SPARC T3-1 SERVER

Internal Frequently Asked Questions October 07, 2010

This document is for internal purposes only, and is Oracle Confidential

Overview and Positioning Ordering Information Enabling Technology System Specifications / Installation Data Software, Firmware, and Operating System System Requirements and Configuration Upgrades and Offers Service and Support

1.0 Overview and Positioning

What is the SPARC T3-1 server? Today, server sprawl is an insidious problem facing not only small to medium size businesses but also large enterprise data centers. In an increasingly data-driven world, companies find themselves deploying multiple servers to handle the growing need for new business applications, oftentimes assigning one application or workload per server. The result poor utilization, high energy and cooling costs, and overcrowded data centers. The new SPARC T3-1 server is not just a server, it's a fully integrated rackmount system with the ability to run many virtual servers, helping drive up utilization, lower IT costs and keep server sprawl to a minimum. Delivering the world's first 16-core server processor with unsurpassed throughput, the SPARC T3-1 server boasts speed, security, and unmatched availability to data in a sleek, compact design. The newest addition to Oracle's Chip Multithreading technology, the SPARC T3-1 server is the platform of choice for Web Infrastructure, Middleware workloads and Application development. How does the SPARC T3-1 server compare with the other rack mount servers that we offer? The new SPARC T3-1 server, compared to the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5220 server, has twice the number or processing cores and boasts the industrys first 16-core chip. Customers can expect up to two times the throughput, enhanced on-chip cryptographic acceleration, up to four times the I/O throughput, implementations of Sun Flash technology, helping to accelerate application performance and maximize

Oracle Confidential
customer investments. It serves as the entry platform for the new generation of SPARC servers based on the SPARC T3 processor. Sun SPARC Enterprise T5220 Form Factor Rack Units Architecture Operating System Processor Family Processor Options Rack 2U RISC Oracle Solaris SPARC UltraSPARC T2 (1.2Ghz -1.6 GHz) 1 8 4 MB L2 FB-DIMM 128 GB 16 SAS, Solid State 8 or 16 4,800 GB SPARC T3-1 Rack 2U RISC Oracle Solaris SPARC SPARC T3 (1.65 GHz) 1 16 6 MB L2 DDR3 128 GB 16 SAS, Solid State in 2011 8 or 16 4,800 GB

Max Processors Max Processor Cores Cache Memory Type Memory Maximum Memory DIMM slots Disk Type Internal Disk Bays Disk Max Internal

What is Oracles strategy with this product? Rather than 'chase' the traditional approach of increasing clock speed at the expense of power, cooling and packaging, Oracle has designed an alternative that focuses on multiple cores per chip and threads per core in order to achieve total throughput without compromising efficiencies in power and cooling. This innovative approach, termed Chip Multithreading (CMT) technology is redefining the way IT managers solve complex business issues. With large memory support and the breakthrough performance of the SPARC T3 processor, the SPARC T3-1 server is ideally suited for compute, data, and transactionintensive applications, making it an ideal platform for web, network, and security servers. What are the market value propositions & key messages? The newest addition to Oracle's Chip Multithreading technology, the SPARC T3-1 server is the platform of choice for Middleware workloads and Application development, delivering the world's first 16-core processor with unsurpassed throughput. The SPARC T3-1 server boasts speed, security and unmatched availability to data in a sleek, compact design.

