Sun's CoolThreads Systems
As the industry catches up, Sun has continued to move ahead with the UltraSPARC T2 and UltraSPARC T2 Plus chips. The UltraSPARC T2 became the first real "System on a Chip," incorporating memory controller, I/O, and networking interfaces on the silicon, and both power a new generation of Sun systems that enable companies to create agile, scalable compute infrastructures that also save energy.
Today Sun offers more than a dozen systems with chip multithreading, across the entire server line, including Netras, Sun Fires, Blades, and SPARC Enterprise servers.
Browse all of Sun's CoolThreads systems
Sun's groundbreaking CoolThreads chips—the new UltraSPARC T2 Plus, the UltraSPARC T2, and the UltraSPARC T1—power these servers, delivering up to 128 threads on a single system.
Explore the features and design of the UltraSPARC T2 processor.
What CoolThreads Can Do
The constant-contact, data-intensive environments of today's rapidly growing Web 2.0 companies and data-intensive enterprise applications, requires the sort of extreme throughput capabilities that the high-density multithreading of CoolThreads technology offers.
Systems using CoolThreads support these demanding loads much more efficiently than traditional systems -- instead of needing eight or 16 servers to meet throughput demand, companies may need only one CoolThreads server. That translates into lower acquisition costs, and much lower energy and operating costs.
Sun used CoolThreads systems to consolidate its own datacenter, helping cut its utility bill by over 60%. Watch this interactive tour of the Santa Clara, CA facility to see just how we did it.
Solaris 10 and CoolThreads
The Solaris 10 OS helps make the most of CoolThreads processors. "The cores and threads are managed by multithreaded Solaris for efficient utilization," says Sun chief architect Marc Tremblay, an engineer who has co-developed several throughput computing technologies, including chip multiprocessing and multithreading.
"The huge number of threads means applications are no longer limited because threads aren't stepping on each other," says Tremblay. Virtualization is improved as well. "Logical domains aren't restricted," he says, "and you wind up with hundreds of gigabytes of memory shared by hundreds of threads performing reads and writes without latency."
Read an interview with Sun chief architect Marc Tremblay, including a discussion about chip multithreading technology and Solaris.
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UltraSPARC T2 Plus
The industry's first chip multithreading technology processor--Sun's UltraSPARC T1--had eight cores and 32 threads when it debuted in 2005. When the UltraSPARC T2 hit the scene it came with an amazing 64 threads and security, networking, and I/O, making it the first "System on a Chip."
Now the new multi-socket Sun UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor enables multiple CoolThreads processors to be used within a single system. The UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor powers three Sun systems:
Take a virtual tour of the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5140 and T5240 Servers.
Take a virtual tour of the Sun Netra T5440 Server.
The Bottom Line
Sun customers of all types have come to rely on servers powered by UltraSPARC CoolThreads processors. Here are just a few examples.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn uses the UltraSPARC T2-powered Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120 Server, along with the Solaris OS and MySQL, to provide business networking services to its burgeoning community of users. Listen to this podcast with chief technology officer Jean-Luc Vaillant as he talks about why that combination works so well.
Learn More About LinkedIn
Spencer Retail
This Indan general retail company has grown from 60 stores to 350 in just four years, and managing the inventory, purchasing and merchandising requirements has taken increasing amounts of compute power. Spencer has turned to Sun and its UltraSPARC CoolThreads processing power to help meet the demand in a country where even the concept of retailing was new.
Learn More About Spencer Retail
Lifetouch
This billion dollar photography firm has 22,000 employees and 800 photography studios in retail stores all over the U.S. Since 2001, Lifetouch has used Sun equipment and the Solaris operating system to manage its customer and image information. It now uses Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120 and T5220 servers, MySQL and SunSpectrum Support services to keep its growing business solid.
Learn More About Lifetouch
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