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Introduction

The CHARON-AXP product is distributed in form of archive TAR.GZ files that contain RPM modules for different components. Generally it is recommended to install all the RPM modules, but it is possible to omit some RPMs if they are not needed.

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Each CHARON-AXP emulated CPU requires a corresponding physical core. So the total number of the host CPUs must exceed the number of emulated CPUs since some of the host CPUs must be dedicated to serving CHARON I/O operations and host operating system needs. If several CHARON instances run in parallel, the required number of CPU cores is summarizedcumulative.

The following table shows the minimum and recommended number of CPUs required for each virtual HP Alpha instance (note that each CHARON instance is able to run on 2 CPU cores hosts, but this configuration does not support emulation of all the virtual CPUs):

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Since CHARON-AXP utilizes LAHF instruction in HP Alpha CPU emulation please avoid usage of early AMD64 early (pre-2005) AMD64 and Intel 64 CPUs in for the CHARON host system since they lack itthis capability. AMD introduced the instruction with their Athlon 64, Opteron and Turion 64 revision D processors in from March 2005 while Intel introduced the instruction with the 2005 and Intel Pentium 4 G1 stepping in from December 2005 are LAHF instruction capable.

Concerning CPU speed, the general recommendation is that higher CPU frequency is better since it allows better emulated HP Alpha performance. The minimal minimum recommendation is at least 3 GHz.

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The minimum host memory size depends on the amount of HP Alpha memory to be emulated and on the number of CHARON-AXP instances to be run on one host.
The minimum host memory is calculated according to the following formula:

The minimum host memory = (2Gb +  the amount of HP Alpha memory emulated) per CHARON-AXP instance.

Disk storage

When installed, The total amount of disk space required for CHARON-AXP takes approximately 50 MB of disk space for its files, not counting any virtual HP Alpha disks/tapes (which appear as standard files).
When virtual HP Alpha disks/tapes are used to represent HP Alpha disk drives / magnetic tapes, the disk/tape image files have the same size as the equivalent HP Alpha diskhardware, regardless of their degree of utilization. So the total amount of a disk space required for CHARON-AXP can be calculated as a sum of the disk/tape images sizes plus 50 MB plus can be calculated as a sum of all the disk/tape image sizes plus 50 MB for the CHARON software plus space required for the normal host systemOS. Temporary disk storage is often needed when setting up a new server, for saveset storage, software installation kits, etc.

Ethernet adapters

CHARON-AXP networking assumes requires dedicated host Ethernet adapters; their number must be equal to the emulated adapters to be configured in CHARON-AXP. One adapter (optionally) can be left to the host for TCP/IP networking etc. It is also possible to use virtual network interfaces, but in consideration of performance, it is recommended to use physical ones only.

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