Oracle Confidential

Oracle Confidential

Key Messages: Superior Performance - The SPARC T3-1 server delivers the industrys first 16-core processor, offering unmatched throughout and world-class performance. Unmatched Business Value - Oracle is the only vendor to bundle virtualization, crypto, and the operating system (OS) at no extra cost. Efficient Smart, simple, and eco friendly designs offer greater energy and space optimization, increasing asset utilization while reducing operating costs. Superior I/O Capabilities The SPARC T3-1 server delivers up to 4x the I/O bandwidth of previous generation T-series servers. Virtualization Oracle VM for SPARC software provides opportunities to simplify management and shift resources according to changing demands. These benefits help reduce costs. Oracle VM for SPARC allows partitioning the SPARC T3-1 server into as many as 128 independent virtual machines thereby assuring isolation and security. Mission Critical Reliability, Availability and Serviceability - Electronic Prognostics with predictive CPU/memory monitoring maintains high availability required for enterprise business applications. Investment Protection The SPARC T3-1 server provides full binary compatibility, making it easier for customers to run and move their applications across other UltraSPARC/Solaris OS based servers.

What are the target applications? The SPARC T3-1 server is the platform of choice for Web Infrastructure, Middleware workloads and Application development. Examples of target workloads and applications include, but are not limited to, the following: Network infrastructure workloads to support the delivery of Web and transaction services Middleware for example Oracle Fusion Security Applications - The advanced SPARC T3 processor features integrated on-chip cryptographic accelerators that provide wire speed encryption capabilities for secure datacenter operation without customers having to pay a penalty for encrypting large amounts of data Application Development With up to 128 computing threads packed in a compact, 2RU design, a single system can now run more applications and reduce the number of required servers Multithreaded Applications (for example: Siebel CRM) Java Applications for example: Oracle Weblogic 11g , Suns Java Application Server, IBMs Websphere Consolidation and Virtualization

Oracle Confidential

Oracle Confidential
Key Features and Benefits For the key customer benefits of the SPARC T3-1 server, please see the SPARC T3-1 External FAQ document available on the external product page: http://www.oracle.com/us/products/serversstorage/servers/sparc-enterprise/t-series/sparc-t3-1-server-170341.html What are the top competing products?

Oracle SPARC T3-1 Form Factor Rack Units Architecture Operating System Processor Family Processor Options Rack 2U RISC Solaris

IBM Power 710 Express Rack 2U RISC

IBM Power 720 Express Rack 4U RISC

HP Integrity rx2660 Rack 2U

IA-64 UNIX, LINUX, Windows, Other OS Itanium

Itanium 9110N )1.6GHz 75W), Itanium 9120N (1.42GHz 104W), Itanium 9140M (1.66GHz 104W) 2 4

AIX, IBM i, Red Hat Linux, SUSE Linux

POWER 7 3.0GHz, 3.55GHz & 3.7GHz 1 8 4MB L3 DDR3 64 GB 8 SAS, Solid State 6 or 3

AIX, IBM i, Red Hat Linux, SUSE Linux

POWER 7 3.0GHz

SPARC T3

1.65 GHz

Max Processors Max Processor Cores Cache Memory Type Memory Maximum Memory DIMM slots Disk Type Internal Disk Bays Disk Max Internal

1 16 6 MB L2 DDR3 128 GB 16 SAS 8 or 16

1 8 4MB L3 DDR3 128 GB 16 SAS, Solid State 6 or 8

6MB, 12MB, 18MB L3

DDR2 32 GB 8 SAS 8

1,800 GB
4,800 GB
(additional 43.2TB via 8 x I/O drawer attachment)

