More Niagara and ROCK info

The Register delivers again with more information about the Niagara II, Niagara II+, and ROCK servers. I've been keeping a close eye on the PSARC discussions and flag day updates for OpenSolaris (Nevada). It would appear that Sun is getting ready to release the Niagara II servers. Based on the article and looking at the source code, the following seems likely:

Niagara II (UltraSparc-T2):

• 1 x CPU socket
  
• 8 x cores, 8 x threads per core for a total of 64 threads at 1.5Ghz
  
• FPU per core
• Dual 10Gb Ethernet
• Enhanced Cryptographics
• PCI-E Controller
  
• Huron 1U and 2U servers (T5120 and T5220 respectively)
• Delivery Soon!
  

Niagara II+ (Victoria Falls):

• SMP Support (2 x CPU sockets)
  
• 8 x cores, 8 x threads per core for a total of 64 threads per socket or 128 threads with 2 sockets populated.
• FPU per core
• Dual 10Gb Ethernet
• Enhanced Cryptograhics
• PCI-E Controller
• Maramba 1U and 2U servers (T5140 and T5240 respectively)
• Botaka 4U?
• Delivery 2008
  

ROCK:

• 16 x cores with 32 or 64 threads each.
• 2, 4, and 8 socket servers.
• Geared towards enterprise workloads.
• 2008?
  

In OpenSolaris, you can already see the T5120 and T5220 information starting to show up:

$ ls /usr/platform/SUNW,Sun-Fire-T200/lib/fm/topo/maps/
SPARC-Enterprise-T1000-hc-topology.xml Sun-Blade-T6300-hc-topology.xml
SPARC-Enterprise-T5120-hc-topology.xml Sun-Fire-T1000-hc-topology.xml
SPARC-Enterprise-T5220-hc-topology.xml Sun-Fire-T200-hc-topology.xml

It would appear that the new servers will follow under the SPARC Enterprise product line. With the number of threads that Solaris is being expanded to support and the use of CMT designs, systems will become more powerful and of course smaller. It'll be interesting to see how these servers do with power consumption, expandability (memory, storage, I/O, etc.). It remains to be seen, but hopefully the ROCK servers will support LDOM's and be under the sun4v platform name like the Niagara servers.

One of the interesting points hinted at in the article is the possibility of Sun using proximity communications for servers. This could increase performance between circuits and simplify packaging for components. Definitely a huge advantage for Sun. It's always interesting looking at what's going on at Sun Labs. Many people complain about how Sun spends so much money on R&D, but clearly it can give a company the advantage by differentiating it from the competition.