Sun SPARC Enterprise M-Series Servers Configuration Concepts 
by James Hsieh
December 2008
The Sun SPARC® Enterprise M-series server line is the newest addition to Sun Microsystem's mid-range and high-end server families. Designed for the enterprise- class datacenter, all members of the server line offer a great deal of configuration flexibility in addition to high performance and reliability. The configuration flexibility offered by these platforms provides multiple deployment options that require careful consideration. This Sun Blueprints™ article covers basic and advanced configuration concepts and goes through several sample configurations for the Sun SPARC® Enterprise M4000, M5000, M8000, and M9000 servers. This article should help readers avoid common configuration mistakes. Please note, the entry-level Sun SPARC Enterprise M3000 server is not covered in this article.
Contents
- Introduction
- Basic Configuration Concepts
- Types of Systems
- Overview of Configurable Components
- CPUs and System Boards
- Memory and Memory Modules
- I/O Units
- Important Concepts
- Physical System Boards (PSBs)
- The eXtended System Board (XSB)
- Understanding Connectivity Between Components
- Basic Configuration Examples
- Adding Components to the Sun SPARC Enterprise M4000 and M5000 Servers
- Adding Components to the Sun SPARC Enterprise M8000 and M9000 Servers
- Advanced Configuration Concepts
- Quad-XSB Configurations
- Quad-XSB Mode and IOUs
- Dynamic System Domain Configuration Examples
- Domain Configurations and RAS Concerns
- Advanced Memory Configuration
- Memory Configuration Rules
- Adding DIMMs with Different Capacities
- Memory Mirroring Configurations
- I/O Performance Considerations
- PCIe Slot Utilization
- PCIe Relaxed Ordering
- Quad-XSB Configurations
- Software Notes
- XSCF Units
- XSCFU Functionality
- Email Alerts
- XCP Software Versions
- Solaris™ OS Compatibility
- Required Solaris Packages
- XSCF Units
- Summary
- About the Author
- Acknowledgements
- References
- Related Resources
James Hsieh is a Staff Engineer with Sun's Systems Group responsible for the Sun SPARC Enterprise server line. Prior to his current role, James was a member of Sun's Technology Service Center (TSC) providing advanced support for Sun's mid-range server line and a member of Sun Services supporting mission critical customers. Prior to Sun, James worked for over 13 years with UNIX® and Sun systems as a software engineer and as a systems administrator for large groups of UNIX systems.
The author would like to acknowledge Robert Terzi for his contributions to this article. His insights and perspectives were especially valuable in organizing and presenting the content.
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