Maximum Performance at Minimum Cost
October 13th, 2009
With the Fujitsu and Sun Microsystems announcement of enhanced SPARC Enterprise Mission Critical Models, performance now spans to 2.88 GHz in SPARC64 VII processors.
Running at 2.88GHz for the SPARC Enterprise™ M9000 and M8000 servers and 2.53GHz for SPARC Enterprise M5000 and M4000 servers, SPARC Enterprise has not only improved overall performance, but model M9000 has regained the high performance crown in the integer calculation performance index, SPECint_rate2006 for 64 CPU chip servers. (*1)
Delivering the highest performance in the UNIX server arena, SPARC Enterprise Mission Critical models ensure customers can continue to develop their businesses. The same enhanced processor performance can also be added to existing systems, to maximize performance and investment protection at minimum upgrade cost.
SPARC Enterprise Leveraging Your Business Growth
SPARC Enterprise not only provides high performance, it also protects your IT investments by extending the useful life of the server frame. Most importantly, with Mission Critical models, you can upgrade the performance of the existing system very simply, just by adding processors at minimum cost. No board swaps, not system reconfigurations, just add the latest processors.
Maximize performance and revitalizing your system at least cost
Just adding the latest processors is needed for upgrading performance on any of the M4000 to M9000 SPARC Enterprise servers. However additional performance can also be achieved by upgrading to the latest CPU Memory Boards as well.
By contrast, UNIX servers from other venders, always require the replacement or addition of other components, including memory, processor power supplies, etc. when adding the latest processors. The extra costs involved with such replacement can become a large disincentive to system upgrading.
- (IBM Power System 570) Upgrading POWER5/POWER5+ to POWER6 processors requires a hundred thousand dollars (*2). These additional costs are required due to replacement of memories and processor power regulators etc. With SPARC Enterprise Mission Critical models, the equivalent upgrade cost is zero.
- (HP Integrity rx8640) Upgrading Itanium2(Madison) or PA-RISC to Integrity rx8640 with Itanium2 (Montvale/Montecito) requires addition or replacement of memories, processor power regulators and other backbone components of the server. Due to the complexity of the upgrade procedures and the high purchasing costs, HP does not necessarily recommend customers pursue such upgrades (*3).
SPARC Enterprise Mission Critical models can upscale your business without incurring large additional costs.
Excellent scalability
With rich server resources including disks and I/Os, SPARC Enterprise can raise your IT investment efficiency. This is because server expansion can occur without needing additional external equipment for disks and I/O expansion.
For instance, SPARC Enterprise M9000 has larger resource capacity than other UNIX venders' products, as shown below.
- M9000 has 2.7 times the internal disk capacity (19.2 TB) compared with IBM Power System 595 (max. 7.1TB). The external disk system mandatory with HP Integrity Superdome is an option with M9000.
- M9000 has 2.1 times the I/O slot capacity compared with IBM Power System 595. It also has 30% more capacity compared with HP Integrity Superdome. With SPARC Enterprise, no extra cost is needed to expand network interfaces.
SPARC Enterprise Mission Critical models are primarily designed to protect your IT assets. Fujitsu will continue to provide such supreme performance at minimum cost. This means the best possible return on your investment and over the life of the system, lowest possible cost of ownership.
*1 SPEC and the benchmark names SPECint and SPECfp are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation.
- SPARC Enterprise M9000
Processor : SPARC64 VII(2.88 GHz) x 64 CPU chips (256 cores, 512 threads)
Level1 cache memory per core: 128 KB (Instruction :64 KB, Data : 64KB)
Level2 cache memory per CPU chip: 6MB
Memory: 1.152TB
OS : Solaris 10 5/09 with patch 119963-13, 120753-06, 118683-03
Compiler : Sun Studio 12 with patches 119963-13, 120753-06, 118683-03 - IBM Power System 595
Processor POWER6(5.0 GHz) x 32 CPU chips (64 cores, 128 threads)
Level1 cache memory per core:128 KB (Instruction :64 KB, Data : 64KB)
Level2 cache memory per core:4MB
Level3 cache memory per core:32MB
Memory : 512 GB
OS : AIX V6.1 with the 6100-01 Technology Level
Compiler : XL C/C++ Enterprise Edition V9 for AIX Updated with the Oct2007 PTF. - HP HP Integrity Superdome
Processor Dual-Core Intel Itanium 2 9050(1.6 GHz) x 64 CPU chips (128cores)
Level1 cache memory per core:32KB (Instruction :16KB, Data : 16KB)
Level2 cache memory per core:1 MB I + 256 KB D on chip per core
Level3 cache memory per core:12 MB I+D on chip per core
Memory : 512 GB
OS :HPUX11i-TCOE B.11.23.0609
Compiler : HP C/aC++ Developer's Bundle C.11.23.12.
*2 The list price total for products required to upgrade to a POWER6 server. However, this cost excludes processor related products such as processor cards and processor activation. List prices, and server configurations are based only on IBM official documents.
- Initial configuration
p 570(4xCEC, each CEC has processor cards (1.9GHz, 2CPU chips/4cores)x1, memory (4x1GB DIMM)) - Upgraded configuration
Power System 570(4xCEC, each CEC has processor card(4.2GH, 4CPU chips/8 cores)x1, memory(8x 8GB DIMM)) - References
- IBM announcement letter "New IBM POWER6 processors for the Power 570 enable you to get more processing power with fewer processors"
- IBM Redpaper "IBM System p 570 Technical Overview and Introduction"
*3 "You can also accomplish an upgrade by combining the purchase of a new server with Trade Up credits on the older server.
Box swap upgrades may have the advantage of less upgrade down time.
In box upgrades and box swap upgrades may have similar prices depending on the amount of memory, number of cell boards and
processors that have to be upgraded." (HP Integrity rx8640 Quick Spec)
*4 HDDs or I/Os mountable in a system rack are counted.
Figures in this article are correct at their published date.
