 180 MHz
4 PA-8000 180 MHz
6 PA-8000 180 MHz
8 PA-8000 180 MHz
12 PA-8000 180 MHz
16 PA-8000 180 MHz
32 PA-8000 180 MHz
64 PA-8000 180 MHz 		92.5
183
363
539
713
1012
1307
 141
276
524
739
935
1220
1413

6140		 545
967
1629
2305
2979
4019
4609


2.12
4.10
6.01
7.78
15.01
27.56
SPEC95rate, Linpack MFLOPS (TPP) and HPLinpack GFLOPS (Rmax)
System Processor SPEC95
rate int/fp		 Linpack
TPP   Rmax
Cray T90 T932 32 Cray ECL 450 MHz 29360 61.80
HP 9000 V2500 32 PA-8500 440 MHz
16 PA-8500 440 MHz		 7481
8217		 31.59
17.47
AlphaServer HPC320
AlphaServer HPC160		 32 Alpha 21264 500 MHz
16 Alpha 21264 500 MHz		 7264
3837		 11779
6246
Cray SV1 24 Cray CMOS 300 MHz 10420 38.31
AlphaServer 8400 32 Alpha 21164 625 MHz
8 Alpha 21164 625 MHz		 4504
1279		 4527
1212
3608		 17.96
Sun Starfire 32 Sun UltraSPARC-II 333 3480 3021 5187 17.91
SGI Origin 2000 16 R12000 300 MHz 2560 4224 3970 8.71
HP V2250 16 PA-8200 240 MHz 2209 2471 5935 10.65
HP V2200 16 PA-8200 200 MHz 1865 2312 4832 9.20
Sun Enterprise 6k 16 Sun UltraSPARC 250 1437 1965 3493 7.21
Convex SPP1000 64 PA-7100 100 MHz
8 PA-7100 100 MHz
751		 6.19
AlphaServer ES40 4 Alpha 21264 667 MHz 1390 2686 3804 4.11
HP 9000 T600 12 PA-8000 180 MHz 1192 1151
DG AViiON AV 20000 16 Pentium Pro 200 MHz 1007
Convex SPP1600 32 PA-7200 120 MHz 996 1444 5.45
Siemens RM600 720 24 R4400 250 MHz 921
HP 9000 K580 6 PA-8200 240 MHz 902 849
IBM RS/6000 SP 4 POWER3 375 MHz 845 1739 3700 4.64
Convex SPP1200 32 PA-7200 120 MHz
8 PA-7200 120 MHz
656		 3.96
1.02
HP Visualize C3600 1 PA-8600 552 MHz 379 576
Cray C90 1 Cray 238 MHz 902 2.92

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Dimensions

Height Width Depth Weight
736mm 914mm 889mm 250kg

Documentation

Most HP and Convex documentation is only available at archive.org and other archives, with most official sources, articles and journals having disappeared in the 2010s.

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