Sun Microsystems X4600 M2, X4600 User Manual
Sun FireTM X4600/X4600 M2
Server Architecture
A Technical White Paper
May 2007 SunWIN Token # 470898
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
© 2006 Sun Microsystems, Inc., 4150 Network Circle, Santa Clara, CA 95054 USA
All rights reserved.
This product or document is protected by copyright and distributed under licenses restricting its use, copying, distribution, and decompilation. No part of this
product or document may be reproduced in any form by any means without prior written authorization of Sun and its licensors, if any. Third-party software,
including font technology, is copyrighted and licensed from Sun suppliers.
Parts of the product may be derived from Berkeley BSD systems, licensed from the University of California.
Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, and Sun Fire are trademarks, registered trademarks, or service marks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the U.S. and other
countries.
UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries, exclusively licensed through X/Open Company, Ltd.
All SPARC trademarks are used under license and are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries.
Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.
The OPEN LOOK and Sun™ Graphical User Interface was developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. for its users and licensees. Sun acknowledges the pioneering
efforts of Xerox in researching and developing the concept of visual or graphical user interfaces for the computer industry. Sun holds a non-exclusive license
from Xerox to the Xerox Graphical User Interface, which license also covers Sun’s licensees who implement OPEN LOOK GUIs and otherwise comply with
Sun’s written license agreements.
RESTRICTED RIGHTS: Use, duplication, or disclosure by the U.S. Government is subject to restrictions of FAR 52.227-14(g)(2)(6/87) and FAR 52.22719(6/87), or DFAR 252.227-7015(b)(6/95) and DFAR 227.7202-3(a). DOCUMENTATION IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND ALL EXPRESS OR IMPLIED
CONDITIONS, REPRESENTATIONS AND WARRANTIES, INCLUDING ANY IMPLIED WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR NON-INFRINGEMENT, ARE DISCLAIMED, EXCEPT TO THE EXTENT THAT SUCH DISCLAIMERS HELD TO BE
LEGALLY INVALID.
2 of 63
Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................. ..........................5
Sun Fire x4000 Server Family Overview............................................................................................................5
Sun Fire X4600 Overview...................................................................................................................................6
Sun Fire X4600 Target Markets and Applications..........................................................................................9
Architecture Overview.........................................................................................................................10
Sun Fire X4600 Server.....................................................................................................................................10
CPU Architecture...................................................................................................... ...........................14
AMD Opteron Processor...................................................................................................................................16
CPU Packaging...........................................................................................................................................17
Processor VRM...........................................................................................................................................18
Memory Architecture........................................................................................................................................18
x64 Architecture................................................................................................................................................19
AMD Direct Connect Architecture.....................................................................................................................20
HyperTransportTM Technology...................................................................................................................21
Memory Interface........................................................................................................................................21
Chip-to-Chip Interconnect............................................................................................................................21
I/O Expansion Capability to High-Speed Industry Buses.............................................................................22
I/O Subsystem.................................................................................................................... .................24
Sun Fire X4600 I/O Subsystem Overview........................................................................................................24
Chipsets...........................................................................................................................................................24
AMD-8132TM HyperTransport PCI-X Tunnel..............................................................................................25
NVIDIA nForce Professional.......................................................................................................................26
LSI SAS1064 SAS Controller............................................................................................................................26
Intel 82546GB Dual Port Gigabit Ethernet Controllers......................................................................................27
ATI RageTM XL Video......................................................................................................................................28
SMSC LPC47B272 Super I/O Controller..........................................................................................................29
PCI-X and PCI-E Expansion Slots....................................................................................................................30
Sun Fire X4600 Server PCI Expansion Slots...............................................................................................30
Motherboard........................................................................................................................................32
Cooling and Power..............................................................................................................................33
Cooling.............................................................................................................................................................33
Fans............................................................................................................................................................34
Power Supplies.................................................................................................................................................35
ILOM: Integrated Lights Out Management..........................................................................................37
ILOM Architecture.............................................................................................................................................37
ILOM Software..................................................................................................................................................38
In-Band Server Management Interfaces...........................................................................................................39
Baseboard Management Controller (BMC).......................................................................................................39
Out-of-Band Server Management Interfaces....................................................................................................39
Command Line Interface (CLI).........................................................................................................................39
