Midrange server

Sun Microsystems has announced the SPARC Enterprise T5440 server, claimed to be the first to deliver the scalability and reliability of traditional midrange systems with the performance and energy efficiency of the UltraSPARC T2 Plus architecture.

The server, with the Solaris 10 operating system, enables users to consolidate and virtualise midrange applications, including large-scale OLTP databases, CRM and ERP.

In a 4U package, it increases server use while reducing energy consumption. Additionally, it is said to be the first chip multi-threaded server to scale up to four processors.

The server, with up to 32 cores (256 threads) and 512 GB of memory, is one of the first systems to incorporate power management features, including the ability to park idle threads.

It also features intelligent fan control, which adjusts rotational fan speed according to changes in temperature to reduce power consumption.

An additional design element that maximises power savings is dividing the chassis and fans into cooling zones, which allows a response only from those fans needed to compensate for changes in temperature.

The server also features a redesigned power distribution subsystem with highly efficient digital regulators, which reduce wasted energy over previous analog designs.

The Solaris 8 and 9 Containers capability enables users to run multiple Solaris 8 or 9 environments on a single angled-based system. As a result, users can move existing physical environments to virtual containers on Solaris 10.

The server also offers big I/O performance and expandability with up to 10 GBps of raw I/O bandwidth. With the addition of the optional external I/O expansion unit, the number of I/O slots available can be expanded to support up to 28 PCI-E slots.