SPARC T5-2 Server

Frequently Asked Questions

Overview

single-thread and multi-thread performance. It offers the best

performance for applications such as JD Edwards and Siebel,
with leading performance and price/performance over
comparable competitor systems. The SPARC T5-2 server
yields a 20% increase in single thread performance compared
to Oracles previous 2-socket SPARC system and a remarkable
2.4 times the systems throughput.
Built-in Enterprise Class Virtualization

Today, IT organizations around the world are facing critical

challenges due to the massive explosion of data and increased
requirements to deliver application services to users faster than
ever. Companies seeking to drive out cost and complexity in
operation while delivering faster application response times are
choosing the SPARC T5-2 server as a fundamental building
block of business computing today. In addition to delivering
extreme performance and optimization across a wide range of
Oracle database, business applications and middleware
software, the SPARC T5-2 server helps lower TCO by offering
virtualization, security and management technologies at no
additional cost.
Oracle's unique advantage of engineering the hardware and
software to work together delivers best-in-class products that
are optimized to solve unique business challenges with worldrecord performance, unmatched value and investment
protection.

Customer Benefits
The SPARC T5-2 server provides the following key customer
benefits.
Record-setting Performance
The SPARC T5-2 server is power by the SPARC T5 processor,
the worlds fastest microprocessor, delivering exceptional

The SPARC T5-2 server offers built-in, no-cost virtualization

technologies that enable organizations to extract maximum
value from IT assets while creating an infrastructure capable of
rapidly adapting to todays dynamic business environment.
Oracle VM Server for SPARC provides highly efficient,
enterprise-class virtualization capabilities by creating partitions
called logical (or virtual) domains. Each logical domain can
run an independent operating system. While customers may
achieve the optimal results with one logical domain per
processor core, the SPARC T5-2 server supports a maximum
of 128 logical domains. This allows organizations to
consolidate workloads and maximize their use of compute
platforms by simplifying their IT infrastructure and bringing
new levels of efficiency, manageability, and agility to the data
center.
Outstanding Security
The SPARC T5-2 server enables data centers to run securely
from end to end. In addition to high performance and extreme
availability, Oracles SPARC processor engineering team has
placed a high emphasis on security. The new SPARC T5
processor supports industry-standard security ciphers via
cryptographic stream processing units integrated directly into
the processor core. These accelerators provide wire speed
encryption capabilities directly inside the instruction pipeline,
enabling secure data center operations and allowing customers
to encrypt large amounts of data without sacrificing
performance.
In addition to the cryptographic features of the SPARC T5
processor, Oracle Solaris security provides unmatched
enterprise-class features to protect applications.

