New York SPARC Launch

Some interesting points

• there will be SPARC supercluster based on T5
• there will be speed increase for M5 soon
• there will be more HW assist feature for java/db in the future SPARC chip
• 
• 
• 
• T4 & T5 servers co-existence
• 
• T5-8 vs T4-4
• chip:
• 2x cores
• 2.5x memory bandwidth
• 2x cache
• system
• 5x memory bandwidth
• 4x i/o bandwidth
• 2x memory capacity
• 5x application performance

Oracle Introduces the Oracle Database Appliance X3-2

Oracle introduces DBA version 2

key features

• two 8-core E5-2690 processor
• 10ge interconnect
• COD licensing (4,8,12, 16 core)
• oracle VM capable(2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16 core license)
• 512 GB of memory(2.5X)
• 18TB SAS storage(4X) (with optional storage expansion)
• 800GB flash(3X)(4x200GB SSD in expansion storage)
• external NFS storage for online backup or additional DB files
• ASR support
• Appliance Manager

Observations:

• This run RAC with  two 10Ge without go through switches
• OEL 5.8 pre-installed
• support
• Oracle DB EE 11.2.0.3
• RAC
• RAC one node
• need down time for patching(patch bundle)(?)
• support ACFS so one can run some other apps in DBA, as example running SAP netweaver  and weblogic server
• using OVM for isolation between database and application wordloads, support linux, widnow and solaris
• documentation
• seems that DBA1 still availabe

T4-2 vs T5-2

server	T4-2	T5-2
H	3U	3U
HBA	PCIe2 (10)	PCIe3(8)
HDD	6	6
1 ge/10 ge	4 ge	4 1/10 ge
DIMM	32(max 1TB)	32(max 512GB)
LDOM	128	256
PCIe root complex	2	2
max root Domain with hdd + NIC	1	2
F40 support	yes	no
CPU Ghz	3.6	2.8

Observations: One  should pick T5-2

• 2X+ throughput and 1.28X single thread
• two root domains with HDD + NIC
• Pcie3 vs Pcie2 (very few pcie3 HBA exist)

T4-2 server vs T4-4 (2 socket) server

server	T4-2	T4-4 (2 socket)
H	3U	5U
HBA	PCIe2 (10)	PCIE2-EM(16)
HDD	6	8
1 ge	4	4
DIMM	32(Max 1TB)	32(Max 1TB)
LDOM	128	128
PCIe root complex	2	2
max root Domain with hdd + NIC	1	2
F40 support	yes	no
CPU Ghz	2.8	3

 

 

 

Observations: If Rack space is not limitation then one should always pick T4-4 due to the

• 3Ghz vs 2.8 Ghz CPU
• Hot swap capability of EM and
• two root domains with HDD + NIC
• 16 pcie2 EM slots vs 10 PCIe2 slots

Oracle Virtual Network add Support for SPARC server

this link announce the oracle virtual network support for SPARC server T5, T4 and M5 and Solaris 11 for SPARC and x86.

Oracle Virtual Networking can help customers achieve results like these:

• Improve application performance by 4 times
• Reduce infrastructure complexity by 70 percent
• Cut LAN and SAN capital expenditures by 50 percent
• Accelerate virtual machine migrations by 19 times
• Provision new services and reconfigure resources in minutes, not days

 

I/O Modules

Hot swappable I/O modules provide storage and network connectivity.

• Oracle Fabric Interconnect Quad Port 10 Gb Ethernet Module
• Oracle Fabric Interconnect Ten Port 1 Gb Ethernet Module
• Oracle Fabric Interconnect  Single Port 10 Gb Ethernet Module
• Oracle Fabric Interconnect Dual Port 8 Gb Fibre Channel Module

Host Adapters

• Oracle Fabric Interconnect connects to InfiniBand host adapters.

Fabric Extenders

• For enterprise scalability Oracle’s line of InfiniBand switches provide additional server ports, enabling scalability to hundreds of servers within a single management environment.

Observations:

• Xsigo has good support for linux, window (hyper-V) and ESX environment
• solaris  features need lots to catch up e.g. pxe boot, iscsi, fc boot etc
• The unified Fabric idea and SDN  is a good one,
• not sure the user would would adopt the oracle solution,
• not sure Oracle sale rep and tech rep know how to sale this type of product
• oracle will need to offer “integrated engineered system” that include this new product
• Xsigo Fabric Manager  and Performance Manager GUI will need to quickly integrated into OEM so user need to deal with one GUI

T4-4, T5-4 root domain and boot devices

T5-5

 

T4-4

 

T5-5 has  8 pcie Root complex, can support 8 root domains, only two RD has HDD and Net

T4-4  has 4 pcie root complex can support 4 root domains, only two RD has HDD and Net

one can very easily add 1 gbe or 10 gbe to each RD, so each RD has its own physical NICs

one can also add Dual port FC HBA to each RD, so one can use FC SAN for boot drives and data drives

This way Control domain only need VCC to support console for other RD and RD will use Physical I/O (NIC, HDD) and not Virtual Switch and Disk are needed. So one can run apps in the Control Domain.

Solaris 11.1 also support boot hdd with iSCSI so one can have more option for boot drives

For some reasons,  as of today (4/19/2013) oracle does not really provide easy solution for Ldoms’ physical boot drives

• Solaris 11.1 HCL list
• Sun ZFS storage 7120,7320, 7420
• SS 2540-M2
• SS 2530-M2
• SS 6580/6780
• SS 6180
• 3rd Party FC storage

T5 vs T4 server

T5 vs T4 CPU

• T5 CPU @3.6Ghz and 16 core, T4 CPU @3Ghz and 8 core
• Oracle claim single thread improvement T5/T4~ 3.6/3= 1.2X
• oracle claim throughput T5/T4~16c x 8 thread/8c x 8 thread= 2X
• From the oracle site (price to buy) seems to indicate that T5-4 vs T4-4 about 1.5% in list price
• T4-4 has 4 pci root complex  each own 4 pcie slots so 4 root domain
• T5-4 has 8 pci root complex each own 2 pcie slots so one can have 8 root domain, but if one want at least two NIC and two FC per RD the one will only setup 4 RD
• T5 server has 4 1ge/10ge NIC and T5 server has 4 1ge NIC
• T5 server does not have NIU 10 ge XUI  anymore