2,400 GB

2,400 GB

Oracle Confidential

Oracle Confidential
What are the performance benchmarks? For more information on performance and benchmarks, please go to: http://www.oracle.com/benchmarks/index.html http://www.oracle.com/us/solutions/performance-scalability/sun-sparc-enterprise-t-servers-078532.html 2.0 Ordering Information When is this product going to be available? The product will be Generally Available (GA) in the 4 quarter of 2010 How do I purchase this product? Standard selling processes via authorized sales channels and via the Oracle Store http://www.oracle.com/store 3.0 Enabling Technology SPARC T3-1 uses the SPARC T3 processor, which is a multi-core multi-threaded 64-bit implementation of the SPARC V9 architecture. SPARC T3 includes 16 SPARC cores, a 6MB L2 cache, 2 memory controllers, a PCI Express root complex, two 10Gbps network interface unit, a central crossbar, and an inter-CPU coherency link. Each SPARC core is capable of running 8 threads concurrently and includes a floatingpoint unit (FPU) and a stream processing unit (SPU) to accelerate cryptography. What are the main feature differences in the SPARC T3 (vs. UltraSPARC T2/T2 plus)? Up to 16 cores at 1.65GHz which is twice the number of cores of UltraSPARC T2/T2+ Up to 2x Floating Point performance over UltraSPARC T2 with fused multi-add instruction set improvement. Up to 2x performance gains in key throughput benchmarks Two x8 PCI-Express Gen2.0 interface vs. 1 x8 Gen1 interface in UltraSPARC T2 Plus, this new features effectively quadruples the IO bandwidth DDR3 memory support vs. FBDIMM in UltraSPARC T2 Plus Introduced user-accessible hardware-based crypto acceleration New Algorithm and Hash - Improves performance on small packet sized apps especially on small packet sized apps by eliminating SW stack overhead - New Kasumi Bulk and SHA384,SHA512 Non-Core Improvements Direct Chip-to-Chip Coherent Interconnect extended from 2-way on UltraSPARC T2+ to 4-way and Chip to Chip coherency Link improvement to 9.6GB/s vs 4.8GBb/s in UltraSPARC T2 resulting in reduced latencies to off-chip memory. Enhanced power management features - from architecture to circuit techniques, minimize both active and idle power. - Reduced duplication of logic, extended clock gating to save active and idle powers, gating function on coherency links, core disable and down clocking for idle power etc. Die size: 371 mm2 Power: 75 to 139W compares to UltraSPARC T2+ processor power range of 60 - 123W
th

For further information, refer to the SPARC T3 Datasheet found here:

http://www.oracle.com/us/products/servers-storage/servers/sparc-enterprise/t-series/sparc-t3-chip-ds173097.pdf Oracle Confidential

Oracle Confidential What is Oracle's virtualization manager (OVM) for the SPARC T3-1? Oracle VM Server for SPARC (previously called Sun Logical Domains) provides highly efficient, enterprise- class virtualization capabilities for Sun SPARC Enterprise servers with Chip Multithreading (CMT) technology. Oracle VM Server for SPARC allows the capability to create up to 128 virtual servers on one system to take advantage of the massive thread scale offered by the CMT architecture. Compared to other virtualization offerings, Oracle offers this capability on T-Series systems at no additional cost.
Key features of OVM for SPARC are: Ability to share resources or dedicate resources on a per guest basis Dynamically move CPU, memory, and I/O resources between guest environments Assign CPU resource with fine-grained allocation Ability to change CPU speed and memory use to meet datacenter power requirements Physical-to-Virtual (P2V) tools to aid in the migration of environments on stand alone servers to virtualized servers Configure high-performance and scalable network connections on a per guest basis Key improvements of OVM 2.0 for SPARC are: Static Direct I/O Memory Dynamic Reconfiguration Cooperative Warm Migration For additional information on OVM for SPARC, please see features, data sheet and whitepaper at these URLs. http://wiki.us.oracle.com/calpg/OracleVM/SPARC/Features http://www.oracle.com/us/oraclevm-sparc-ds-073441.pdf http://www.oracle.com/us/oraclevm-sparc-wp-073442.pdf https://www.sun.com/offers/docs/sun_virtualization.pdf Award winning Oracle Solaris 10 Operating System Oracle Solaris provides customers with the most choice in system types to meet their challenging business and technical needs. Its innovative, built-in features deliver breakthrough virtualization, high availability, advanced security, and industry-leading performance. Key features of Solaris 10 include: Oracle Solaris Containers Virtualization functionality included in Oracle Solaris that enables customers to create multiple application environments within a single instance of the OS; through the use of software-defined boundaries, customers can achieve greater efficiency of IT resources by consolidating systems and securely isolating applications and services DTrace Allows you to use the dynamic instrumentation and tracing capabilities in Oracle Solaris to see what's really going on in the system; it is designed to be safely used on production systemswithout modifying applications Oracle Solaris Predictive Self Healing Allows the server to accurately predict component failures and mitigate many potentially serious problems before they actually occur; if an application or service fails, the built-in restart mechanism automatically restarts the application or service Trusted Extensions This advanced security feature implements labels to protect your data and applications based on their sensitivity level, not just on who owns or runs them ZFS An advanced file system that simplifies administrative tasks, protects data from corruption, and scales from the desktop to the data center Oracle Confidential

