{"id":529,"date":"2015-01-12T22:09:40","date_gmt":"2015-01-12T22:09:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wickensonline.co.uk\/rc2012sc\/?p=529"},"modified":"2015-01-12T22:09:40","modified_gmt":"2015-01-12T22:09:40","slug":"vax-mp-up-and-running-and-connected-to-hecnet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.wickensonline.co.uk\/rc2012sc\/2015\/01\/12\/vax-mp-up-and-running-and-connected-to-hecnet\/","title":{"rendered":"VAX MP up and running and connected to HECnet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some good success tonight – the VAX MP (MultiProcessor) emulator is now up and running on the DL380 G5 following the fix graciously provided by the developer\u00a0Sergey Oboguev. I called it VULCAN <\/a>– the RX2660 Itanium based server is TSR2 <\/a>– VULCAN seemed like a fitting companion.<\/p>\n

The SYS$STARTUP:SYSTARTUP_VMS.COM file now directly loads the VSMP$LOAD utility that provides the interconnect between virtual VAX CPUs and real Xeon cores. Issuing the command:<\/p>\n

$ START \/CPU \/ALL<\/pre>\n
then starts all CPUs. It’s currently configured as a four CPU system.<\/p>\n
Installing VSMP$LOAD...\r\n%%%%%%%%%%%  OPCOM  12-JAN-2015 21:18:10.47  %%%%%%%%%%%\r\nMessage from user DECNET on VULCAN\r\nDECnet starting\r\n\r\n%%%%%%%%%%%  OPCOM  12-JAN-2015 21:18:10.77  %%%%%%%%%%%\r\nMessage from user DECNET on VULCAN\r\nError opening permanent proxy database\r\n\r\n%VSMP-I-CALIBRATING, Calibrating OpenVMS timing loops...\r\n%VSMP-I-CALIBRATED, Calibration completed at 25 samples\r\n%VSMP-I-LOADED, VSMP resident image was loaded into the kernel and activated\r\nStarting all CPUs...\r\n%SMP-I-CPUBOOTED, CPU #01 has joined the PRIMARY CPU in multiprocessor operation\r\n%SYSTEM-I-CPUSTARTD, CPU 1 started\r\n%SMP-I-CPUBOOTED, CPU #02 has joined the PRIMARY CPU in multiprocessor operation\r\n%SYSTEM-I-CPUSTARTD, CPU 2 started\r\n%SMP-I-CPUBOOTED, CPU #03 has joined the PRIMARY CPU in multiprocessor operation\r\n%SYSTEM-I-CPUSTARTD, CPU 3 started\r\nSYSTARTUP_VMS.COM complete...\r\n%SET-I-INTSET, login interactive limit = 64, current interactive value = 0\r\n  SYSTEM       job terminated at 12-JAN-2015 21:18:11.64\r\n\r\n  Accounting information:\r\n  Buffered I\/O count:            1328         Peak working set size:    1556\r\n  Direct I\/O count:               548         Peak page file size:      5160\r\n  Page faults:                   6313         Mounted volumes:             0\r\n  Charged CPU time:           0 00:00:04.94   Elapsed time:     0 00:00:10.08\r\n%%%%%%%%%%%  OPCOM  12-JAN-2015 21:18:15.78  %%%%%%%%%%%\r\nMessage from user DECNET on VULCAN\r\nDECnet event 4.10, circuit up\r\nFrom node 4.13 (VULCAN), 12-JAN-2015 21:18:12.30\r\nCircuit QNA-0\r\n\r\n\r\n%%%%%%%%%%%  OPCOM  12-JAN-2015 21:18:31.13  %%%%%%%%%%%\r\nMessage from user DECNET on VULCAN\r\nDECnet event 4.15, adjacency up\r\nFrom node 4.13 (VULCAN), 12-JAN-2015 21:18:31.13\r\nCircuit QNA-0, Adjacent node = 4.248 (SIMVAX)\r\n<\/pre>\n
As you can see the DECnet adjacency up messages indicate that the phase IV DECnet networking is working. I can connect through to other machines on the hecnet network.<\/p>\n
I did a rudimentary test of single and multi-cpu performance by using the VUPS.COM script for a (very rough and ready) VAX Units of Performance rating (with the VAX 11\/780 traditionally being 1 VUPS) and also a WHETSTONE benchmark I unearthed from somewhere a while ago.<\/p>\n
Firstly the single CPU benchmarks using SIMVAX (SIMH instance hosted on an Ubuntu 14.10 HP Microserver with dual-core\u00a0AMD Athlon II Processor Neo N36L (1.30 GHz, 15W, 2MB) for reference:<\/p>\n
