The sx2000 supports a wide array of partitioning and virtualization options. Hard partitions (nPars) provide full hardware isolation between partitions. Virtual partitions (vPars) and HP Integrity Virtual Machines (Integrity VM) allow hard partitions to be further subdivided to provide fine-grained control over the assignment of resources.

The HP sx2000 is an enterprise systems chipset that is designed to provide scalability, reliability, manageability and performance to meet the most demanding server needs. The chipset, used in the latest HP Integrity and HP 9000 high-end and midrange servers, supports the new dual-core Intel® Itanium® 2 and Itanium 2 9M processors, while providing a foundation for the upcoming Itanium 2 “Montvale” processor. In addition, with the support of the HP PA-8900 RISC processors on the sx2000 chipset, HP Itanium 2 processors and PA-8900 RISC processors can concurrently operate in an HP Integrity Superdome in separate hard partitions. This provides the flexibility and longevity to maximize return-on-investment (ROI).

In today’s business environment, IT departments are finding it increasingly necessary to consolidate and simplify their environments to free-up staff, meet the high service level expectations of end users and bring high-value projects up and online quicker. As a result, they are looking for solutions that provide flexible capacity, enhanced availability and security, and simplified management of their environment. The new sx2000 chipset for the Integrity Superdome, HP Integrity rx8640, HP Integrity rx7640, HP 9000 Superdome, HP 9000 rp8440, and HP 9000 rp7640 servers provides enhancements in all of these areas. Larger bandwidths, lower latencies, and support for future processors provide greater performance and scalability, which enhances the flexible capacity of the IT environment. Enhanced error-correcting and self-healing technologies optimize the reliability and availability of the server. Redundant components, as well as the ability to mix processor types in an Integrity Superdome and upgrade partitions individually, make the environment easier for IT departments to provision new applications and manage and maintain the systems with increased up-time. The end result is a better return on IT investment with HP Integrity and HP 9000 servers.