Oracle Confidential
Guaranteed binary compatibility Applications run unchanged across Oracle Solaris releases Oracle Solaris Live Upgrade Allows Oracle Solaris to continue to run while performing upgrades or maintenance Interoperability Seamless interoperability between Oracle Solaris and Linux-based systems. Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) Delegate administration function to the users who need them Oracle Solaris Service Manager A key functionality of Predictive Self Healing, Service Manager ensures your applications will keep running even through hardware and software faults Oracle Solaris Fault Manager A key functionality of Predictive Self Healing, Fault Manager continually monitors data relating to hardware and software errors and automatically diagnoses the underlying problem and responds by off-lining faulty components

Oracle Integrated Lights Out Manager (Oracle ILOM) Oracle Integrated Lights-out Manager is driven by an integrated system service processor. ILOM provides full remote KVMS (Keyboard, Video, Mouse, Storage) support together with remote media functionality. Lights-out management (LOM) is achieved using an service processor with its own robust, security hardened OS. For additional information on Oracle integrated lights out manager, see details at http://www.sun.com/systemmanagement/ilom.jsp Electronic Prognostics 1.1 The Pre-Emptive Prognostics software analyzes time series telemetry data from a variety of physical sensors such as temperatures, voltages, currents and fan speeds on the system. The existing environmental monitoring framework on Solaris uses software plugins that use threshold checks to compare the value of sensors against some fixed values to determine alarm situations. In contrast, the Pre-Emptive Prognostics software is intended to perform the monitoring by analyzing the correlations among multiple sensors in the time series telemetry data and help detect subtle degradation modes of system components that cannot be caught using traditional threshold checks. All received telemetry and health conditions are recorded into a Black Box Recorder file on the system for offline analysis by Oracle service. Flash Integration Options Enterprise Flash technology is revolutionizing datacenters by delivering storage performance 100 times faster than traditional disk drives at a fraction of their power and space. Flash helps accelerates applications by reducing storage latency and eliminating I/O bottlenecks to make servers and their applications run faster and more efficient for greater productivity and improved business response. Because enterprise Flash is based on persistent solid state technology, its not only much faster, but more robust and power efficient than mechanical disk drives helping both accelerate I/O intensive applications and reduce operating costs.

For additional information on Oracle Sun Flash storage, please see details at http://www.oracle.com/us/products/servers-storage/storage/flash-storage/index.html

