With this post, I am starting a semi-regular series called Hardware Bytes which will contain various thoughts and opinions of various hardware news and topics. The topics can include anything such as: new processors, network switches, security (or lack thereof), servers, and storage.
The topic of the first brain dump in the series is regarding the new servers that Sun has released using their latest multi-threading processor, the UltraSPARC T2 (referred to as "T2" hereafter). The T2 processor has 8 lean UltraSPARC cores, which share 4MB of L2 cache, along with 4 FB-DIMM channels and two integrated 10 Gigabit Ethernet controllers. Compared to the previous version of the processor, the UltraSPARC T1 ("T1"; which also has 8 lean UltraSPARC cores, but only had 3MB of shared L2 cache, DDR2 memory controllers and a single shared float-point unit), the each of the T2 cores can handle 8 threads versus 4 threads for each of the T1 cores; meaning, a full 8-core T2 processor can handle 64 concurrent threads versus 32 concurrent threads of the T1 processor.
With the improvements in the T2 processor, a server with a T2 processor can pretty much be a mini-mainframe running dozens of instances of Solaris or become a monster-hydra of a Linux server.
Sun has built three new servers around the T2 processor that can support up to 64GB of RAM and various network interface configurations. Those servers are the SPARC Enterprise T5120 ("T5120"), the SPARC Enterprise T5220 ("T5220") and the Blade T6320.
Looking at the specifications of the T5120 and the T5220, I initially thought that the T5120 would be the T2 equivalent of the T1000 (which uses a T1 processor) while the T5220 would be the T1 equivalent of the SPARC Enterprise T2000 ("T2000"; which also uses a T1 processor). Looking at the pricing on the other hand shows that both the T5120 and the T5220 seem to be the next-gen T2000, leaving the SPARC Enterprise T1000 ("T1000") to kind-of fend for itself.
To me, that is a little bit disappointing as the T1000, while a multi-threaded beast in its own right, lacks some of the serviceability features found in servers within it's price range. Some of those features include: hot-swappable hard drives, redundant power supplies and an optical drive. Granted, the T1000 server does support small form factor SAS hard drives like the T2000, but the drives are internal. Not to mention, if you want to roll your own build of Solaris or Linux (or FreeBSD, hint hint), you would need to have another server or workstation configured for that purpose (which, depending on your environment, may or may not be a bad thing).
It will be interesting to see if Sun does provide a new version of the T1000 server with a T2 processor or not.
That's all that I have for this post. Please check back often for more random thoughts and the next entry of Hardware Bytes!
Disclaimer: I do not work for, represent or know anyone at Sun, nor have any shares in the company or compensated in any fashion for this post.