Fujitsu PRIMEPOWER 900 User manual

Gartner
© 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved.Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be
reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations
thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the selection of these materials to achieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice.
DPRO-97941
Ian Brown Product Report 17 April 2003
Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens Computers PRIMEPOWER Enterprise Servers
Summary
Fujitsu has produced a range of servers that offers class-leading levels of scalability and availability. But
will the PRIMEPOWER XA SPARC/Solaris servers escape from Sun’s shadow?
Note
The PRIMEPOWER servers are designed and manufactured by Fujitsu Limited in Japan. Fujitsu and its
international subsidiaries market them in the Asia/Pacific region and the Americas. In Europe, Middle East
and Africa (EMEA), Fujitsu Siemens Computers markets the PRIMEPOWER servers, a joint 50/50
venture established by the merger of Fujitsu’s and Siemens’ European computer operations.
Table of Contents
Overview
Analysis
Pricing
Competitors
Strengths
Limitations
Insight
List Of Tables
Table 1: Overview: PRIMEPOWER XA Enterprise Servers
Table 2: High-Availability Features: PRIMEPOWER XA Enterprise Servers (900,1500 and 2500)
Table 3: PRIMEPOWER Clustering Software
Table4:FujitsuSPARC64vs.SunUltraSPARCIIICu
Table 5: Fujitsu PRIMEPOWER XA Enterprise Models
Table 6: Competitive Comparison: PRIMEPOWER 2500/1500
Table 7: Competitive Comparison: PRIMEPOWER 900
List Of Figures
Figure 1: PRIMEPOWER XPARs and PPARs

Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens Computers PRIMEPOWER Enterprise Servers
© 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. DPRO-97941
17 April 2003 2
Corporate Headquarters
Fujitsu Limited
Tokyo, Japan
Internet: www.fujitsu.com
Fujitsu Siemens Computers
Rathausplatz 3 - 7
D-61348 Bad Homburg, Germany
Internet: www.fujitsu-siemens.com
Fujitsu Technology Solutions
1250 East Arques Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94088-3470, U.S.A.
Internet: www.ftsi.fujitsu.com
Overview
Fujitsu Technology Solutions, Inc. (FTSI), and Fujitsu Siemens Computers (FSC) announced their
PRIMEPOWER Extended Architecture (XA) models in October 2002. Volume shipments of the new
servers didn’t start until March 2003, however.
The PRIMEPOWER servers use SPARC-compatible processors designed and manufactured by Fujitsu
Ltd. of Japan and run the Sun Solaris operating system. They are claimed to be fully binary compatible
with Sun’s UltraSPARC/Solaris servers. To date Gartner is not aware of any known areas of
incompatibility. As a SPARC/Solaris platform, the PRIMEPOWER servers can therefore run any of the
thousands of applications written for this popular version of Unix.
The PRIMEPOWER XA models feature an enhanced crossbar, new fifth-generation versions of Fujitsu’s
SPARC64 processors; improved reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS) features; denser
packaging than their predecessors’ improved input/output (I/O) technology and enhanced partitioning.
Three XA models have been announced initially:
•PRIMEPOWER 900—a relatively compact rack-mount server capable of supporting up to sixteen
1.35GHz SPARC64 V processors and 64GB of memory; replaces the PRIMEPOWER 800.
•PRIMEPOWER 1500—a large cabinet-based server capable of supporting up to thirty-two 1.35GHz
SPARC64 V processors; replaces the PRIMEPOWER 1000.
•PRIMEPOWER 2500—mainframe-style packaging; the 2500 is capable of supporting up to 64
processors in its standard form or up to 128 processors in an extended cabinet; replaces the
PRIMEPOWER 2000.
PRIMEPOWER 900
The PRIMEPOWER 900 is housed in a 17U-high rack-mount chassis. (A “U” is the abbreviation for rack
unit and is equal to 1.75 inches.) It supports up to two system boards; each incorporates CPUs, memory

Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens Computers PRIMEPOWER Enterprise Servers
© 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. DPRO-97941
17 April 2003 3
and PCI I/O slots. The system boards support up to eight 1.35GHz SPARC64 V processors and 32GB of
memory. Eight Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) slots (3 × 33/66MHz slots and 5 × 66MHz slots)
are located in a separate PCI assembly inside the system chassis. Each system board also supports two
10/100Base-TX Ethernet ports, two serial ports, an UltraSCSI controller, and power, console and power
management ports. The base system configuration consists of a server with a single system board, CPU,
1GB of memory and eight PCI slots. The base server also has bays for up to eight internal disks.
In addition to expanding the system by adding a second system board to take it up to 16 processors and
64GB of memory, up to two PCI/disk boxes can also be added. Each PCI/disk box has 10 PCI slots (3 ×
33/66MHz slots and 7 × 66MHz slots), eight disk bays and two serial ports. The PCI/disk boxes are 4U
high and are connected via a 1 GB/second bidirectional interconnect.
Like the PRIMEPOWER 1500 and 2500, the Model 900 has the enhanced XA crossbar. It’s not clocked
as fast on the PRIMEPOWER 900 and 1500 as on the 2500—on the 900 and 1500, the system clock runs
at 270MHz, resulting in a sustained throughput of 34.6 GB/second across the crossbar. The
PRIMEPOWER 900 has a single-level crossbar, a single backplane and a single system clock, but
features redundant power supplies, fans and disks (disk mirroring software is required for redundancy). In
addition to hot-swap disks, power supplies and fans, hot-swap PCI adapters are supported. Using the
dynamic reconfiguration capabilities of Sun Solaris, system boards can also be hot-swapped—provided
the configuration consists of two system boards. Multipath I/O is supported for systems with add-on
PCI/disk boxes to enable failover between redundant I/O adapters.
The PRIMEPOWER 900 supports two physical partitions (PPARs) and up to eight extended partitions, or
XPARs (see section on XPARs below).
PRIMEPOWER 1500
The PRIMEPOWER 1500 is housed in a large 1.8 meter-high (70.9 inches) stand-alone cabinet. It
supports up to four system boards for a maximum configuration of 32 processors and 128GB of memory.
It uses the same system boards as the 900, with up to eight 1.35GHz processors, 32GB of memory and
an eight-slot PCI assembly. System boards are interchangeable between the PRIMEPOWER 900 and
1500, but not with the PRIMEPOWER 2500. The PRIMEPOWER 1500 supports up to four PCI/disk
boxes, in addition to 16 disk bays in the base cabinet. With four PCI/disk boxes and four system boards,
the system supports up to 72 PCI slots and 48 disk bays for direct-attached disks.
The PRIMEPOWER 1500 has a two-level 270MHz crossbar. The level-1 crossbar resides on the system
boards; the level-2 crossbar interconnects the two backplanes and their system boards. The sustained
throughput of the 1500’s crossbar is 34.6 GB/second. The PRIMEPOWER 1500 doesn’t have the dual
redundant crossbar of the 2500, nor does it have the redundant clock distributors. However, it does have
redundant system control boards, a redundant internal system control LAN and remote control interfaces
to manage the power supplies of multiple I/O racks or clustered systems. The usual array of redundant
power supplies, cooling and hot-swap features are included. The Dynamic Reconfiguration feature in
Solaris allows system boards and PCI/disk box boards to be hot-swapped. It is not possible to hot-replace
the “internal” PCI I/O assemblies, but the PCI slots support hot-pluggable adapters.
PRIMEPOWER 2500
The PRIMEPOWER 2500 is at the pinnacle of the XA product line. It is available in two versions: one
supports up to eight system boards and 64 processors; the other features an extended cabinet and
supports up to 16 system boards and 128 processors. Even with its extended cabinet, the 2500
represents a 25 percent improvement in footprint size over its predecessor, the PRIMEPOWER 2000,

Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens Computers PRIMEPOWER Enterprise Servers
© 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. DPRO-97941
17 April 2003 4
which also supported up to 128 processors, but required additional cabinets for configurations of more
than 64 CPUs and for I/O extension.
The PRIMEPOWER 2500’s system boards do not include any internal PCI slots, but they each connect
up to two PCI/disk boxes. This means a 64-way version can support up to 16 PCI/disk boxes, and a 128-
way server can support up to 32 PCI/disk boxes. The 64-way supports up to 256GB of memory, and the
128-way supports up to 512GB. The 2500 has two redundant Level-2 crossbars connecting the two
backplanes to which the system boards are attached. If one crossbar fails, the system will isolate the
faulty components and automatically restart with a reduced configuration (and half the bandwidth). Each
backplane is clocked at 520MHz and has a sustained throughput of 66.5 GB/second giving 133
GB/second throughput across the Level-2 crossbars in total. The 2500 also has dual redundant system
clocks.
RAS Features
The 2500 has the highest levels of availability features in the PRIMEPOWER product line, but there are
extensive levels of error checking and automatic error correction built into the SPARC64 V processor. As
well as error checking and correcting (ECC) memory, all three XA models also have ECC checking on the
data path and on the PCI bridges.
The SPARC64 V has some unique error-correcting features for a reduced instruction set computer (RISC)
processor. There is parity checking at the register and execution unit level. If an intermittent parity error
occurs, there is automatic instruction retry by the hardware. If the retries are unsuccessful and parity
errors continue to appear, the system will automatically “degrade” the processor configuration, removing
the faulty processor from the active configuration. The Level-2 (L2) cache has ECC protection (double-bit
error detection and single-bit error correction) for both data and tags. The Level-1 (L1) caches have ECC
protection for data, while L1 tags are duplicated and immediately corrected if a parity error is detected. All
this is handled automatically by the hardware without the intervention of the operating system (OS).
Hardware error logs are collected during operation, however, and reported to the System Control Facility
(SCF). There are over 90,000 monitors on a 32-way PRIMEPOWER model 2500 when the system is
running. Any error events are reported automatically via the Call-home feature.
The Solaris operating system supports dynamic reconfiguration, so that a system board can be logically
detached from a partition and powered down—partitions can only be powered down at the system board
or PPAR level, however, not at the XPAR level (see below). Likewise, PCI boards that are part of the
system board on the 900 and 1500 can only be logically detached and physically replaced as part of the
whole system board. Individual PCI adapters can be hot-plugged, however, and Solaris supports I/O
multipathing to allow redundant I/O connections.
XPAR
The PRIMEPOWER XA models feature two types of hard partitions. PPARs are the more usual form of
hard partitioning created at the system board boundaries. They are similar to Sun’s Dynamic System
Domains and HP’s nPars (hard partitions). The PRIMEPOWERs’ PPARs consist of complete eight-way
system boards. XPARs are also hard partitions, but they allow more granularity than PPARs. Switching on
the system board allows it to be divided up into two or four XPAR hard partitions. The most granular
XPAR on the 900 and 1500 can thus consist of two CPUs and 1GB of memory. This means that hard
partitions on the PRIMEPOWER XA models can not only span complete system boards, but can also
include part system boards (see figure). Clients should note that on the PRIMEPOWER 2500, granularity
is limited to four CPUs.
Figure 1: PRIMEPOWER XPARs and PPARs

Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens Computers PRIMEPOWER Enterprise Servers
© 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. DPRO-97941
17 April 2003 5
Source: Fujitsu Siemens Computers
XPARs are new for the PRIMEPOWER XA models. PPARs had previously been supported on the
PRIMEPOWER 800, 1500 and 2000.
The XPAR feature is managed from the PRIMEPOWER’s System Management Console and is
independent of the Solaris operating system. However, Solaris features, such as Dynamic
Reconfiguration, support the XPAR partitions, so that XPAR configurations can be changed dynamically.
Future Enhancements
Future enhancements include faster SPARC64 V processors, with 1.62GHz versions on the roadmap,
followed by Fujitsu’s sixth-generation SPARC64 chip, code-named Olympus, which is planned for the
second half of 2004. This will be a dual-core processor, but will be pin-compatible with SPARC64 V and
the XA servers. Clock-speed is likely to be in the 2.5GHz+ range, and the chip will feature separate on-
chip L2 caches for each of the two cores.
Other enhancements will include increased memory capacity and support for PCI-X.
Table 1: Overview: PRIMEPOWER XA Enterprise Servers
Model PRIMEPOWER
900 PRIMEPOWER 1500 PRIMEPOWER 2500
Product Type Midrange Unix
Server Enterprise-class Unix server Enterprise-class Unix server
Form Factor Rack-mount
(17U) Floorstanding cabinet Floorstanding cabinet (64- or 128-CPU versions)

Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens Computers PRIMEPOWER Enterprise Servers
© 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. DPRO-97941
17 April 2003 6
Table 1: Overview: PRIMEPOWER XA Enterprise Servers
Model PRIMEPOWER
900 PRIMEPOWER 1500 PRIMEPOWER 2500
Date
Announced/Ge
neral
Availability
October
2002/March
2003
October 2002/March 2003 October 2002/March 2003
System
Architecture Crossbar Crossbar Dual-redundant crossbar
Microprocesso
rSPARC64 V SPARC64 V SPARC64 V
Options:
Speed/L2
Cache
1.35GHz/2MB 1.35GHz/2MB 1.3GHz/2MB
No.ofSystem
Boards
Supported/Pro
cessors per
System Board
2/8 4/8 16/8
No.ofCPUs
Supported 2-16 4-32 8-128
Min./Max.
System
Memory
(bytes)
1G/64G 2G/128G 2G/512G
Available I/O
Slots 8-36 × 64-bit PCI (8 per
system board;
10 per add-on
PCI/disk box.
Server
supports up to
two system
boards and
two PCI/disk
boxes.)
8-72 × 64-bit PCI (8 per system
board; 10 per add-on PCI/disk
box. Server supports up to four
system boards and four PCI/disk
boxes.)
0-320 × 64-bit PCI (none on
system board; 10 per PCI/disk
box. Each system board supports
two PCI/disk boxes.)
Integrated/Bun
dled
Controllers
2 × 10/100
Ethernet per
system board;
UltraSCSI SE
controller on
system board
2 × 10/100 Ethernet per system
board; UltraSCSI SE controller on
system board
One 10/100 Ethernet per system
board; two LAN ports and
integrated UltraSCSI controller
per PCI/disk box
Removable
Media
Bays/Disk
Bays
None/8 disk
bays in base
cabinet, up to
16 in add-on
PCI/disk boxes
None/16 disk bays in base
cabinet, up to 32 in add-on
PCI/disk boxes
Up to 32 PCI/disk boxes; four
disks per box

Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens Computers PRIMEPOWER Enterprise Servers
© 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. DPRO-97941
17 April 2003 7
Table 1: Overview: PRIMEPOWER XA Enterprise Servers
Model PRIMEPOWER
900 PRIMEPOWER 1500 PRIMEPOWER 2500
Hard Disk
Options 18.2GB, 36.4GB,
73.0GB
18.2GB, 36.4GB, 73.0GB 18.2GB, 36.4GB, 73.0GB
Max. Internal
Disk Capacity 584GB in base cabinet; up to
1.14TB in two
PCI/disk boxes
1.14TB in base cabinet; up to
2.28TB in four PCI/disk boxes 9.34TB in up to four I/O racks
Operating
Systems
Supported
Sun Solaris 8
and 9 Sun Solaris 8 and 9 Sun Solaris 8 and 9
Max. No. of
System
Partitions
815 15
Capacity-on-
Demand
(COD) Option
Yes:
Enhanced
Server
Capacity on
Demand
(ESCoD) (1)
Yes: ESCoD (1) Yes: ESCoD (1)
Transaction
Processing
Performance
Council
Benchmark C
(TPC-C) v.5
(transactions
per minute of
TPC-C
[tpmC]/$ per
tpmC)
Information not
available Information not available Information not available
Entry Price
(US$) 177,000 (2) 393,000 (2) 1,360,000 (2)
Standard
Warranty One-year, 5 × 12 on-site,
call-out within
four hours (3)
One-year, 5 × 12 on-site, call-out
within four hours (3) One-year, 5 × 12 on-site, call-out within four hours (3)
(1) FSC offers ESCoD options. The Static model is like a traditional COD option: activating COD processors
is equivalent to purchasing them. The Utility model enables customers to “lease” processors on a temporary
basis. ESCoD’s dynamic functionality allows customers to add and release components as required.
(2)U.S.ListPrice.
(3) Depends on geographical location and proximity of Fujitsu-authorized service center. Two additional
Enhanced and Premium (full 24×365) service upgrades are available.

Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens Computers PRIMEPOWER Enterprise Servers
© 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. DPRO-97941
17 April 2003 8
Table 2: High-Availability Features: PRIMEPOWER XA Enterprise Servers (900,1500
and 2500)
Hot-Plug System
Boards Yes
Hot-Sparing of COD
CPUs Supported in ESCoD
Failure Prediction Dynamic Degradation: when threshold of intermittent errors is reached, Solaris can
take processor offline
Memory Protection
and Recovery ECC on memory and all data paths; distributed memory modules and chip-kill functionality; soft memory scrubbing
Hot-Pluggable Disks Yes
Hot-Plug PCI I/O Yes (hot-plug PCI cards are supported; PCI boards can also be hot-plugged as on
the 900 and 1500 [they’re part of the system board])
Redundant N+1
Power Yes
Hot-Pluggable Power
Supplies Yes
Dual-Power Sources Yes
Redundant N+1
Cooling Yes
Hot-Pluggable
Cooling Yes
Redundant Array of
Independent Disks
(RAID) Controller
Optional
Mirrored System
Disks Supported in Solaris
I/O Multipathing Yes (Internet Protocol [IP] and I/O failover supported in Solaris)
Deconfiguration of
Failed Components
at Reboot
All Models: Yes (CPUs, memory); if component fails, system deactivates it at the
electrical level and deconfigures it during reboot
2500: Redundant clocks and crossbars mean that system can restart configured
with the remaining crossbar or clock
Auto Reboot and OS
Re-Start Yes
System-Independent
Service Processor Yes; service processor provides surveillance of system operation
Redundant Service
Processor Standard on 1500 and 2500
Special Features:
SPARC64 V L1 cache tags: duplicated for automatic correction
ECC protection on L1 data, L2 cache tags and data
Parity protection on arithmetic processing units and registers
Automatic hardware-based instruction retry
Automatic error degradation
Hardware error logging during operation

Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens Computers PRIMEPOWER Enterprise Servers
© 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. DPRO-97941
17 April 2003 9
Table 2: High-Availability Features: PRIMEPOWER XA Enterprise Servers (900,1500
and 2500)
(1) System boards (containing CPUs, memory and I/O buses) can be hot-swapped using the Dynamic
Reconfiguration (DR) utility to remove idle boards from or add new boards to a partition. DR for system
boards requires Solaris 8.
Table 3: PRIMEPOWER Clustering Software
Name/Release PRIMECLUSTER/4.0 (1)
No.ofNodes
Supported Up to 64
Type(s) of Clustering Failover, load balancing or parallel database (Oracle9i RAC)
Interconnects
Supported Gigabit Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Fibre Channel-Arbitrated Loop, Small Computer Systems Interface (SCSI)
Failover Between
Partitions Yes (requires external connections)
Failover Between
Heterogeneous
Configurations
Yes
Cluster-Wide File
System No
Consolidated
Management Station Yes
Disaster Recovery
Support Optional: With third-party fiber-optic components and repeaters, clusters can be implemented up to distances of 150 km on a project-specific basis.
(1) The PRIMEPOWER servers are also supported in the Veritas Cluster software, which allows mixed
PRIMEPOWER and Sun clusters.
Analysis
The PRIMEPOWER servers are binary compatible with the SPARC International “standard” for SPARC
processors and run Sun’s Solaris operating system. This means they will run any of the applications
written for Sun’s UltraSPARC/Solaris servers. Fujitsu claims they offer greater scalability and higher levels
of RAS than not only Sun’s servers, but also other Unix servers. The PRIMEPOWER servers are not as
well known as their Unix counterparts, however, so clients understandably seek additional assurances
about the vendor and the product.
About the Vendor
Although Fujitsu itself and FSC in EMEA are relatively large organizations in revenue terms, the
PRIMEPOWER brand is still relatively new, especially in North America. Indeed, FTSI was not
established until early 2001, even though it was formed in part from the Amdahl organization, which
Fujitsu owned. Fujitsu has in fact been a global player for a number of years and not only owned Amdahl,
but also owned ICL (another mainframe vendor) in Europe, as well as producing a range of computers
from PCs through to mainframes for its home market in Japan. Fujitsu’s revenue for the fiscal year
2001/2002 (year-end 31 March 2002) was $42.6 billion; Fujitsu Siemens revenue was $5.95 billion.
The Fujitsu name and PRIMEPOWER brand are better known in Europe as part of Fujitsu’s joint venture
with Siemens. Both Fujitsu and Siemens had established PC, server and mainframe businesses in EMEA,
which they brought together in 1998 to form FSC. Subsequently, FSC has taken on the responsibility for

Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens Computers PRIMEPOWER Enterprise Servers
© 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. DPRO-97941
17 April 2003 10
designing all of Fujitsu’s Intel-based servers worldwide. These are the PRIMERGY servers. FSC also
settled on Fujitsu’s SPARC/Solaris servers as the strategic follow-on to its Siemens RM servers, which
used MIPS RISC processors and ran the Reliant Unix operating system. The PRIMEPOWER servers are
designed and manufactured in Japan, but FSC has had considerable input to the software, thanks to its
previous Unix expertise. It developed the PRIMECLUSTER and low-level server management software
for PRIMEPOWER, for example.
FSC has been selling PRIMEPOWER servers (or the GP7000F as they were previously known) in EMEA
since 1999. Siemens was already an established player in the Unix market, so the PRIMEPOWERs
inherited the European vendor’s existing sales and support channels. The PRIMEPOWER servers have
sold reasonably well, selling into existing Reliant Unix customers as well as new customers. The latter
mainly consists of existing Sun customers, who are looking for a second source. Even so, FSC trails the
top three Unix vendors by quite a margin. In 2002, FSC’s share of EMEA RISC/Unix server market
revenue was 5.2 percent, compared with Sun at 35.1 percent, HP at 34.8 percent and IBM at 19.8
percent.
The bottom line is that the PRIMEPOWER business is small compared with the top three Unix players,
but it is growing from an almost startup position in North America. That, however, affects its overall
standing in worldwide terms. The combined Fujitsu/FSC had a 4.1 percent share of worldwide RISC/Unix
server market revenue in 2002. It’s fair to say too that PRIMEPOWER is still restricted to the major global
markets—Japan, EMEA and North America. Outside of those areas, PRIMEPOWER’s availability and
take-up has been very limited.
Technology
If Unix market share and awareness belie the true size of Fujitsu/FSC as vendors, then what about the
product itself? What other attributes does it have besides binary compatibility with SPARC/Solaris?
The PRIMEPOWER servers’ most compelling attributes derive from their advanced technology. The
1.35GHz SPARC64 V chips are around 35 percent more powerful than Sun’s 1.2GHz UltraSPARC III
chips. Sun’s 1.2GHz UltraSPARC III is the fourth iteration of its chip, whereas the 1.35GHz is the starting
point for SPARC64 V. Fujitsu’s technology and its advanced chip manufacturing capabilities are proven,
and it has a good record of delivering on its technology promises. Whereas Sun’s chips tend to improve in
small but frequent increments as its chip manufacturer’s capabilities and yields improve, Fujitsu offers
fewer but more significant enhancements, restricting enhancements to an annual rather than quarterly
cycle.
Fujitsu has not only produced a reasonably powerful processor in SPARC64 V, it has complemented it
with a crossbar and server design that offer very high levels of sustainable bandwidth. The two 66.5
GB/second XA crossbars in the PRIMEPOWER 2500 provide sustainable 133 GB/second data rates for
both remote as well as local memory access. That compares with data rates on the Sun F15K’s crossbar
of 43.2 GB/second.
That’s an important point for the overall scalability of the system. Sun achieves its highest throughput only
if all memory accesses are local and memory latencies increase significantly (by up to 2.1: 1) when CPUs
have to access memory on remote CPU/memory boards. The PRIMEPOWER’s higher bandwidth over all
of its two-tier interconnect, however, translates into better online transaction processing scalability for very
large configurations. Online transaction processing (OLTP) applications scale well when memory
latencies are low and relatively stable across the whole system.
In addition to the high-bandwidth crossbar, the PRIMEPOWER 2500’s maximum I/O bandwidth is nearly
6x greater than the Sun Fire 15K’s maximum. The PRIMEPOWER 2500 not only supports more

Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens Computers PRIMEPOWER Enterprise Servers
© 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. DPRO-97941
17 April 2003 11
processors than the Sun server, it also supports more than four times as many I/O slots. While few
customers are likely to require such high-level I/O—most large servers are connected to storage area
networks (SANs) rather than huge amounts of direct attached storage—the PRIMEPOWER XA servers
offer a balanced design, with high I/O throughput to match the high throughput of the system interconnect.
One key point about the PRIMEPOWER’s OLTP capabilities is that with its more powerful SPARC64
processors and lower intersystem board latencies, the PRIMEPOWER should be able to comfortably do
the same amount of work as the Sun Fire servers, but with fewer processors. The PRIMEPOWER XA
models will not achieve quite such reduced configurations compared with the Sun servers as can be
achieved with IBM’s POWER4 and HP’s forthcoming dual-core PA-8800 processors, but we estimate that
similar performance can be achieved with a good 25 percent fewer processors than the Sun F15K for a
similar workload. That can mean less expensive licenses for software priced on a per-processor basis,
such as Oracle.
Table 4: Fujitsu SPARC64 vs. Sun UltraSPARC III Cu
SPARC64 V UltraSPARC III Cu
Clockspeed 1.35GHz 1.05GHz or 1.2GHz
SPECint2000 858 (PRIMPOWER 900) 550 est. (1.05GHz)
590 est. (1.2GHz)
Technology 0.13 micron copper
17 million transistors 0.13 micron copper 16 million transistors
Cache Sizes L1: 128KB (instruction) +
128KB (data)
L2: 2MB on-chip (two-way);
fully tagged
L1: 32KB (instruction) +
64KB (data)
L2: 8MB off-chip (one-
way); only eight sublines
Out-of-Order Execution Yes No
End-to-End Data Protection ECC for caches and buses;
parity protection on
execution units and
registers
ECC for caches and buses;
no protection on execution
units and registers
Power Consumption 50 Watts 53 Watts (1.2GHz)
The technology is impressive in terms of power and capacity. The previous generation of PRIMEPOWER
servers, which included the PRIMEPOWER 2000, was already the single-system benchmark-leader on
Transaction Processing Council’s TPC-C and SAP R/3 benchmarks. The PRIMEPOWER 2500 with its
more powerful processors, 2x faster crossbar and greater I/O bandwidth looks set to maintain that
leadership. Fujitsu estimates that the 2500 should offer 80 percent better OLTP performance than its
predecessor, the PRIMEPOWER 2000.
Fujitsu has not been shy of submitting its servers to the benchmarks and publishing the results, though
the TPC-C benchmarks were undertaken using its obscure proprietary database software called
SymfoWare. We believe the PRIMEPOWER 2500 will maintain its lead on OLTP benchmarks through
2003, but Fujitsu should use Oracle if it really wants to prove itself against the competition. A 128-way
server running Oracle is not likely to look so good in price/performance terms, however. Nevertheless,
only a very small number of clients will ever require such high levels of scalability.
High Availability (HA)
The PRIMEPOWER 2500 doesn’t only excel in scalability and capacity terms. Its hardware RAS features
are also advanced and set the standard for the Unix competition. No other Unix vendor has designed

Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens Computers PRIMEPOWER Enterprise Servers
© 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. DPRO-97941
17 April 2003 12
mainframe-like features, such as instruction retry, into its RISC processors. No other current mainstream
RISC processor offers parity protection on arithmetic processing units and registers. Single-bit errors in
the processor execution units, registers and caches are handled and logged automatically by the
hardware without the operating system and operator intervention that are necessary in other designs.
Other Unix servers, such as the Sun F15K, have dual redundant clocks and backplanes; it’s just that the
PRIMEPOWER 2500 goes that bit further.
RAS features and functions don’t of course guarantee reliability, but should failures occur, the
PRIMEPOWER’s redundancy, deconfiguration/restart and concurrent maintenance capabilities, allied to
the Solaris operating system’s Dynamic Reconfiguration capabilities, will help to minimize both scheduled
and unscheduled downtime. The PRIMEPOWER 2500’s predecessor, the 2000, scored well on Gartner’s
Server Evaluation Model for both planned and unplanned downtime. With its enhancements, the 2500
should do even better.
The PRIMEPOWER 900 and 1500 don’t have quite the same levels of RAS functionality as the 2500—to
some extent, they bask in the glow of the 2500. The 900 and 1500 don’t have the dual redundant
crossbars and dual system clocks, for example, but they nonetheless offer better than average levels of
RAS functionality for midrange and enterprise-level servers. Feedback from Gartner clients in EMEA
suggests that they have been pleased with the reliability of the PRIMEPOWER servers.
Fujitsu’s Armtech workload management software, which is available on all three models, is also rated
above average in Gartner’s Server Evaluation Model.
Viability
The PRIMEPOWER servers have the backing of a large and established systems vendor that isn’t going
to go out of business tomorrow, and the vendor has delivered on the technology with the SPARC64 V
chips and the XA architecture. In addition, the PRIMEPOWER servers are binary compatible with
SPARC/Solaris; Gartner is not aware of any areas of application incompatibility. Clients should note,
however, that Sun does not support the PRIMEPOWER servers in its Sun Cluster or Workload Manager
software. This means that it is not possible to use PRIMEPOWER servers as part of a Sun Cluster. FSC
says that it will support some configurations of Sun servers in its PRIMECLUSTER software, but in
general clients with mixed networks of Sun and Fujitsu servers will have to run either third-party failover
software, such as Veritas, or manage two separate clusters—a Sun Cluster and PRIMECLUSTER.
Similarly, the two vendors have different storage strategies: Sun has its own storage subsystems, storage
management software, SAN strategy, while Fujitsu/FSC’s is built around EMC. The real issue again is
incompatible storage management software and the restriction of its full functionality to each storage
vendor’s proprietary systems. Clients running Sun-based SANs may not find full support for
PRIMEPOWER servers in their storage management software and vice versa.
But the big issue is viability. How committed is Fujitsu to SPARC? And as an ancillary question, how
much influence does Fujitsu have over its operating system, Solaris?
On the first issue, in March 2003, Fujitsu announced roadmaps for SPARC64 that show enhancements to
SPARC64 V in late 2003/early 2004, new dual-core SPARC64-VI processors in the second half of 2004
and SPARC64-VII (up to four cores and 5- to 6GHz) in 2006/07. But will Fujitsu still be prepared to invest
further in subsequent SPARC64 processors if market share remains low compared with the Unix leaders?
Fujitsu certainly isn’t restricting itself to SPARC64 and in January 2003 announced plans to develop high-
end 128-way servers based on Intel processors. That could represent a possible exit strategy and an
interesting challenge for Sun if Fujitsu decided to support Solaris on Itanium. FSC’s original plan for a
follow-on to its Reliant Unix servers was Solaris on Itanium—a plan that was thwarted by Sun’s

Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens Computers PRIMEPOWER Enterprise Servers
© 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. DPRO-97941
17 April 2003 13
intransigence over Intel and Itanium. Fujitsu is committed to using SPARC for its mainframes, however,
and like most Japanese companies, when it invests in technologies, it invests for the long term.
Nevertheless, there will always be questions over the minority players in the market. Compaq’s Tru64
AlphaServers had a 5 percent share of the worldwide Unix server market (by value) at a time when the
Unix market was still growing healthily, but this was not considered enough to sustain development of
Alpha. SGI hangs on determinedly with its MIPS-based servers in niche sectors of the server market, but
has a get-out clause with Linux and Intel Itanium. The difference of course between Fujitsu and these
players is that the Japanese developer isn’t the sole supplier of SPARC/Solaris platforms. If Fujitsu did
eventually decide it couldn’t afford to continue to develop its own SPARC-compatible architecture, its
customers could presumably return to Sun. In the meantime, customers can take advantage of an even
more scalable and available SPARC/Solaris server than Sun currently has to offer and a viable alternative
source for Sun customers.
By building to an established platform specification, Fujitsu/FSC benefits from a ready-made target market
and hasn’t had to build up a new platform from scratch. By adopting another vendor’s operating system,
however, Fujitsu/FSC must sacrifice some of the influence it could have over the direction its operating
system takes. So, for example, its XPARs, which provide greater granularity than Sun’s System Domains,
are limited by the number of partitions allowed by Solaris. Although Sun and Fujitsu/FSC are partners,
they’re also competitors, so that as we’ve already mentioned, Sun does not support PRIMEPOWER in its
Sun Cluster software.
To sum up, the PRIMEPOWER servers are a very viable alternative to Sun, provided clients are located
in geographical areas that are well served by Fujitsu, FTSI or FSC. In North America and some parts of
EMEA, the vendors’ local organizations may still be limited, however, and clients should ask for
references of customers in their vicinity. Insofar as the PRIMEPOWER servers represent the current
technological “gold standard” for Unix scalability and availability, clients should also evaluate them against
HP and IBM servers, again provided that local support and availability is not an issue.
Pricing
Table 5: Fujitsu PRIMEPOWER XA Enterprise Models
Model Description Price ($)
PRIMEPOWER 900
Low-End Configuration PRIMEPOWER 900 base
cabinet (two system-board
slots), one system board
with two 1.35GHz CPUs,
4GB of memory, eight PCI
slots, two integrated
Ethernet controllers and
UltraSCSI controller, two
system disks, and Solaris 8
right-to-use license and
media
177,000
Midrange Configuration As above, but with two
system boards, eight
CPUs, 8GB of memory and
four system disks
365,000

Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens Computers PRIMEPOWER Enterprise Servers
© 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. DPRO-97941
17 April 2003 14
Table 5: Fujitsu PRIMEPOWER XA Enterprise Models
Model Description Price ($)
PRIMEPOWER 900
High-End Configuration As above, but with 16
CPUs and 32GB of
memory
578,000
PRIMEPOWER 1500
Low-End Configuration PRIMEPOWER 1500 base
cabinet (four system-board
slots), two system boards,
eight 1.35GHz CPUs, 8GB
of memory, 16 PCI slots,
two integrated Ethernet
controllers and UltraSCSI
controller, two system
disks, and Solaris 8 right-
to-use license and media
393,000
Midrange Configuration As above, but with four
system boards, 16 CPUs,
16GB of memory and four
system disks
656,000
High-End Configuration As above, but with 32
CPUs, 64GB of memory
and four PCI/disk boxes
(40 slots)
1,174,000
PRIMEPOWER 2500
Low-End Configuration PRIMEPOWER 2500 base
cabinet (eight system-
board slots), four system
boards, sixteen 1.35GHz
CPUs, 16GB of memory,
two PCI/disk boxes each
with 10 PCI slots and
integrated Ethernet and
UltraSCSI controllers, two
system disks, and Solaris 8
right-to-use license and
media
1,361,000
Midrange Configuration As above, but with eight
system boards, 32 CPUs,
64GB of memory and eight
PCI/disk boxes (80 PCI
slots)
2,130,000

Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens Computers PRIMEPOWER Enterprise Servers
© 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. DPRO-97941
17 April 2003 15
Table 5: Fujitsu PRIMEPOWER XA Enterprise Models
Model Description Price ($)
PRIMEPOWER 900
High-End Configuration As above, but with eight
system boards, 64 CPUs,
128GB of memory, and 16
PCI/disk boxes (160 PCI
slots)
3,190,000
128-Way Configuration As above, but with 16
system boards, 128 CPUs,
256GB of memory and 32
PCI/disk boxes (320 PCI
slots)
5,960,000
System Console PRIMEPOWER M200:
pedestal chassis, one
250MHz/4MB CPU, 256MB
of memory, one 18GB disk,
CD-ROM drive, LAN
adapter, monitor,
keyboard/mouse, and
Solaris 7 license and media
Included with
configurations shown
above
Prices supplied by Fujitsu Siemens Computers and current as of March 2003.
Prices are provided only as a guide. Gartner accepts no responsibility for their accuracy.
GSA Pricing
Yes.
Competitors
While the Sun F15K and F12K represent the PRIMEPOWERs’ main competitors, the PRIMEPOWER
1500 and 2500 also compete against IBM’s pSeries 690, HP’s Superdome, and IBM’s zSeries 900.
With its maximum of 16 processors, the PRIMEPOWER 900 competes in the midrange sector of the Unix
server market. Competitors include the Sun Fire 6800, HP rp8400, and IBM pSeries 650 and 670.
Table “Competitive Comparison: Sun 2500/1500” compares the specifications and features of these
servers.
Table 6: Competitive Comparison: PRIMEPOWER 2500/1500
PRIMEPOWER
2500-128 PRIMEPOWER 1500 HP Superdome 64 IBM p690 Sun F15K
Processors SPARC64 V
(1.3GHz) SPARC64 V (1.35GHz) PA-8700 (750MHz), PA-
8700+ 875MHz)
POWER4
(1.1GHz,
1.3GHz)
UltraSPARC III
(1.05GHz,
1.2GHz)
Processor
Performance
(SPECint2000)
800 est. 800 est. Not available 839 (1.3GHz) 590 est.
(1.2GHz)

Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens Computers PRIMEPOWER Enterprise Servers
© 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. DPRO-97941
17 April 2003 16
Table 6: Competitive Comparison: PRIMEPOWER 2500/1500
PRIMEPOWER
2500-128 PRIMEPOWER 1500 HP Superdome 64 IBM p690 Sun F15K
Maximum
Number of
Processors
Supported
64 or 128 32 64 32 72 or 106 (1)
Maximum
Memory 256GB (64- way)-512GB
(128-way)
128GB 256GB 256GB 576GB
Maximum
Interconnect
Bandwidth
133 GB/second 34.6 GB/second 64 GB/second 205 GB/second 172 GB/second
Maximum I/O
Slots 160 (64-way) or 320 PCI (128-
way)
72 PCI 192 PCI 120 PCI 72 PCI
Maximum I/O
Bandwidth 64GB/s (64- way) or 128
GB/second
(128-way)
Information not
available 32GB/second 16GB/second 21.6GB/second
System Software
Operating
System Sun Solaris 8 or 9Sun Solaris 8 or 9HP-UX 11i IBM AIX 5L Sun Solaris 8 or 9
Type of
Partitioning
Supported
Hard Hard Hard (nPars);
soft (vPars) Logical Hard
Maximum
Number of
Partitions
Supported
15 15 16 (hard); 64
(soft) 32 18
Partition
Granularity 4 processors 2 processors 4 processors (hard); 1
processor (soft)
1processor 4processors
Dynamic
Reconfiguration
of Partitions
Yes Yes Hard—no;
soft—yes Yes (AIX 5.2 and above) Yes
Workload
Management
Software
Included
Yes(Solaris9
and ARMTech
Share
Enterprise)
Yes(Solaris9
and ARMTech
Share
Enterprise)
No (2) Yes Yes (Solaris 9)

Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens Computers PRIMEPOWER Enterprise Servers
© 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. DPRO-97941
17 April 2003 17
Table 6: Competitive Comparison: PRIMEPOWER 2500/1500
PRIMEPOWER
2500-128 PRIMEPOWER 1500 HP Superdome 64 IBM p690 Sun F15K
High-Availability Features
Processor/Syst
em Board Instruction retry; parity protection
on execution
units and
registers; error
log collection by
H/W; CPU de-
configuration at
reboot;
concurrent
maintenance of
system boards
Instruction retry;
parity protection
on execution
units and
registers; error
log collection by
H/W; CPU de-
configuration at
reboot;
concurrent
maintenance of
system boards
Dynamic
(online) CPU
de-allocation by
OS; online hot-
sparing of COD
processors;
CPU de-
configuration at
reboot;
concurrent
maintenance of
system boards
Dynamic
(online) CPU
de-allocation by
OS; CPU de-
configuration at
reboot;
automatic
capture of
failure data
CPU de-
configuration at
reboot;
concurrent
maintenance of
system boards;
Dynamic
Reconfiguration
of system
boards
Memory ECC on L1 and
L2 caches and
main memory;
automatic
single-bit
correction in L1
cache by
hardware; chip-
kill-like fault-
tolerance
ECC on L1 and
L2 caches and
main memory;
automatic
single-bit
correction in L1
cache by
hardware; chip-
kill-like fault-
tolerance
ECC on L2
caches and
main memory;
online de-
allocation; chip-
kill-like fault-
tolerance; soft
memory
scrubbing
ECC on L2
caches and
main memory;
online de-
allocation; chip-
kill fault-
tolerance; soft
memory
scrubbing;
redundant bit
steering
ECC on L2
caches and
main memory;
dynamic
reconfiguration
of
memory/system
board
I/O I/O
Mulitpathing;
PCI hot-plug;
Dynamic
Reconfiguration
of PCI/disk
boxes
I/O
Mulitpathing;
PCI hot-plug;
Dynamic
Reconfiguration
of PCI/disk
boxes
I/O error
recovery; I/O
Multipathing
I/O
Multipathing;
PCI hot-plug;
PCI bus error
recovery
I/O
Multipathing;
Dynamic
Reconfiguration
of I/O boards
Redundant
Hardware Crossbar, system clock,
power supplies,
cooling, power
converter,
system control
feature
Power supplies,
cooling, DC-DC
converter,
system control
feature
Power supplies,
cooling, service
processor
Power supplies,
cooling, service
processor
Backplane,
system clock,
power supply,
cooling
Performance
TPC-C Not available
(3) Not available (3) 423,414 tpmC @ $15.64/tpmC 427,760 tpmC @ $17.75/tpmC Not available
SPECint2000 800 (est.) (4) 800 (est.) (4) 413 839 590 (est.)

Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens Computers PRIMEPOWER Enterprise Servers
© 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. DPRO-97941
17 April 2003 18
Table 6: Competitive Comparison: PRIMEPOWER 2500/1500
PRIMEPOWER
2500-128 PRIMEPOWER 1500 HP Superdome 64 IBM p690 Sun F15K
SPECjbb2000 Not available Not available 614,358 339,848 602,270
(1.05GHz)
SAP R/3 SD
Two-Tier
Client/Server
Release 4
Not available
(5) Not available Not available 4,128 users 8,000 users
SAP R/3 ATO
Two-Tier Not available (6) Not available 18,870 assembly
orders/hr
Not available Not available
(1) Supports up to106 processors using MaxCPU boards in place of I/O boards.
(2) Optionally available or included as part of HP-UX 11i Enterprise and mission-critical bundles.
(3) The PRIMEPOWER 2000 with 128 SPARC64 GP (563MHz) processors achieved a TPC-C benchmark of
455818 tpmC @ $28.58/tpmC, running Sun Solaris 8 and the SymfoWARE Server database software.
(4) Vendor’s estimate.
(5) The PRIMEPOWER 2000 with 128 SPARC64 GP (563MHz) processors achieved a throughput of 2,345,000
steps/hr and 7,800 users.
(6) The PRIMEPOWER 2000 with 128 SPARC64 GP (563MHz) processors achieved a throughput of 34,260
assembly orders/hr.
Table 7: Competitive Comparison: PRIMEPOWER 900
Fujitsu
PRIMEPOWER
900
HP server
rp8400 IBM pSeries 670 Sun Fire 6800 Unisys ES7000 Aries 230
Processors SPARC64 V
(1.35GHz) PA-8700 (750MHz), PA-
8700+ 875MHz)
POWER4
(1.1GHz) UltraSPARC III (1.05GHz,
1.2GHz)
Intel Xeon MP
(1.4GHz,
1.6GHz)
Processor
Performance
(SPECint2000)
>800 est. >800 est. Not available 839 (1.3GHz) 590 est.
(1.2GHz)
Max. Number of
Processors
Supported
16 16 16 24 16
Min.-Max.
Memory 1GB-64GB 1GB-64GB 4GB-128GB 2GB-192GB 4GB-32GB
I/O Slots (Min.-
Max.) 8-36 PCI 8-16 PCI 10-60 PCI 32 PCI or 16 hot-swap cPCI 24-48 PCI
Form Factor 17U rack-mount 17U rack or
floorstanding
pedestal
42U system
rack 42U system rack Floorstanding cabinet

Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens Computers PRIMEPOWER Enterprise Servers
© 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. DPRO-97941
17 April 2003 19
Table 7: Competitive Comparison: PRIMEPOWER 900
Fujitsu
PRIMEPOWER
900
HP server
rp8400 IBM pSeries 670 Sun Fire 6800 Unisys ES7000 Aries 230
System Software
Operating
Systems
Supported
Sun Solaris 8 or
9HP-UX 11i IBM AIX 5L Sun Solaris Windows NT, Windows 2000
Advanced
Server,
Datacenter
Server,
UnixWare 7.x,
OpenUnix 8.x
Type of
Partitioning
Supported
Hard Hard (nPars);
soft (vPars) Logical Hard Hard
Maximum
Number of
Partitions
Supported
8 2 × hard; 16 ×
soft 16 4 2
Partition
Granularity 2 processors 4 processors (hard); 1
processor (soft)
1 processor 4 processors 4 processors
Dynamic
Reconfiguration
of Partitions
Yes Hard—no;
soft—yes Yes (AIX 5.2 and above) Yes No
Workload
Management
Software
Included
Yes(Solaris9
and ARMTech
Share
Enterprise)
No (optionally
available or part
of HP-UX
Enterprise and
mission-critical
bundles)
Yes Yes Yes
Service
Processor Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Automatic
Server Restart Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Deconfiguration
of Failed
Components
Prior to Reboot
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Performance
SPECint_base2
000 743 517 (750MHz; estimated) 680 Not available Not available
SPECfp_base2
000 1,004 462 (750MHz; estimated) 1,017 Not available Not available

Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens Computers PRIMEPOWER Enterprise Servers
© 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. DPRO-97941
17 April 2003 20
Table 7: Competitive Comparison: PRIMEPOWER 900
Fujitsu
PRIMEPOWER
900
HP server
rp8400 IBM pSeries 670 Sun Fire 6800 Unisys ES7000 Aries 230
SPECjbb2000 283,176 (16-
way); 148,885
(eight-way)
155,745 (16 ×
750MHz);
183,694 (16 ×
875MHz)
161,904 (16-
way) Not available Not available
SAP R/3 SD
Two-Tier
Client/Server
Release 4
(users)
2,200 (16-way);
1,120 (eight-
way) (1)
Not available Not available Not available Not available
SAP R/3 ATO
Two-Tier
(assembly
orders/hr)
12,170 (16-
way); 6,220
(eight-way) (1)
7,000 (16 ×
750MHz) (2) Not available Not available Not available
(1) Database: Oracle 9i.
(2) Database: Oracle 8.1.7.
Strengths
Binary Compatible With SPARC/Solaris Application Binary Interface (ABI)
SPARC/Solaris is currently the leading Unix in terms of independent software vendor (ISV) enthusiasm.
The PRIMEPOWER servers are binary compatible with the SPARC/Solaris applications ABI and so can
run any of the 12,000+ Solaris applications currently available.
Very Scalable Servers
The PRIMEPOWER 2500 is capable of supporting up to 128 processors and 512GB of memory—more
processors than any other general-purpose server on the market. This makes it suitable for hosting the
largest Unix applications and for consolidating applications and workloads, although the 128-way server
still supports a maximum of only 15 partitions. The PRIMEPOWER XA system architecture is designed for
low-memory latencies, in particular, minimizing the difference between near and far memory accesses.
This makes it better suited to the small cache-based transactions that are typical of OLTP applications
than some other nonuniform memory access (NUMA) designs.
Class-Leading RAS Functionality
The PRIMEPOWER servers offer unprecedented levels of reliability, availability and serviceability features
compared with other Unix enterprise-class servers. Fujitsu is the first RISC chip designer to include
features such as parity checking on registers and execution units, instruction retry and automatic
hardware-based error degradation (taking a processor offline if too many single-bit errors are occurring).
But it isn’t just the processors that have received attention. There’s parity checking on all data paths in the
crossbar, ECC checking and correction on the PCI bridge and paths, ECC on memory and level-2
caches, and a host of memory-based data protection features. On the 2500, if a crossbar or system clock
fails, the system will auto-restart and configure around the failed component, using the remaining
crossbar or clock.
FSC’s Add-On Manageability Products