Re: Fujitsu Siemens Primepower

• From: "Daniel Rock" <abuse@xxxxxxxxxxx>
• Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2006 23:01:50 +0000 (UTC)

Thorsten Jens <thojens@xxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> we are currently looking into buying new hardware, and the decision has
> come down to either go for
> - SunFire v490, 2x1.35GHz US IV+
> or
> - Fujitsu Siemens Primepower 250, 2x1.87GHz
> 
> All other specs are almost the same. I've searched this group for
> experieneces with Primepower servers, but everything I got was a little
> old. Does anybody have recent experiences with these servers? Sun's
> equipment is twice as expensive as the Siemens servers, is there a
> catch?
>
> We are going to use them primarily for an Oracle database (9i), on
> Solaris 9.

You are comparing two different machine types here. The V490 is positioned
as midrange (upgrade to up to 4 dual core CPUs), while the PP250 is more of
an entry level server (comparable to the V240). You cannot upgrade the
PP250 any further.

That said:

It depends on your workload. If the expected load average is < 2-3 then
the PP250 will most likely be faster. For higher loads you should probably
go with the V490 (or PP450)

Regarding notices from other users:

- The SPARC64V do support VIS:
% isalist
sparcv9+vis2 sparcv9+vis sparcv9 sparcv8plus+vis sparcv8plus sparcv8 sparcv8-fsmuld sparcv7 sparc
% prtdiag
System Configuration:  Sun Microsystems  sun4us Fujitsu Siemens
PRIMEPOWER450 4x SPARC64 V
System clock frequency: 220 MHz
Memory size: 4096 Megabytes

========================= CPUs =========================

                    Run   Ecache   CPU    CPU
Brd  CPU   Module   MHz     MB    Impl.   Mask
---  ---  -------  -----  ------  ------  ----
 0     0     0      1100     1.0   5        0.8
 0     1     1      1100     1.0   5        0.8
 0     2     2      1100     1.0   5        0.8
 0     3     3      1100     1.0   5        0.8

[...]

- Service:
  In no way comparable to Sun. No OSC - and the overall support case isn't
  handled as professional as with Sun (origin: Luxembourg/Belgium; in Germany
  support handling was much better, but still not on par with Sun)

- You *can* use patches directly from SunSolve, although officially not
  recommended nor "supported" by FSC, the patches are the same - they just
  arrive at the Fujitsu Patch-Server later (and may sometimes just skip a
  revision).
  Specific patches for FSC add-on cards must be downloaded from Fujitsu
  though.

- Normally every new Solaris Release (and Update Release) should also work
  on FSC platform. The Solaris 9 09/05 (?) release was an exception - it wasn't
  a normal Update Release though (no new features, just added support for
  new Sun hardware)

- If possible stay away from FSC add-on cards. E.g. FSC has its own qfe-Adapter
  (called fjqe). They aren't part of the Solaris CDs/DVDs and have to be
  installed afterwards separately.
  If you want to boot from this cards (e.g. during Jumpstart installation)
  you have to patch the miniroot of the install server and adjust your
  install_end scripts.

- Managebility
  The PrimePower machines have a ALOM equivalent. It is called LAN-console
  and is roughly comparable to ALOM.
  To configure LAN-console you have to install additional packages (from the
  so called ESF (Enhanced Support Falicities)) though.


Our machines have been extremely stable over the last few years. Not a single
hardware defect yet. (Single thread) performance is ~30% faster at same
clock speed than UltraSPARC-III. In contrast to US-III a program compiled
as 64 bit runs at roughly the same speed than the same program compiled as
64 bit. On US-III I have seen performance drops when moving from 32 bit to
64 bit from 5-30%[1].

[1] programs which don't need large address space but could benefit from
    native 64bit "long"s (resp. "long long"s)

-- 
Daniel
.

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Fujitsu Siemens Primepower
    • From: Thorsten Jens
  • Re: Fujitsu Siemens Primepower
    • From: Seongbae Park

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