Award-winning Oracle Solaris Operating System

Engineered to work together with Oracle database,
middleware, and applications, Oracle Solaris 11 delivers
unique features to increase performance, streamline
management, and automate support for Oracle deployments.
Oracle Solaris delivers mission-critical cloud infrastructure
with built-in virtualization, simplified software lifecycle
management, cloud scale data management, and advanced
protection for public, private, and hybrid cloud environments.
Adoption of the SPARC T5-2 servers by existing Oracle and
previously Sun customers is simplified since the new SPARC
T5 processor is binary compatible with previous SPARC
processors at the instruction level. Also, Oracle Solaris offers a
compatibility guarantee program so that applications that run
on previous versions of Oracle Solaris will run unchanged on
Oracle Solaris 11 or Oracle Solaris 10, thus no recompilation
of software is needed.
Mission-critical Availability
The SPARC T5-2 server has been designed for maximum
system utilization when running the most demanding
workloads. The system has two built-in SAS controllers
enabling internal disks to have more redundancy. Many key
components are hot swappable. Advanced power management
features are enabled by the server firmware. This gracefully
degrades system-wide resources in case of component issues
for greater availability. An intelligent I/O architecture provides
fail-safe, redundant I/O boot domains. The system can also be
clustered using the latest Oracle Solaris Cluster software to
achieve ultimate redundancy.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is the SPARC T5-2 Server?
The SPARC T5-2 server is the latest two-processor, three-rack
unit (3U) server in Oracles lineup of SPARC servers. It is
based on the SPARC T5 processor, which offers best singlethread performance in the SPARC T-Series. This server is
optimized for small to midsize Web-tier workloads, database
and enterprise applications, and it is a great platform for
consolidation and virtualization projects.
On February 1, 2014, Oracle announced a single processor
SPARC T5-2 server.
How Does the SPARC T5-2 Server Compare with the
SPARC T4-2 Server?
Compared to the SPARC T4-2 server, the SPARC T5-2 server
with two processors comes with twice the number of cores (32
per server) delivering up to 2.3x the system throughput. The
new server delivers 1.2x higher speeds for single-threaded
applications (running at 3.6 GHz compared to 2.85 GHz), and
offers twice the shared L3 cache (8 MB compared to 4 MB).
Utilizing PCIe 3.0, the SPARC T5-2 server doubles the I/O
bandwidth of the SPARC T4-2 server.
The SPARC T5-2 server has eight PCIe 3.0 slots and four 10
GbE ports, as opposed to four 1 GbE ports in the rear,
eliminating the need for an extra XAUI port present in the
SPARC T4-2 server.
What Virtualization Technologies Are Available for the
SPARC T5-2 Server?
Oracle offers the most complete portfolio of end-to-end
virtualization solutions available today, and the solutions can
be used separately or together to tackle specific deployment
challenges. The solutions include: Oracle Solaris Zones and
Oracle VM Server for SPARC. More information can be found
here.
What Are the Memory, Storage, and Expansion Options
Supported on the SPARC T5-2 Server?

The SPARC T5-2 server with two processors supports 32

DDR3 memory DIMM slots which may be populated with 8
GB, 16 GB or 32 GB DIMMs for a maximum of 1 TB of
memory per server. There are also eight low-profile PCIe 3.0
slots and six bays for disks or solid-state drives. The addition
of a second SAS controller enables the disk drives to have
more redundancy. Four 10 GbE ports are built into rear of the
chassis.
The single processor SPARC T5-2 server offers 16 DDR3
memory DIMM slots for a maximum of 512 GB of memory
when populated with 32 GB DIMMs. Otherwise, all features
and options are identical to the two processor configuration.
What is the Recommended Operating System for the
SPARC T5-2 Server?
Oracle recommends the latest version of Oracle Solaris 11 for
enhanced performance and functionality.
What Are the Operating Systems That Have Been
Certified to Run on the SPARC T5-2 Server?
While Oracle recommends running Oracle Solaris 11.1 or later
on the SPARC T5-2 server for enhanced performance and
functionality, it also supports Oracle Solaris 10 1/13. Oracle
Solaris 11 is the strategic platform for todays demanding
enterprise, delivering proven results on all applications, from
mission-critical enterprise databases to high-performance Web
farms. Oracle Solaris 11 has features such as DTrace, Oracle
Solaris Zones, Predictive Self Healing, Fault Management
Architecture, and Oracle Solaris ZFS, making it the safest and
most scalable UNIX operating system available.
What Software Is Preinstalled on the SPARC T5-2 Server?
The SPARC T5-2 server comes preinstalled with Oracle
Solaris 11 and is integrated with Oracle VM Server for
SPARC.
What Are the System Management Options Available for
the SPARC T5-2 Server?
The SPARC T5-2 server includes the Oracle Integrated Lights
Out Manager (Oracle ILOM), which is driven by an integrated
system service processor that also has power-management and