$ @vups\r\nApproximate System VUPs Rating : 11.0\r\n$ whetstone\r\n\r\nLoops: 1000, Iterations: 1, Duration: 11 sec.\r\nC Converted Double Precision Whetstones: 9.1 MIPS\r\n<\/pre>\n
So for the HP Microserver \u00a0that’s 11 VUPS and 9.1 MIPS<\/p>\n
Then the VAX MP instance VULCAN on the twin E5450 8-core DL380 G5:<\/p>\n
$ create\/dir [.benchmark]\r\n$ set def [.benchmark]\r\n$ copy simvax\"msw xxxxxxxx\"::dsa1:[msw]whetstone.exe []\r\n$ copy simvax\"msw xxxxxxxx\"::dsa1:[msw]vups.com []\r\n$ @vups\r\nApproximate System VUPs Rating : 31.2\r\n$ whetstone :== \"$sys$common:[benchmark]whetstone.exe\"\r\n$ whetstone\r\n\r\nLoops: 1000, Iterations: 1, Duration: 4 sec.\r\nC Converted Double Precision Whetstones: 25.0 MIPS\r\n<\/pre>\n
So for the DL380 G5 VAX MP emulator that’s 31.2 VUPS and 25 MIPS.<\/p>\n
Not a bad improvement, and that doesn’t take into account the multiple CPUs enabled in VULCAN.<\/p>\n
Just for giggles I set the SYS$BATCH queue with a 4 job limit so that simultaneous jobs would exercise all the CPUs. I ran up multiple copies of the VUPS script:<\/p>\n
$ submit sys$common:[benchmark]vups.com\r\nJob VUPS (queue SYS$BATCH, entry 2) started on SYS$BATCH\r\n$ submit sys$common:[benchmark]vups.com\r\nJob VUPS (queue SYS$BATCH, entry 3) started on SYS$BATCH\r\n$ submit sys$common:[benchmark]vups.com\r\nJob VUPS (queue SYS$BATCH, entry 4) started on SYS$BATCH\r\n$ submit sys$common:[benchmark]vups.com\r\nJob VUPS (queue SYS$BATCH, entry 5) started on SYS$BATCH\r\n<\/pre>\n
You can see the four real CPU cores being spun up in the following performance meter capture:<\/p>\n
\"Four<\/a>
Four Xeon Cores on full chat<\/p><\/div>\n
So there we have it. Of course this is the first install in a very long process of configuration – the VAX\/VMS setup needs some serious work to get it up to production standards. I’m also going to attempt to get an Alpha Emulator running and cluster the two together.<\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some good success tonight – the VAX MP (MultiProcessor) emulator is now up and running on the DL380 G5 following the fix graciously provided by the developer\u00a0Sergey Oboguev. I called it VULCAN – the RX2660 Itanium based server is TSR2 – VULCAN seemed like a fitting companion. The SYS$STARTUP:SYSTARTUP_VMS.COM file now directly loads the VSMP$LOAD …<\/p>\n
Continue reading ‘VAX MP up and running and connected to HECnet’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[41],"class_list":["post-529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-rc201501"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p73JhD-8x","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wickensonline.co.uk\/rc2012sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wickensonline.co.uk\/rc2012sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wickensonline.co.uk\/rc2012sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wickensonline.co.uk\/rc2012sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wickensonline.co.uk\/rc2012sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.wickensonline.co.uk\/rc2012sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":532,"href":"http:\/\/www.wickensonline.co.uk\/rc2012sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529\/revisions\/532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wickensonline.co.uk\/rc2012sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wickensonline.co.uk\/rc2012sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wickensonline.co.uk\/rc2012sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}