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The details are a bit sketchy, but server maker Sun Microsystems is
apparently getting ready to launch a rejiggered version of its Sparc T2
server platform that will implement an external network interface
instead of using the on-chip (and very fast) networking in original
Sparc T2 servers.
Presumably, this engineering change will allow Sun to sell the
forthcoming member of the "Niagara" server family at a cheaper price.
The new server, code-named "Tenaya," is based on the "Huron" Sparc T2 servers announced back in October 2007.
With the Sparc T2 chips (which went by the code-name "Niagara-2"), the
processor included an eight-core, 64-thread Sparc processor and an
integrated pair of 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports coming right off the chip.
This integrated 10GE networking is based on the "Project Neptune" 10 GE
chip that Sun has designed itself.
The Niagara-2 chip has 4 MB of L2 cache, an integrated memory
controller that can drive 16 FB-DIMM memory slots, and an interface to
one x8 PCI-Express slot. This chip can only be used in single-socket
boxes, code-named "Huron" (1U) and "Michigan" (2U), and has therefore
been positioned for infrastructure workloads, such as Web and file
serving. This is especially true since the "Victoria Falls" Sparc T2+
quad-socket servers were announced in mid-October. There is also a line of two-socket boxes, using the Sparc T2+ chips, that came to market in April of this year.
With the future Tenaya platform, which will be sold as the Sparc
Enterprise T3120, Sun will be externalizing the network interface using
a companion chipset from Broadcom rather than using the XAUI (X
Attachment Unit Interface) integrated on the original Sparc T2 systems.
The T3120 will support plain-old Gigabit Ethernet ports, and presumably
at least two of them and maybe, if Sun is consistent across its
servers, four.
It is hard to say how much less costly the T3120 will be, but the
current T5120 1U server using the Sparc T2 chip list for $8,995, and
that seems like a lot for a single socket server no matter how
efficient it may be. The older T2000 servers (using the Sparc T1 chips
with half as many threads and in twice as much space) are still in the
Sun catalog for $6,995. I have a hard time believing anyone would pay
$2,000 for one of these old machines - if that. And I also think that
Sun is trying to figure out ways to get the Niagara entry prices way
down to better compete, and stripping out that expensive networking for
customers who do not need 10GE is one way to do it.
There is no indication that Sun has tweaked the Sparc T2 chip itself
to remove the integrated networking features, but it is possible. Then
again, it is hard to believe Sun would have the money to run another
chip through the mill - even a tweaked one - and try to push it through
the Texas Instruments fab.
Read the original article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/24/sun_sparct2_kicker/
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