The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440

server is a 4U rack-mountable server.

It is the first sewer to expand chip
multithreading (CMT) to include four
UItraSPARC T2 Plus processors. The
server supports up to four plug-in
CPU modules, each one consisting
ot One UItraSPARC T2 Plus
processor Four FBDIMM memory
slots 1 and 8 cores per CPU, resulting
in up to 256 concurrent threads per
sewer Each CPU module can be
associated with an expansion
memory module, each consisting of
12 memory slots. This results in a
fully configured Sun SPARC
Enterprise T5440 Sewer consisting
ofi Four UItraSPARC T2 Plus
processors with 64 FBDIMMs

The nextfew slides describe the

system specifications for the Sun
SPARC Enterprise T5440 Server,
starting with the processor. As just
mentioned, the Sun SPARC
Enterprise T5440 Server is equipped
with up to four UItraSPARC T2 Plus
processors, each residing on a
separate plug-in CPU module.
These processors operate at 1.2 and
1.4 gigahertz. The processor has
eight cores. Note: The UItraSPARC
T2 Plus processor uses the same
SPARC core as the UItraSPARC T2
processor. Each core has a
separate floating point unit The
processor contains a 4 megabyte
Level 2 cache, and supports eight
threads per core. Each CPU also

supports upto 16 FBDIMM slots,

each of which supports 2, 4, orB
gigabyte DIMM5, for a maximum of
256 gigabytes of memory in the Sun
SPARC Enterprise T5440 Server.
Note that 8 Gbyte FBDIMMs will not
be supported at revenue release.
The FBDIMMs are controlled by two
memory control units per processor,
compared to four memory control
units per processor in the
UItraSPARC T2 processor.
The PCI-Express (PCIe) bus
supports eight PCIe expansion slots
with the following slot designations:
All eight slots support PCIe, 8-lane.
Two slots support 16-lane cards
operating at 8-lanes. Two of the
expansion slots can alternately
accept Sun proprietary Ten Gigabit
Attachment Unit Interface-based
cards called XAUI-based cards to
support 10 gigabits per second
Ethernet networking Up to 20
additional PCIe slots are available
using up to two external I/O
expansion units

Internal storage in the Sun SPARC

Enterprise T5440 server is handled by
up to four small form factor, 2.5-inch,
internal SAS hard disk drives. The Sun
SPARC Enterprise T5440 Server
currently supports 73 or 146 gigabyte
disks at 10,000 revolutions per minute,
or RPM. The disks are attached to a
SAS disk backplane and managed
through an LSl 1068 disk controller
System components that affect the Sun
SPARC Enterprise T5440 servers
environment include four 1120 watt, hot
swappable power supply units (PSUs)
and four hot-pluggable system fan
trays, which provide N1 redundancy.
For monitoring environmental
conditions, the server has an
Integrated Lights Out Management or
ILOM, controller with an RJ-45 serial
management port and a lO/lOOBaseT
Ethernet management port. System
status LED5 provide system and
component status information to
administrators.
The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440

Server is designed to fulfill the needs of

customers who require real-world
application performance while
optimizing the computing power that
can be achieved within the expensive
and shrinking data center space. As
servers become increasingly more
power hungry, maintaining an
environmentto balance power input
and thermal output for each rack
becomes increasingly important The
Sun SPARC Enterprise 13440 Server
utilizes Cool Computing to meet the
needs of these customers. With the
Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 Server,
changes in the architecture have
improved the power input to thermal
output ratio. CMT- based processors
are designed for the thread-rich network
computing environment These
processors maximize application
throughput by processing multiple
threads simultaneously on a single
chip.
Essentially, any application that is
vertically and/or horizontally scalable
today can benefit from CMT. This

includes real-world applications such

as: Databases, Application servers,
Transaction processing, And web
based services. Primary market
segments that require these services
include: Financial services,
Telecommunications, Government
Retail organizations, And professional
services.
With the introduction of the new
processor and architecture, the Sun
SPARC Enterprise T5440 Server is the
right server for customers whose
applications are highly threaded, using
parallel threads, or require large
instruction or data working sets. The
CMT chips can handle certain types of
software and tasks betterthan other
high-end 64-bit chips. Any application
that creates network traffic, such as
Web services software, Java, Web
servers, and application servers, can
benefit from spreading lots of software
threads across low-powered
processor cores.
Several key technologies are being
used in the Sun SPARC Enterprise

T5440 Server. These technologies help

to increase bandwidth, connectivity,
system throughput, and computing
throughput through enhancements to
the architecture, processors, and
system buses. The Sun SPARC
Enterprise T5440 Server offers the
following major features: Dense
packaging in a reduced footprint
Implementation of an eight core Sun
UItraSPARC T2 Plus processor Quad
processor coherency. On-chip
multithreading technology to maximize
the use of the system processor High
performance buses and memory
interconnect systems. Improved input
and output throughput through the
incorporation of PCIe. Architectural
enhancements to system platforms to
improve system upgrades, memory
management, and the 110
infrastructure. And Increased on-board
network connectivity.
The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440
Server utilizes the UItraSPARC sun4v
architecture, a hyper-privileged
architecture. Enhancements in this line

include: Use of the Sun UItraSPARC T2

Plus processor which supports multiple
threads on multiple cores and their
conformance to the new architecture by
segregating hardware-specific drivers
from the OS. Implementation of
virtualization, which introduces a layer
between the operating system and the
platform that removes the need forthe
operating system to have direct register
access to the processor, memory, and
critical 110 devices. This benefits
customers because hardware can be
upgraded without changing the
software infrastructure.
The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440
Server provides supportfora new
Ethernet driver, referred to as nxge. This
new driver provides the following
features: Support for data link provider
interface (DLPI) version 2, which
enables a data link service user to
access and use a variety of conforming
data link service providers without
special knowledge of the providers
protocol; Physical layer static
configuration using FORTH code, or

FCode properties; Portability to Solaris

x86 and SPARC platforms through
device driver interface, or DDI,
frameworks; Fault management
infrastructure support, which provides
error handling and management
capabilities; and Message signaled
interrupts, or MSI support, which allows
the devices to communicate in a peer-to
-peer manner without the involvement of
the host CPU. These implementations
bring the gigabit Ethernet interface in
line with Suns other network interface
drivers
The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440
Server implements RAS features, which
enable the system to maintain a higher
uptime rate. RAS features are
incorporated across both hardware and
software components, including:
System buses, PCI bridges,
Processors, Memory management
System power, And system cooling.
The inclusion of RAS features in these
entry-level servers continues Suns
commitment to providing enterpriselevel services to lower-cost solutions.
The RAS features included in the Sun

SPARC Enterprise T5440 Server

include: N1 redundant hot-swappable
power supplies and hot-pluggable fan
trays, Extended ECC protection on the
U cache data path and memory
interlace, DRAM extended ECC, which
allows the detection of up to 4-bits in
error, as long as they are on the same
DRAM, Standardized error message
generation, Environmental monitoring
with the inter- integrated circuit (12C)
control serial bus, Remote access
using ILOM-based hardware and
software components,
Independent host operation - This
means that service processor
malfunctions will not cause the server
to stop functioning once the server is
powered on. Indicator Light Emitting
Diodes, or LED5, on the front and back
of the chassis, which allow problems to
be detected and easily isolated. And
available software-based RAID levels O,
1, lE, and 10, which can enhance disk
availability and performance.