Web Interface...................................................................................................................................................40
Remote Keyboard, Video, Mouse, and Storage (RKVMS)................................................................................40
Lights Out Management (LOM)........................................................................................................................41
Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI).......................................................................................41
IPMItool.......................................................................................................................................................42
SNMP .........................................................................................................................................................42
Sun N1 System Manager..................................................................................................................................43
Software Operating Environment........................................................................................................45
Solaris Operating System Features..................................................................................................................45
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
3 of 63
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Key Productivity Features............................................................................................................................46
Interoperability.............................................................................................................................................47
Availability...................................................................................................................................................47
Advanced Networking..................................................................................................................................47
Bundled Software.............................................................................................................................................47
Sun Studio (90-Day Trial Version)...............................................................................................................47
Solaris Flash Software.................................................................................................................................48
Solaris LIVE! Upgrade Software..................................................................................................................48
Real-Time Video Creation and Broadcast Support......................................................................................48
Solaris 10 OS Bundled Desktop Environments.................................................................................................48
Common Desktop Environment (CDE) Enhancements...............................................................................48
GNOME 2.0 Desktop Environment..............................................................................................................49
Solaris OS Licensing and Usage......................................................................................................................49
Additional Software Included...............................................................................................................51
Sun Installation Assistant..................................................................................................................................51
Connector Pinouts...............................................................................................................................52
USB.............................................................................................................................................................52
Serial...........................................................................................................................................................52
10/100 BaseT .............................................................................................................................................52
Serial Attached SCSI (SAS)........................................................................................................................53
10/100/1000 BaseT ....................................................................................................................................54
VGA ............................................................................................................................................................54
Sun Fire X4600 Rack Mounting Specifications...................................................................................55
Sun Fire X4600 Server Dimensions....................................................................................................56
Environmental and Regulatory Compliance........................................................................................57
4 of 63
Introduction
As the first of its kind, the Sun Fire X4600 server is the fastest, most scalable, and energy-efficient four-way to
16-way x64 (x86 64-bit) server. It scales quickly from two sockets to eight sockets simply by adding processor
boards, all in a compact 4RU form factor. The new modular processor board for the Sun Fire X4600 M2 server
allows up to ¼ terabyte of memory in a fully configured system. With its multiple operating system support, exten-
sive ISV application offerings, time-saving manageability, and availability features, the Sun Fire X4600 server is
the top midrange solution for server consolidation and virtualization, enterprise applications, and High Perfor-
mance Computing (HPC).
Sun Fire x4000 Server Family Overview
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
The Sun Fire x64 server line is composed of the industry's premier x64 servers. The Sun Fire x64 server line
delivers the highest reliability and greater than one-and-a-half times the performance of comparable Intel Xeon-
based servers, while providing significant savings in power and cooling costs. These Sun servers are based on a
simplified management system and fast and reliable performance, resulting in better service levels, lower opera-
tional costs, and better asset utilization.
The Sun Fire x64 family of servers features x64 performance with 32-bit x86 compatibility, large memory support,
I/O capability to support low-latency, high-bandwidth interconnects for compute clusters, Integrated Lights Out
Management with in-band and out-of-band control, and a wide range of peripheral and ISV support. This is the
only family of x64 industry-standard servers with application portability across the entire family through binary
compatibility on SolarisTM , Linux, or Windows operating systems.
The Sun Fire x64 server family also includes an extensive set of RAS (Reliability, Availability, and
Serviceability) features that reduce hidden serviceability costs by dramatically simplifying system maintenance.
In addition, the Sun Fire x64 family of servers provides remote lights out server management, including remote
keyboard, video, mouse, and storage (RKVMS); remote boot; and remote software upgrades using the
Integrated Lights Out Manager (ILOM) Service Processor.
5 of 63
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Figure Intro-1: Sun Fire X4000 Server Family
Customers seeking a business edge can look to Sun to provide smart options for building a simple, secure, and
standardized IT infrastructure. The Sun Fire x64 family of servers enables standardization of the datacenter by
providing the unity of vertical scaling with the economies of horizontal scaling, while running any major OS and
32-bit/64-bit application. Sun continues its efforts to provide customers with solutions to help them realize the
benefits of a horizontal infrastructure (lower incremental CPU costand OS flexibility) while reducing hidden
costs and complexities.
