SPARC Enterprise


The SPARC Enterprise series is a range of UNIX server computers based on the SPARC V9 architecture. It was co-developed by Sun Microsystems and Fujitsu, and introduced in 2007. They were marketed and sold by Sun Microsystems, Fujitsu, and Fujitsu Siemens Computers under the common brand of "SPARC Enterprise", superseding Sun's Sun Fire and Fujitsu's PRIMEPOWER server product lines.
Since 2010, servers based on new SPARC CMT processors have been branded as Oracle's SPARC T-Series servers.

Model range

ModelHeight, RUMax. processorsProcessor frequencyMax. memoryMax. disk capacityGA date
M300021× SPARC64 VII or VII+2.52, 2.75 GHz or 2.86 GHz 64 GB4× 2.5-inch SASOctober 2008, February 2010, April 2011
M400064× SPARC64 VI or VII or VII+2.15 GHz, 2.53 GHz, or 2.66 GHz 256 GB2× 2.5-inch SASApril 2007, July 2008, December 2010
M5000108× SPARC64 VI, VII or VII+2.15 GHz, 2.53 GHz, or 2.66 GHz 512 GB4× 2.5-inch SASApril 2007, July 2008, December 2010
M8000N/A16× SPARC64 VI, VII, or VII+2.28, 2.4 GHz, 2.52, 2.88 GHz, or 3.0 GHz 1024 GB16× 2.5-inch SASApril 2007, July 2008, December 2010
M9000N/A32 or 64× SPARC64 VI, VII, or VII+2.28, 2.4 GHz, 2.52, 2.88 GHz, or 3.0 GHz 4096 GB64× 2.5-inch SASApril 2007, July 2008, December 2010
T100011× UltraSPARC T11.0 GHz32 GB1× 3.5-inch SATA or 2× 2.5-inch SASMarch 2006
T200021× UltraSPARC T11.0, 1.2, 1.4 GHz64 GBUp to 4× 2.5-inch SASDecember 2005
T512011× UltraSPARC T21.2, 1.4 GHz128 GBUp to 8× 2.5-inch SASNovember 2007
T514012× UltraSPARC T2+1.2, 1.4 GHz128 GBUp to 8× 2.5-inch SASApril 2008
T522021× UltraSPARC T21.2, 1.4 GHz128 GBUp to 16× 2.5-inch SASNovember 2007
T524022× UltraSPARC T2+1.2, 1.4, 1.6 GHz256 GBUp to 16× 2.5-inch SASApril 2008
T544044× UltraSPARC T2+1.2, 1.4, 1.6 GHz512 GBUp to 4× 2.5-inch SASOct 2008

SPARC64 processor based models (M-series)

The midrange and high-end SPARC64 VI, SPARC64 VII, SPARC64 VII+ processor based servers are designated "M-series". The "M" indicates RAS features similar to mainframe class machines.
The SPARC64 VI is a dual-core processor, with each core featuring two-way vertical multi-threading. A M9000 server configured with the maximum number of processors supports running 256 concurrent threads. VMT is a coarse-grained multi-threading implementation. Each core in the SPARC64 VI can handle two strands or threads. VMT switches execution from one strand to the other on the basis of events. To execute instructions from another thread, the pipeline must be saved/flushed and switched to the registers for the other thread. These events include L2 cache misses, a hardware timer exception, interrupts, or some multi-threading-related control instructions. This is also called Switch On Event threading.
In 2008, Fujitsu released the SPARC64 VII, a quad-core processor, with each core featuring two-way simultaneous multi-threading. Existing M-class servers will be able to upgrade to the SPARC64 VII processors in the field.
In 2010, Fujitsu released the SPARC64 VII+, running at higher frequency and with a larger L2 cache than its predecessor. A SPARC64 VII or SPARC64 VII+ processor module includes four physical cores, where each core can execute two threads. Each physical core is able to run both threads simultaneously. With SMT, there is no context-switch time and the two threads share the instruction pipeline smoothly. When both are ready to run, they alternate cycles for superscalar instruction issue, and share the functional units according to need.
An important capability of the M-Series is the ability to mix processor generations and clock speeds in the same system and domain. All M-Series servers can have both SPARC64 VI and SPARC64 VII CPUs installed and they will run at their native speeds, with no clocking down to the slowest CPU.

Benchmark record

On April 17, 2007, a Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 achieved 1.032 TFLOPS on the LINPACK benchmark, making it the fastest
single system supercomputer at that time.
On May 2, 2008, Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 server achieved a world performance record on the TPC-H data warehousing benchmark at the 1 terabyte scale factor using the Oracle Database.
As of February 19, 2009, the SPARC Enterprise M8000 holds the 64-thread world performance records on the SPEC OMP2001 benchmark, both for medium
and for large

UltraSPARC T processor based models (T-series)

The UltraSPARC T1-based Sun Fire T1000 and T2000 are rebranded to SPARC Enterprise:
In October 2007, Sun added the UltraSPARC T2-based servers to the SPARC Enterprise line:
In April 2008, Sun added the UltraSPARC T2 Plus-based servers to the SPARC Enterprise line:
In October 2008, Sun released the 4-way SMP UltraSPARC T2 Plus-based server:
SPARC Enterprise models are licensed to run Solaris 10 and Solaris 11.

Partitioning and virtualization

The M-series supports Dynamic Domains and Dynamic Reconfiguration, which enable a single machine to be divided into multiple electrically isolated partitions.
The UltraSPARC T1, UltraSPARC T2/T2+ models partition the system using Logical Domains.
Both M-series and T-series models support Solaris Containers, which supports a maximum of 8191 non-global zones in each Dynamic Domain or Logical Domain.