Fujitsu PRIMEPOWER 2500 Podręcznik - Strona 12

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Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens Computers PRIMEPOWER Enterprise Servers

mainframe-like features, such as instruction retry, into its RISC processors. No other current mainstream

RISC processor offers parity protection on arithmetic processing units and registers. Single-bit errors in

the processor execution units, registers and caches are handled and logged automatically by the

hardware without the operating system and operator intervention that are necessary in other designs.

Other Unix servers, such as the Sun F15K, have dual redundant clocks and backplanes; it's just that the

PRIMEPOWER 2500 goes that bit further.

RAS features and functions don't of course guarantee reliability, but should failures occur, the

PRIMEPOWER's redundancy, deconfiguration/restart and concurrent maintenance capabilities, allied to

the Solaris operating system's Dynamic Reconfiguration capabilities, will help to minimize both scheduled

and unscheduled downtime. The PRIMEPOWER 2500's predecessor, the 2000, scored well on Gartner's

Server Evaluation Model for both planned and unplanned downtime. With its enhancements, the 2500

should do even better.

The PRIMEPOWER 900 and 1500 don't have quite the same levels of RAS functionality as the 2500—to

some extent, they bask in the glow of the 2500. The 900 and 1500 don't have the dual redundant

crossbars and dual system clocks, for example, but they nonetheless offer better than average levels of

RAS functionality for midrange and enterprise-level servers. Feedback from Gartner clients in EMEA

suggests that they have been pleased with the reliability of the PRIMEPOWER servers.

Fujitsu's Armtech workload management software, which is available on all three models, is also rated

above average in Gartner's Server Evaluation Model.

Viability

The PRIMEPOWER servers have the backing of a large and established systems vendor that isn't going

to go out of business tomorrow, and the vendor has delivered on the technology with the SPARC64 V

chips and the XA architecture. In addition, the PRIMEPOWER servers are binary compatible with

SPARC/Solaris; Gartner is not aware of any areas of application incompatibility. Clients should note,

however, that Sun does not support the PRIMEPOWER servers in its Sun Cluster or Workload Manager

software. This means that it is not possible to use PRIMEPOWER servers as part of a Sun Cluster. FSC

says that it will support some configurations of Sun servers in its PRIMECLUSTER software, but in

general clients with mixed networks of Sun and Fujitsu servers will have to run either third-party failover

software, such as Veritas, or manage two separate clusters—a Sun Cluster and PRIMECLUSTER.

Similarly, the two vendors have different storage strategies: Sun has its own storage subsystems, storage

management software, SAN strategy, while Fujitsu/FSC's is built around EMC. The real issue again is

incompatible storage management software and the restriction of its full functionality to each storage

vendor's proprietary systems. Clients running Sun-based SANs may not find full support for

PRIMEPOWER servers in their storage management software and vice versa.

But the big issue is viability. How committed is Fujitsu to SPARC? And as an ancillary question, how

much influence does Fujitsu have over its operating system, Solaris?

On the first issue, in March 2003, Fujitsu announced roadmaps for SPARC64 that show enhancements to

SPARC64 V in late 2003/early 2004, new dual-core SPARC64-VI processors in the second half of 2004

and SPARC64-VII (up to four cores and 5- to 6GHz) in 2006/07. But will Fujitsu still be prepared to invest

further in subsequent SPARC64 processors if market share remains low compared with the Unix leaders?

Fujitsu certainly isn't restricting itself to SPARC64 and in January 2003 announced plans to develop high-

end 128-way servers based on Intel processors. That could represent a possible exit strategy and an

interesting challenge for Sun if Fujitsu decided to support Solaris on Itanium. FSC's original plan for a

follow-on to its Reliant Unix servers was Solaris on Itanium—a plan that was thwarted by Sun's

DPRO-97941

17 April 2003