Oracle Confidential

Oracle Confidential

Oracle Sun Flash product Portfolio includes: Oracle Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array http://www.oracle.com/us/products/servers-storage/storage/disk-storage/043967.html Solid State Drives (SSD) Not available with SPARC T3-1 at the time of the initial release of the server. SSD support is expected to be available 1HFCY2011. Sun Flash Accelerator F20 PCIe Card http://www.oracle.com/us/products/servers-storage/storage/disk-storage/043966.html SAS-2 support for HDD and SSD Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) is a computer bus, which moves data to and from computer storage devices such as hard drives and tape drives. SAS-1 adopted the physical signaling characteristics of SATA at the 1.5 Gbit/s and 3 Gbit/s rates, whereas SAS-2 develops a 6 Gbit/s physical rate of an equivalent SATA speed. SPARC T3-1 I/O design PCI Express Switches There are two independent PCI Express switches on the SPARC T3-1 motherboard. All ports on both switches can operate at either 2.5 Gbps (Gen1) or 5.0 Gbps (Gen2) and support link widths of 1, 2, 4, or 8 lanes. Both switches connect the SPARC T3 processor to the I/O including hard drives, PCIe express cards, Ethernet, and USB. Network The SPARC T3-1 uses two Intel Kawela dual Ethernet controllers to provide 4 10/100/1000Mbps full duplex auto-negotiating Ethernet ports. Both Ethernet controllers are accessible from the SPARC T3 processor through one of the PCI Express switches. The SPARC T3-1 also supports up to two 10Gbps XAUI ports. PCI Express Low Profile Cards The SPARC T3-1supports up to 6 PCI Express low-profile cards. All slots accept and support x8 Gen1 and x8 Gen2 cards. Each card may consume 25W. The SPARC T3-1 do not support hot plugging LP cards. The slots are labeled PCIe0 - PCIe5, as viewed from the rear of the system going left to right. For a list of I/O cars supported with SPARC T3-1 please see: http://wikis.sun.com/display/PlatformIoSupport/Home SPARC T3-1 will be supporting a third party Magma Express Box (Express Box4 1U (EB4-1U-x8G2 or Express Box7 x8 (EB7-x8G2 RAS). Maximum of two Express Boxes per system are recommended, connected via two link cards. Daisy-chaining or nesting of Express Boxes via one link card is NOT supported. Magma certifies their products independently through the Solaris Ready Program. Sales and support of Magma products is not offered through Oracle. For information on the Magma products under the Solaris Ready Program, refer to: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/solaris/overview/magma-135235.html Oracle Confidential

Oracle Confidential

Please also see the following link for more information regarding Magma. http://www.sun.com/io_technologies/vendor/magma.html

4.0 System Specifications / Installation Data

What is the maximum number of SPARC T3-1 server supported in a Sun Rack II? The maximum number of SPARC T3-1 servers supported in a Sun Rack II is 21. What are the power requirements for this server? The online power calculator provides an estimate on the idle and operating power level of the server. The power calculator can be found at http://www.oracle.com/us/products/servers-storage/sun-powercalculators/calc/sparc-t3-1-power-calculator-171763.html The SPARC T3-1 server has the Climate Savers 80+ certification with the power supplies being gold rated. What are the environmental and installation requirements for this server? Please refer to the SPARC T3-1 data sheet that can be found at http://www.oracle.com/us/products/servers-storage/servers/sparc-enterprise/t-series/sparc-t3-1-ds173098.pdf#search=%22SPARC%20T3-1%22 Where can I find the MTBF data for this server? The MTBF data for this server can be found at: http://ras4sun.sfbay.sun.com/PHPS/tools.php Where can I find the documentation for this server? The documentation for this server can be found at: http://docs.sfbay.sun.com/app/docs/prod/sparc.t3.1#hic What I/O is supported with this server? List of supported I/O options for this server can be found at: http://wikis.sun.com/display/PlatformIoSupport/Home 5.0 Software, Firmware, and Operating System What are the operating systems that have been certified to run on the SPARC T3-1 server? The SPARC T3-1 server is certified to run Oracle Solaris 10 beginning with Solaris 10 Update 8 + MU9 patch set. Does any software come preinstalled on the SPARC T3-1 server? Yes. The SPARC T3-1 server ships out of the factory with the following software components: Oracle Solaris 10 9/10 Oracle VM for SPARC Oracle Confidential

