|
General
|
|
Written by Daniel
|
|
Tuesday, 09 October 2007 10:37 |
|
Sun's UltraSparc T2-based servers deliver double the performance and capacity of its predecessor and could cut the number of servers required in datacenters By Agam Shah, IDG News Service, InfoWorld
October 09, 2007 Sun Microsystems late Monday announced its first UltraSparc T2-based servers, which the company hopes will cut the number of servers required in datacenters. The multicore and multithreaded Sun Sparc Enterprise T5120 and T5220 servers deliver double the performance and capacity of its predecessor, UltraSparc T1-based servers, without an increase in size, said Mat Keep, product manager at Sun.
The servers are powered by the UltraSparc T2 processor, which has eight cores with eight threads per core, giving it the power of 64 individual systems in one server, Keep said. The threads are recognized by Solaris OS and boosts system performance with the hardware and virtualization features, Keep said. The T2 processor is also known as the Niagara 2 processor.
"We are enabling customers to run demanding workloads in a small footprint," Keep said. The servers meet the challenge of delivering services like video and interactive content and collaborative technology without overburdening datacenters, Keep said.
Virtualization features are built into the server OS and hardware, Keep said. Solaris 10 can run multiple applications in one box, increasing server efficiency and utilization. A hypervisor is built into hardware as firmware, Keep said.
The T5120, a 1U server, supports up to four internal drives, going to eight drives in the future. The T5220, a 2U server, supports eight internal drives, going up to 16 drives in the future, Keep said.
Both systems support up to 64GB of memory and consume between 400 watts to 600 watts of power depending on the system configuration. Energy efficiency has been a design point Sun has been pursuing lately, with its recent RISC-based and x86 servers offering better performance-per-watt.... More Comment in the Forum. |
