This book offers the tools, methods, and knowledge that systems architects and designers require to design and configure Sun Fire systems that more accurately meet their application support requirements. Following the guidelines set forth in this book will help you design servers that perform better, are more reliable, and have a lower cost of ownership. The book also contains valuable information to help IT managers and system administrators understand how their system is performing.

The book contains the following information:

• Key features of the Sun Fire system product line
• A good process to follow to determine your needs
• Many design considerations and rules of thumb
• Methods for maximizing performance and RAS properties
• Step-by-step system analysis procedures
• Methods for planning for growth and upgrading systems
• System configuration guidelines and steps
• Real world system examples for an NFS server, a simulation server, and a database server

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Roger Blythe is a Senior System Administrator at Sun Microsystems in San Diego. He has over 20 years experience in the computer industry and has spent 15 years doing system administration on supercomputer/high-end/UNIX servers.

For the past three years Roger has supported the computing and storage needs of Product Developers at the San Diego facility. Roger's duties include specifying and designing internal production systems and creating and coordinating internal administration, backup, and maintenance policies for production and non-production test and QA systems.

Nathan Wiger is a Senior System Administrator for Sun Microsystems in San Diego, where he supports dozens of Sun Fire 15K and Sun Enterprise 10000 servers on a daily basis. He oversees the design and administration of large NFS, database, and web servers in several production data centers. He also spends a lot of time hacking Perl. In his spare time Nathan plays guitar and records bands in his home recording studio. Nathan graduated from the University of California, San Diego with a B.S. in Cognitive Science and a B.A. in Psychology.