Sun Fire X4600 Overview
The Sun Fire X4600 is the third member of the Sun Fire X4000 server family. Like its two predecesors, the Sun
Fire X4100 and X4200 servers, the Sun Fire X4600 is designed to improve the economics of x64 systems while
setting new standards for performance, reliability, and energy efficiency. The Sun Fire X4600 is a high-
performance, single- or dual-core platform scalable up to 8 sockets in a 4RU package. The 8 sockets will scale
to 16 processor cores and up to ¼ terabyte of memory. It features redundant, hot-swappable fan modules and
redundant, hot-pluggable AC power supplies to enable increased availibility and simplified serviceability. It
supports an I/O feature set that includes four 10/100/1000 BaseT Gigabit Ethernet ports, a four-channel SAS
RAID 0/1 disk controller with integrated mirroring, video, USB ports (two front, two rear), and a dedicated serial
and 10/100BaseT Ethernet remote management port. For further expansion, the Sun Fire X4600 provides two
low-profile PCI-X slots and six low-profile PCI-E slots for high-performance application I/O. Up to eight single-
and dual-core AMD Opteron CPUs provide a flexible, high-performance growth path and investment protection
(32-bit applications are protected while still enabling seamless migration to 64-bit applications).
6 of 63
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Figure Intro-2: The Sun Fire X4600 Server
The highly scalable 4- to 16-way Sun Fire X4600 server allows customers to dramatically improve business
agility and growth without any data center disruption and no change to the operating system, software, rack,
network infrastructure, or storage connections. The Sun Fire X4600 server can be used to build 5-teraflop (or
larger) systems.
Table Intro-1 shows how the new Sun Fire X4600 server compares to the Sun Fire X4100 and X4200 servers.
Shaded cells indicate differences.
Table Intro-1: Sun Fire X4100, X4200 and X4600 Servers Features Comparison
Features Sun Fire X4100/X4200 Sun Fire X4600 M2
Form Factor
Processor
BIOS
Memory DIMM Slots
Memory Type
Memory Module Sizes
Maximum Memory
HDD Controller
HDD Type
Up to two AMD Opteron 800 Series Single-
or Dual-Core CPUs w/ 1 MB L2 Cache per
AMI BIOS8 (Different revision) AMI BIOS8 (Different revision)
PC3200 400MHz Registered DIMMs with
1 GB, and 2 GB DIMMs 1 GB, 2 GB , 4 GB DIMMs
1/2 RU 4 RU
Up to eight AMD Opteron 8000 Series
Dual-Core only CPUs w/ 1MB L2 Cache
Core
4 DIMM slots per CPU 4 or 8 DIMM slots per CPU
PC6300 667 Mhz Registered DIMMs with
ECC
64 GB w/2 GB DIMMs 256 GB w/4 GB DIMMs
LSI SAS1064 Serial Attached SCSI (SAS)
2.5-inch drives (SAS)
per Core
ECC
7 of 63
Features Sun Fire X4100/X4200 Sun Fire X4600 M2
HDD Number
Optical Drive
NIC Controller
NICs
Graphics Controller
Expansion Slots
Quad Gigabit Ethernet ports
Six PCI-E Low Profile and
Four HDDs
CD/DVD-ROM
Dual Intel FW82546GB
ATI Rage XL
Two PCI-X MD2
Front I/O
Rear I/O
Two USB 2.0 ports (Type A)
Four Gigabit Ethernet ports (RJ45)
One 100BaseT Management port (RJ45)
One RS-232 Serial (RJ45)
Two USB 2.0 ports (Type A)
VGA Video port (DB15)
Power Supply
Redundant Hot Swappable
4 x 850W
System Management
Service Processor board supporting Graphics redirection, Remote Floppy/CD, IPMI
2.0, SNMP, CLI and Web interface
OS Support
Solaris, Linux, Windows, and VMware
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
8 of 63
Sun Fire X4600 Target Markets and Applications
The Sun Fire X4600 server provides mission-critical enterprise data center solutions across all industries. It is
particularly well-suited for the following applications:
• Collaboration
• Email
• Document management
• Server consolidation
• Data collection and analysis
• ERP
• CRM
• Data warehousing
• Databases
• Product development and delivery
• Simulation
• Transaction processing
• Billing
• Customer service
• Application server
• High Performance Computing (HPC)
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
9 of 63
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Chapter 1
Architecture Overview
Sun Fire X4600 Server
The Sun Fire X4600 server measures 4 rack-units (6.9 inches/176 mm) high, 17.5 inches (445 mm) wide, and
24.75 inches (629 mm) deep. It is a 4- to 16-way rack-optimized, x64-based system with a symmetric
multiprocessor. Cooling is accomplished with internal fans that direct airflow from the front to the back of the
chassis. I/O ports are located on the rear panel, with additional USB on the front panel. Access to the power
connections is at the rear of the server. Hard drives and optical storage are accessible from the front of the
server.
