Sun Fire X4500
Encyclopedia
The Sun Fire X4500 data server (code-named Thumper) integrates server and storage technologies. It was announced in July, 2006 and is part of the Sun Fire
server line from Sun Microsystems
.
In July 2008, Sun announced the X4540 model (code-named Thor), which doubles the processing power of the X4500.
In November 2010, Oracle designated that the X4540 is end-of-life and has no next-generation replacement model.
processors. With forty-eight 500/1000 GB SATA
drives, it provides 24/48 TB of storage in four rack unit
s.
The Sun Fire X4540 supports 2 quad-core AMD K10
(Barcelona) processors. The new model also uses PCI Express
IO technology, and added a compact flash disk slot for booting the operating system
.
A significant feature of both systems is that the I/O framework was designed to handle high throughput on all disks simultaneously. These were the first systems designed specifically with ZFS
in mind, so no hardware RAID
is included.
Forty-two Sun Fire X4500 data servers are used to provide Lustre
cluster filesystem storage in the TSUBAME supercomputer, which was number 7 on June 2006 TOP500
list.
result with an X4500 running Sybase IQ
. At US $8.11/QphH, it archived the best price/performance among the 1,000 GB results.
Sun Fire
The Sun Fire server brand is a series of server computers introduced in 2001 by Sun Microsystems . The Sun Fire branding coincided with the introduction of the UltraSPARC III processor, superseding the UltraSPARC II-based Sun Enterprise series...
server line from Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
.
In July 2008, Sun announced the X4540 model (code-named Thor), which doubles the processing power of the X4500.
In November 2010, Oracle designated that the X4540 is end-of-life and has no next-generation replacement model.
Hardware
The Sun Fire X4500 supports 2 dual-core AMD OpteronOpteron
Opteron is AMD's x86 server and workstation processor line, and was the first processor which supported the AMD64 instruction set architecture . It was released on April 22, 2003 with the SledgeHammer core and was intended to compete in the server and workstation markets, particularly in the same...
processors. With forty-eight 500/1000 GB SATA
Sata
Sata is a traditional dish from the Malaysian state of Terengganu, consisting of spiced fish meat wrapped in banana leaves and cooked on a grill.It is a type of Malaysian fish cake, or otak-otak...
drives, it provides 24/48 TB of storage in four rack unit
Rack unit
A rack unit or U is a unit of measure used to describe the height of equipment intended for mounting in a 19-inch rack or a 23-inch rack...
s.
The Sun Fire X4540 supports 2 quad-core AMD K10
AMD K10
The AMD Family 10h is a microprocessor microarchitecture by AMD. Though there were once reports that the K10 had been canceled, the first third-generation Opteron products for servers were launched on September 10, 2007, with the Phenom processors for desktops following and launching on November...
(Barcelona) processors. The new model also uses PCI Express
PCI Express
PCI Express , officially abbreviated as PCIe, is a computer expansion card standard designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X, and AGP bus standards...
IO technology, and added a compact flash disk slot for booting the operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
.
A significant feature of both systems is that the I/O framework was designed to handle high throughput on all disks simultaneously. These were the first systems designed specifically with ZFS
ZFS
In computing, ZFS is a combined file system and logical volume manager designed by Sun Microsystems. The features of ZFS include data integrity verification against data corruption modes , support for high storage capacities, integration of the concepts of filesystem and volume management,...
in mind, so no hardware RAID
RAID
RAID is a storage technology that combines multiple disk drive components into a logical unit...
is included.
Supported Operating Systems
- Solaris 10
- Red Hat Enterprise LinuxRed Hat Enterprise LinuxRed Hat Enterprise Linux is a Linux-based operating system developed by Red Hat and targeted toward the commercial market. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is released in server versions for x86, x86-64, Itanium, PowerPC and IBM System z, and desktop versions for x86 and x86-64...
4.0 - SUSE Linux Enterprise ServerSUSE Linux Enterprise ServerSUSE Linux Enterprise Server is a Linux distribution supplied by SUSE and targeted at the business market. It is targeted for servers, mainframes, and workstations but can be installed on desktop computers for testing as well. New major versions are released at an interval of 3-4 years, while...
