Fujitsu SPARC M10 and M12 Physical Partitions

[SPARC Logo, courtesy SPARC International]

Fujitsu SPARC M10 and M12 Physical Partitions

Abstract

A conversation occurred recently, with a marketing expert regarding, whether an OS instance could span multiple chassis. At the time, this author indicated that it was not possible, but capabilities of the Fujitsu SPARC products were not well advertised. Fujitsu published a presentation describing the capabilities.

[Solaris Logo, courtesy Oracle and Sun Microsystems]

Oracle Solaris

There is an off-the-shelf OS, which has the ability to span multiple chassis, but you have to have the right chassis. Fujitsu has long engineered high-end servers with mainframe reliability. Fujitsu had also supplied SPARC hardware for Solaris, from the days f the first SPARC processors! When engineered correctly, Solaris can span chassis.

 

 An example slide which shows a Physical Partition on individual chassis or spanning 2 chassis.

[Fujitsu Logo, Courtesy Fujitsu]

Building Blocks

One may ask, how this physically works?
Fujitsu offers a system with an expandable chassis, where there is an external crossbar, attaching multiple chassis together, similar to the way cards in a traditional Oracle chassis uses a crossbar inside the same chassis.

 

An example slide of physical Building Blocks illustrated above.

Conclusions

SPARC Solaris continues to have unusual features, which are not common in other equipment vendor equipment. Had this author been aware of this capability, cloud building may have been done a different way... providing a seamless way to expand clouds by merely adding one chassis at a time and never having to worry if an OS instance needs to grow large.