Figure 1-1: Front View of the Sun Fire X4600
10 of 63
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Figure 1-2: Rear View of the Sun Fire X4600 Server
11 of 63
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Figure 1-3: Internal View of the Sun Fire X4600 Server
The Sun Fire X4600/X4600 M2 server also provides the following system architecture features:
• Sun Fire X4600: Embedded dual-channel DDR1 memory controllers on each CPU to provide maximum
memory capacity and bandwidth scaling and deliver up to 64 GB of capacity and 51.2 GB/sec. of
aggregated bandwidth with eight populated CPUs and 2 GB DIMMs.
• Sun Fire X4600 M2: Embedded dual-channel DDR2 memory controllers on each CPU to provide maximum
memory capacity and bandwidth scaling and deliver up to 256 GB of capacity and up to 85.6 GB/sec. of
aggregated bandwidth with eight populated CPUs and 4 GB DIMMs.
• AMD Direct Connect Architecture that directly connects CPU-to-CPU with Coherent HyperTransport
TM
links
to deliver 8 GB/sec. aggregate bandwidth per link, CPU-to-I/O with non-Coherent HyperTransport links to
deliver 8 GB/sec. aggregate bandwidth per link, CPU-to-memory using the integrated DDR controller, and
CPU cores to each other on the same die in dual-core processors
• Two PCI-X and six PCI-E slots to deliver high-performance I/O with over 160 GB/sec. of I/O plug-in
bandwidth
• Embedded quad Gigabit Ethernet and a SAS disk controller to leave the two PCI available for expansion
needs
12 of 63
• Embedded management and legacy I/O to offer maximum operational flexibility without compromising PCI
slots for optional features
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Figure 1-4: Sun Fire X4600 Server Architecture Block Diagram with Eight CPUs
13 of 63
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Chapter 2
CPU Architecture
The Sun Fire X4600 server supports up to eight Single-Core or Dual-Core AMD Opteron Series 800
processors. Each CPU module has an attached PCB containing:
• 1 AMD Opteron CPU and heatsink
• 4 DDR1 memory DIMM slots
• 1 CPU/RAM VRM
• Airflow redirection baffles for greatest cooling efficiency
The Sun Fire X4600 M2 server supports up to eight AMD Opteron Series 8000 (Dual-Core and Multi-Core in
the future) processors. Each CPU module has an attached PCB containing:
• 1 AMD Opteron CPU and heatsink
• 8 DDR2 memory DIMM slots
• 1 CPU/RAM VRM
• Airflow redirection baffles for greatest cooling efficiency
The CPU module is connected to the system motherboard using a pair of ganged connectors.
14 of 63
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Figure 2-1: Sun Fire X4600 CPU Module
Systems configured with four or six processors require filler modules. The filler modules maintain the
HyperTransport connectivity between all CPUs and provide airflow redirection for efficient cooling throughout
the system. Figure 2-2 illustrates the placement of CPU and filler modules, physical slot numbering, and the
CPU enumeration from the BIOS perspective.
Front of Server
Slot A Slot B Slot C Slot D Slot E Slot F Slot G Slot H
8
Processors
6
Processors
4
Processors
2
Processors
Module 0 Module 2 Module 1 Module 3 Module 4 Module 5 Module 6 Module 7
Module 0 Module 1 Filler Module 2 Module 3 Module 4 Filler Module 5
Module 0 Filler Filler Module 1 Module 2 Filler Filler Module 3
Module 0 Module 1 EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY
15 of 63
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Front of Server
Rear of Server
Figure 2-2: CPU Module Placement
Note: The Sun Fire X4600 server supports four and eight CPU configurations. Two, four, six, and eight CPU configurations
are supported in the Sun Fire X4600 M2.
In Sun Fire X4600 systems, each processor contains an integrated memory controller that supports a 128-bit-
wide path to memory and three 16x16-bit HyperTransport links. Each HyperTransport link runs at speeds up to
1 GHz and is clocked on both edges of the clock pulse, which allows for a maximum of 4 GB/sec. (2
gigatransfers/sec., 2 bytes wide) throughput in each direction (8 GB/sec. aggregate data rate bi-directionally).
Memory support is for registered DDR400 184-pin SDRAM DIMMs. There are four DIMM slots per CPU.
DIMMS are accessed in pairs with an available memory bandwidth up to 6.4 GB/sec. (with PC3200) per
processor.