power-capping capability to help reduce energy cost. Oracle

ILOM provides full remote keyboard, video, mouse, storage
(KVMS) support together with remote media functionality.
The SPARC T5 processor, combined with the system firmware
and Oracle Solaris operating system, offers additional
advanced power management features. This means the server
has more efficient power and workload scaling. Some of the
new features include dynamic voltage frequency scaling, cycle
skip per core, memory power management, and coherence link
scaling.
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center, a critical-to-disk
system management tool, coordinates servers, storage, and
networking for a complete cloud infrastructure as a service
(IaaS). Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center also features an
automated service request capability, whereby potential issues
are detected and reported to Oracles support center without
user intervention, assuring the maximum service levels and
simplified support.
Is there a Choice in System Configurations?
Yes, the SPARC T5-2 server can be customized to the
configuration required through the Oracle assemble-to-order
process. Options are available to select memory size, drive
types and PCIe I/O cards.
What Are the Power and Cooling Requirements for the
SPARC T5-2 Server?
An online power calculator provides guidance for estimating
the electrical and heat loads for typical operating conditions for
both the one and two processor servers. Click here to access
the requirements.

Otherwise, both systems offer six bays for internal disks or

SSDs, 8 PCIe slots and two redundant power supplies.
Can one increase the number of DIMM slots for a single
processor SPARC T5-2?
No, the architecture for the SPARC T5 processor provides
exactly 16 DIMM slots per processor. Consequently, the
single processor SPARC T5-2 server offers 16 DIMM slots
with a maximum of 512 GB when fully populated with 32 GB
DIMMs.
Can the single processor SPARC T5-2 server be upgraded
to a two processor configuration?
Yes, an upgrade kit is available. Please note that the upgrade
is not as easy as installing one or more dual processor modules
as is the case with the SPARC T5-4 or T5-8 servers. It is
encouraged that Oracle Services be contacted to arrange for the
installation.
When purchasing a SPARC T5-2 with one processor, one
should consider the expectation for an upgrade. If an upgrade
may be required relatively shortly after the initial purchase, it
may be more practical to start with a fully configured SPARC
T5-2 server.
What is the device driver used to drive the embedded 10
Gigabit Ethernet controllers?
The SPARC T5 server on-board 10 Gigabit Ethernet driver
used is ixgbe.
Where Can I Learn More About How the SPARC T5-2
Server Performs Compared to Other Servers?
The system benchmarks are available here.

What are the differences between the one and two

processor SPARC T5-2 servers?

What Types of Oracle Optimized Solutions Utilize the

SPARC T5-2 Server?

Obviously, the single processor SPARC T5-2 server has just

one processor with 16 cores in comparison to 32 cores with the
two processor server. The single processor server offers 16
memory DIMM slots for a system maximum of 512 GB with
32 GB DIMMs rather than 1 TB with the two processor server.

The SPARC T5-2 server is featured in Oracle Optimized

Solutions; details are available here.
What Support Is Available for Oracle's Hardware
Products?

Oracle offers complete system support including 24/7

hardware service, rapid onsite expert technical support,
proactive tools, and updates to Oracle operating systems,
Oracle VM Server for SPARC, and integrated software (such
as firmware) all for a single price. For more information
and related offerings, click here.
Where Can I Find More Information About Oracle's
Hardware Warranty for the SPARC T5-2 Server?
For more information on Oracle's technical support policies
and the Oracle hardware warranty, visit this site.
How Does the SPARC T5-2 Server Fit into Oracles
SPARC Server Line?
Oracles SPARC T5-2 server is part of Oracle's most powerful
and efficient SPARC-based server family ever. Based on
SPARC T5, SPARC T4, and SPARC M5 processors, which all
share the same processor core, this server family provides
seamless scalability from 1 up to 32 processors, and is
designed with mission-critical applications in mind. All these
SPARC servers run the Oracle Solaris operating system the
best UNIX system for Oracle deployments. They share the
same virtualization capabilities through Oracle VM Server for
SPARC and leverage the same systems management
framework through Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center.
This leads to unprecedented simplicity in the deployment of all
enterprise workloads, enabling reduction of business risk,
delivering savings in management costs, and unlocking
flexibility to grow your business to any scale, while
maximizing reliability and uptime.
Can I Order the SPARC T5-2 Server Today?
The SPARC T5-2 server started to accept orders in March
2013.
Where Can I Find More Information About the SPARC
T5-2 Server?
For additional information on the SPARC T5-2 Server, click
here, or contact your Oracle sales rep directly at: 1-800Oracle1

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