10 - Rocks Cluster DistributionRocks Cluster DistributionRocks Cluster Distribution is a Linux distribution intended for high-performance computing clusters. It was started by National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure and the SDSC in 2000 and was initially funded in part by an NSF grant but is currently funded by the followup NSF...
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003 (Standard and Enterprise)
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008
Solutions using X4500/X4540
- Sun Streaming System
- Sun Visualization SystemSun Visualization SystemSun Visualization System was a sharable visualization solution introduced by Sun Microsystems in January of 2007. It used other Sun technologies, including Sun servers, Solaris, Sun Ray Ultra-Thin Clients, and Sun Grid Engine...
- Sun Secure Data Retrieval Server (SDRS)
- Sun Constellation SystemSun Constellation SystemSun Constellation System is an open petascale computing environment introduced by Sun Microsystems in 2007.- Main hardware components :* Sun Blade 6048 Modular System** ** * * * * - Software stack :* OpenSolaris or Linux* Sun Grid Engine...
- Sun StorageTek Virtual Tape Library Value ("VTL Value") System
- Sun Scalable Storage Cluster
- LuminexLuminex Software, Inc.Luminex Software, Inc. is a developer and provider of disk-based mainframe virtual tape products and technologies for backup, archive and disaster recovery.- History :Luminex was founded in 1994 by Brian Hawley, Michael Saunders and Arthur Tolsma....
Virtual Tape Solution for IBM zSeries mainframes via FICONFICONFICON is the IBM proprietary name for the ANSI FC-SB-3 Single-Byte Command Code Sets-3 Mapping Protocol for Fibre Channel protocol. It is a FC layer 4 protocol used to map both IBM’s antecedent channel-to-control-unit cabling infrastructure and protocol onto standard FC services and infrastructure... - SAS Intelligence StorageSAS InstituteSAS Institute Inc. , headquartered in Cary, North Carolina, USA, has been a major producer of software since it was founded in 1976 by Anthony Barr, James Goodnight, John Sall and Jane Helwig...
- GreenplumGreenplumGreenplum is a database software company in San Mateo, California, specializing in enterprise data cloud solutions for large-scale data warehousing and analytics...
's Sun Data Warehouse Appliance - ipConfigure - Enterprise Video Surveillance
- G10 Enterprise Video Manager
- Media Server for Symantec Veritas NetBackupNetBackupVeritas NetBackup is an enterprise level heterogeneous backup and recovery suite. It provides cross-platform backup functionality to a large variety of Windows, UNIX and Linux operating systems....
- Cypress Storage Appliance
- Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
Forty-two Sun Fire X4500 data servers are used to provide Lustre
Lustre (file system)
Lustre is a massively parallel distributed file system, generally used for large scale cluster computing. The name Lustre is a portmanteau word derived from Linux and cluster...
cluster filesystem storage in the TSUBAME supercomputer, which was number 7 on June 2006 TOP500
TOP500
The TOP500 project ranks and details the 500 most powerful known computer systems in the world. The project was started in 1993 and publishes an updated list of the supercomputers twice a year...
list.
TPC-H World Record
In October 2007, Sun submitted TPC-HTransaction Processing Performance Council
Transaction Processing Performance Council is a non-profit organization founded in 1988 to define transaction processing and database benchmarks and to disseminate objective, verifiable TPC performance data to the industry...
result with an X4500 running Sybase IQ
Sybase IQ
Sybase IQ is a relational database software system used for business intelligence and data warehousing, produced by Sybase.-Features:As a column-oriented DBMS, Sybase IQ stores data tables as sections of columns of data rather than as rows of data...
. At US $8.11/QphH, it archived the best price/performance among the 1,000 GB results.
External links
- Sun Fire X4500 Server
- Sun Fire X4540 Server
- Sun Fire X4640 Server
- Sun Fire X4500 System Walkthrough and Part 2 (YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
Video) - Configuring the Sun Fire X4500 Server as Network Attached Archival Storage for Symantec Enterprise Vault