Midterm

Question 1

How does a server chipset act to control system-wide latency?

Answer 1

Controls the data flow between the CPU, caches, and memory.

Question 2

Matching the server chipset to the server CPU helps to minimize what?

Answer 2

Bottlenecks

Question 3

In servers the two commonly used multi-processor architectures are? (No acronyms)

Answer 3

Symmetric Multiprocessing, Non-Uniform Memory Access

Question 4

The acronym PCI stands for what?

Answer 4

Peripheral Component Interface / Interconnect

Question 5

IBM refers to the PCI bus as what?

Answer 5

Multiplex address and data bus

Question 6

What is the PCI turnaround phase?

Answer 6

The transition from Data mode to address mode, or visa versa.

Question 7

Most IBM X System Servers have replaced PCI-X with what?

Answer 7

PCI Express

Question 8

QDR transfers how many data bit per clock cycle?

Answer 8

4

Question 9

A PCI Express Serial link uses two wire pairs, what is the role of each pair?

Answer 9

One to send and one to receive

Question 10

PCI Express devices look like what types of devices to software?

Answer 10

PCI devices

Question 11

What is the major design difference between PCI-E and the previous versions of PCI?

Answer 11

PCI-Express is serial, everything else is parallel.

Question 12

According to Moores Law the numbers of transistors in CPUs doubles how many years?

Answer 12

Every 2

Question 13

The acronym UEFI stands for what?

Answer 13

Unified Extensible Firmware Interface

Question 14

UEFI was originally designed for what processor?

Answer 14

Itanium

Question 15

UEFI was designed to replace what in a server?

Answer 15

BIOS

Question 16

What does UEFI component testing eliminate?

Answer 16

Beep Codes

Question 17

What was the first version of Windows Server to support UEFI?

Answer 17

2008

Question 18

Under virtualization what normally runs under privilege level 3?

Answer 18

Applications

Question 19

Under virtualization what normally runs under privilege level 0?

Answer 19

Virtualization layer

Question 20

What is the role of the hypervisor?

Answer 20

Allows multiple OS’ to run on a single host?

Question 21

What does binary translation address?

Answer 21

Ring deprivileging

Question 22

There are three hardware requirements for virtualization, one is hypervisor support, one is BIOS support, what is the third?

Answer 22

CPU support

Question 23

The acronym ACPI stands for what?

Answer 23

Advance configuration power interface

Question 24

How does the P state differ from the T state?

Answer 24

P state addresses the clock rate and the T state addresses how many clock ticks the CPU will respond to

Question 25

The NIC receive frame command contains what things requires to store the receive frames contents?

Answer 25

Receive Instruction and the Address

Question 26

What type of server has a primary function of storing, searching, retrieving, and updating data?

Answer 26

Database server

Question 27

What is often because of major bottlenecks in a DNS server?

Answer 27

The NIC

Question 28

Explain the difference between active memory and MXT?

Answer 28

Active memory mirrors the memory, while MXT compresses it.

Question 29

An average enterprise uses what percent of a server’s capacity?

Answer 29

20%

Question 30

The ability to change P-States is an ability Intel calls what?

Answer 30

Demand Based Switching

Question 31

Same question but for AMD?

Answer 31

PowerNow!

Question 32

What is the effect of increased cache size on the speed of main memory access?

Answer 32

Slows it down

Question 33

What is the most frequently access server hardware resource?

Answer 33

Memory

Question 34

AMD uses HyperTransport together with that other technology to group processors?

Answer 34

SUMO

Question 35

AMD uses three HyperTransport links to connect the opteron what is each link used for?

Answer 35

Two to connect to connect to CPU, Third for I/O.