Oracle Confidential
Electronic Prognostics 1.1

Where can I find the firmware and driver software updates for this server? For firmware and software updates, please go to: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/systems/patches/firmware/firmware-140779.html 6.0 System Requirements and Configuration Is there a choice in system configurations? Yes, the server can be fully customized to the configuration specified by the customer through our factorys ATO (Assemble to Order) process. How can I determine the correct part numbers for my system? For quotes and ordering, please visit: http:///webdesk.central.sun.com (for Americas) http://webdesk.holland.sun.com (for Europe and Africa) http://webdesk.singapore.sun.com (for Asia/Pacific) The following sites will validate the system configuration for partners via partner webdesk. Please visit: https://pwd.sun.com/initialization/pwdinit.jsp (for Americas) https://pwd.eu.sun.com/initialization/pwdinit.jsp (for Europe and Africa) https://pwd.pr.sun.com/initialization/pwdinit.jsp (for Asia/Pacific) What are the minimum system requirements? Chassis includes common components (Main Module (MM), service processor module, disk slots, fans, power supplies and rail kit). One processor Minimum of four DDR3 DIMMs One or more HDDs upon which the system image will be pre-installed One power cord Options include: Memory DIMMs Additional HDD Power supplies and power cords Cable management arm PCIe adapters Internal USB Devices I/O Expansion Module

7.0 Upgrades and Offers

Are there trade-in or upgrade programs for this server?

Oracle Confidential

10

Oracle Confidential
Trade-in allowances will be offered for the Oracle SPARC T3-1 server through Oracle's Upgrade Advantage Program. Customers can trade in qualified Sun or non-Sun servers and get a trade-in allowance applied to the purchase price of the new Oracle server. Through this program customers can trade-up their current server and receive a trade-in allowance that is applied as a percentage off the list price on the new SPARC T3-1 server. Customers can trade-in their old systems in on a one-for-one server basis or consolidate many servers. Oracle UAP trade-in allowance percentages are dependent on what is being trade in and what is being purchased. To find the exact trade-in allowance with your specific upgrade go to http://www.sun.com/tradeins/calculator.jsp Where can I go for more information? For more information about Oracle UAP trade-in programs for Oracle Sun SPARC Enterprise servers, visit: http://ibb.eng/programs/all.html http://partner.sun.com/ibb/enterprise 8.0 Service and Support What is the Hardware Warranty? The hardware warranty is one year with second business day hardware service response. For complete terms, visit: http://www.oracle.com/support/collateral/oracle-hardware-warranty.pdf The warranty applies to hardware only (no OS or software coverage is included). As with all product warranties, this warranty is designed to offer consumers basic recourse should a product defect be discovered. For more complete support, customers should purchase the recommended support coverage at point-of-product-purchase to gain access to the services and resources they need and avoid potential reinstatement fees down the road. What is the Recommended Support for SPARC T-series server products? For all server and storage systems being used in critical production and test environments, Oracle recommends Oracle Premier Support for Systems. This service provides the support, firmware updates and proactive support tools customers need to work more efficiently, minimize business risk and get the most of their investment. Features include access to 24/7 support and online resources as well as 24/7 hardware service coverage with rapid onsite response. This support is priced at 12% of the net system price for the initial year. Customers choosing to run any/all of the following on the server: Oracle Solaris, Oracle Enterprise Linux, and Oracle VM, are in for great news. Oracle Premier Support for Systems also covers these products for no additional cost. So, instead of paying separate license or subscription fees to Microsoft, Red Hat or another OS provider, Oracle customers receive complete system coverage at one great price. OS service features include 24/7 support, proactive support tools and access to software patches, enhancements, and new releases. For more information on Oracle Premier Support for Systems, visit: http://www.oracle.com/us/support/systems/premier/061681.pdf What are Support Reinstatement Fees? Customers opting out of Premier Support coverage at product purchase (perhaps because they believe the warranty is sufficient for the initial year) need to be aware that if they return after product installation to add the system to support coverage, they will be responsible for paying back support fees. These fees exist largely to recoup Oracles ongoing investment in firmware and operating software. For actual terms, please see the section titled Reinstatement of Oracle Technical Support in this document. Oracle Confidential

11