Sun Microsystems & Fujitsu Enhance SPARC Enterprise servers with New SPARC64 Processors

October 2009

Sun Microsystems , Inc. and Fujitsu announced new quad-core SPARC64(TM) VII processors and an enhanced memory controller for the SPARC Enterprise(R) server line. The faster SPARC64 VII processors deliver up to 25 percent better performance than the previous generation and with new memory access enhancements, the updated SPARC Enterprise systems have delivered outstanding performance on key enterprise benchmarks. These results further prove the updated SPARC Enterprise server s with the Solaris(TM) Operating System (OS) are ideal platforms for consolidation and mission-critical enterprise applications including large-scale databases, BIDW, ERP and human capital management (HCM). The new processors are the second in-box upgrade delivered for this product family and are available as an option for seamless upgrades in existing SPARC Enterprise server s.

Running at 2.88GHz for the SPARC Enterprise(TM) M9000 and M8000 servers and 2.53GHz for SPARC Enterprise M5000 and M4000 servers, the new processors provide increased single-thread and overall system performance, while the enhanced memory controller in the SPARC Enterprise M8000 and M9000 servers improves throughput under memory-intensive workloads.

“Our SPARC Enterprise servers with the Solaris OS offer a compelling combination of mainframe class performance and reliability as well as virtualization and consolidation capabilities in an open system,” said John Fowler, executive vice president, Systems Group, Sun Microsystems. “The update we’re announcing today makes it possible for customers to increase the performance of mission-critical enterprise applications while capitalizing on existing infrastructure investments with upgrades at half the cost of IBM.”

“The enhanced SPARC64 VII processors deliver world class performance. By upgrading to these new processors, customers can grow their business performance without sacrificing existing IT infrastructure investments,” said Noriyuki Toyoki, corporate vice president of Fujitsu. “With new processors and excellent virtualization features built into SPARC Enterprise servers, we are confident customers will achieve dramatic increases in IT resource efficiency. They will also significantly extend the life of their server investment.”

With the addition of the new quad-core SPARC64 VII processors, Sun and Fujitsu continue to increase the compute capacity of their SPARC Enterprise servers while extending long-term investment protection. The updated systems stand out from the competition with more than 15 years of binary compatibility and the “mix-and-match” SPARC64 processor architecture as well as virtualization via Dynamic Domains and Solaris(TM) Containers. The SPARC Enterprise servers are also the only systems on the market with the ability to mix SPARC64 VI and VII processors in a single domain, enabling customers to dynamically add processing resources — without downtime and without requiring other hardware changes. Additionally, the integration of Oracle(R) Database with Solaris 10’s dynamic memory management enables an Oracle database running on these SPARC Enterprise servers to use the additional memory on-the-fly without service interruption.

SPARC Enterprise servers Outperform the Competition

Two-tier SAP SD Standard Application Benchmark –The SPARC Enterprise M9000 server (32 processors, 128 cores, 256 threads), delivered a new world record result on the two-tier SAP® Sales and Distribution (SD) Standard Application Benchmark with 17,430 SAP SD Benchmark users for all systems running the SAP enhancement package 4 for the SAP ERP 6.0 application (Unicode)(1). This achievement complements the SPARC Enterprise M9000 server‘s standing world record result on the two-tier SAP SD Standard Application Benchmark with SAP ERP 6.0 and is the first published Unicode result on an enterprise-class system(2). Competitors, including IBM, have not published two-tier SAP SD Unicode benchmark results on their enterprise-class systems, making the SPARC Enterprise M9000 server, Oracle Database and Solaris 10 OS used in the new benchmark an extremely attractive solution for customers seeking unparalleled scalability and unmatched application performance.

The SAP SD Standard Application Benchmark represents the critical tasks performed in real-world ERP business environments and demonstrates the performance of systems running order- and invoice-processing workloads. This result highlights the SPARC Enterprise M9000 server‘s performance leadership at the high-end of the two-tier SAP SD Standard Application Benchmark and underscores the optimal performance of SAP ERP running on SPARC64 systems with the Solaris OS regardless of the encoding methodology used in the application.

SPEC CPU2006 — The SPARC Enterprise M9000 server, equipped with 64 SPARC64 VII 2.88 GHz processors, posted the best single system UNIX(R) result on the SPECint_rate_base2006 benchmark, beating the best published IBM POWER6 UNIX result by 32 percent. SPEC CPU2006 is a CPU-intensive benchmark suite, stressing a system’s processor, memory subsystem and compiler with two sets of benchmarks — one set measures integer-intensive performance and the other set measures compute-intensive floating point performance. Running the Solaris 10 OS and Sun(TM) Studio 12 Update 1 software, the new top-of-the-line SPARC Enterprise M9000 server also holds the single system UNIX record on the SPECfp_rate_base2006 benchmark and outscored the top-of-the-line 5.0GHz POWER6-based IBM Power 595 server(3).

Oracle PeopleSoft Enterprise Payroll 9.0 — The SPARC Enterprise M4000 server, equipped with four SPARC 64 VII 2.53 GHz processors, achieved world record performance on this popular HCM application benchmark. The PeopleSoft Enterprise 9.0 Payroll (North America) benchmark represents typical OLTP workloads for a large organization processing employee payroll. The application calculates gross to net earnings, deductions and taxes, and is fully integrated with other Oracle PeopleSoft Enterprise products, allowing for coordination of a wide range of salary, reward, and expense payments. The SPARC Enterprise M4000 server processed 250,000 employee payroll checks using Oracle Database 11g running on the Solaris 10 OS.