Figure 2-3: 8-DIMM Processor Board
16 of 63
In Sun Fire X4600 M2 systems, each processor contains an integrated memory controller that supports a 128-
bit-wide path to memory and three 16x16-bit HyperTransport links. Each HyperTransport link runs at speeds up
to 1 GHz and is clocked on both edges of the clock pulse, which allows for a maximum of 4 GB/sec. (2
gigatransfers/sec., 2 bytes wide) throughput in each direction (8 GB/sec. aggregate data rate bi-directionally).
Memory support is for registered DDR2/667 240-pin SDRAM DIMMs. There are four or eight DIMM slots per
CPU. DIMMS are accessed in pairs with an available memory bandwidth up to 10.7 GB/sec. (with PC6300) per
processor.
Memory capacity scales with the number of processors, so memory attached to an unpopulated processor
socket is unaddressable. As a result, a single processor machine can support a maximum of four DIMMs, while
a fully-populated, eight-CPU server can support a maximum of 32 or 64 DIMMS (X4600 or X4600 M2) with up
to 256 GB (64 x 4GB) of memory.
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
The AMD processor does support up to eight DIMMs per CPU. However, using more than four DIMMs requires
clocking down DIMM speed to 533 MHz, even if the DIMMs used are of the highest speed bin.
AMD Opteron Processor
Features of the AMD Opteron processor in the Sun Fire X4600 and Sun Fire X4600 M2 servers include:
• Up to eight Single-Core or Dual-Core AMD Opteron 800 Series processors (Sun Fire X4600).
• Up to eight Dual-Core AMD Opteron 8000 Series processors (Sun Fire X4600 M2).
• x64 architecture (64-bit extensions) with AMD Direct Connect Architecture using HyperTransport
Technology.
• PowerNow! support to dynamically adjust performance based on CPU utilization (voltage and frequency are
adjusted depending on kernal load). By default, PowerNow! is disabled in BIOS.
• Native support for 32-bit x86 ISA, SSE, SSE2, MMX, and 3DNow!
• Three HyperTransport links supporting up to 8 GB/sec. of direct inter-processor and I/O bandwidth per link.
• ECC protection for L1 data cache, L2 unified cache, and DRAM with hardware scrubbing of all ECC
protected arrays.
• CPU L1 Instruction cache: 64 KB two-way associative, parity protected with advanced branch prediction.
• CPU L1 Data cache: 64 KB two-way associative, ECC protected.
• Two 64-bit operations per cycle, three-cycle latency.
• CPU L2 cache: 1 MB 16-way associative, ECC protected.
• Exclusive cache architecture storage, in addition to L1 caches.
• 256 TB of memory address space.
17 of 63
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Figure 2-4: Single-Core AMD Opteron Processor Architecture
The Sun Fire X4600 server supports both Single-Core and Dual-Core AMD Opteron 800 Series processors.
The Sun Fire X4600 M2 server supports Dual-Core AMD Opteron 8000 Series processors. From the start,
AMD64 processors were designed to add a second core—the port already existed on the crossbar/SRI. Dual-
core AMD Opteron processors have unique instances of L1 cache (I-cache and D-cache) and L2 cache for
each CPU core. Features of the Dual-Core AMD Opteron processor include:
• Socket compatibility with existing 940-pin sockets that are compatible with 90nm single-core processor
architectures
• One die with two CPU cores
• The same power requirements as single-core CPUs
• Individual L1 Instruction cache per CPU core
• Individual L1 Data cache per CPU core
• Individual 1-MB L2 cache per CPU core
• Shared memory controller and HyperTransport interconnects for two cores
• Fully utilized memory and HyperTransport bandwidths
18 of 63
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Figure 2-5: Dual-Core AMD Opteron Processor Architecture
Note: Sun Fire X4600 servers support 95 W and 120 W 90 nm technology package infrastructure AMD Opteron Rev E and
Rev F processors only.
CPU Packaging
AMD Opteron 800 series processor packaging specifications include:
• 940-pin lidded organic micro PGA
• 1.27 mm pin pitch
• 31 x 31 row pin array
• 40 mm x 40 mm organic substrate
• Organic C4 die attachment
• 16.5 mm x 11.3 mm die size
AMD Opteron 8000 series processor packaging specifications include:
• 1207-pin organic land Grid Array (OLGA)
• 1.1 mm pin pitch
• 35 x 35 row pin array
• 40 mm x 40 mm organic substrate
• Organic C4 die attachment
• 16.5 mm x 11.3 mm die size
19 of 63
Loading...