Sun Microsystems SPARC T5220 - Manual (Page 31)

29 Enterprise-Class Software Sun Microsystems, Inc.
• Support for Virtualized Networking and I/O, and Accelerated Cryptography
The Solaris OS contains technology to support and virtualize components and
subsystems on the UltraSPARC T2 processor, including support for the on-chip
10 Gb Ethernet ports and PCI Express interface. As a part of a high-performance
network architecture, CMT-aware device drivers are provided so that applications
running within virtualization frameworks can effectively share I/O and network
devices. Accelerated cryptography is supported through the Solaris Cryptographic
framework.
• Solaris ZFS File System
Solaris ZFS offers a dramatic advance in data management, automating and
consolidating complicated storage administration concepts and providing
unlimited scalability with the world’s first 128-bit file system. ZFS is based on a
transactional object model that removes most of the traditional constraints on I/O
issue order, resulting in dramatic performance gains. ZFS also provides data
integrity, protecting all data with 64-bit checksums that detect and correct silent
data corruption.
• A Secure and Robust Enterprise-Class Environment
Best of all, the Solaris OS doesn’t require arbitrary sacrifices. The Solaris Binary
Compatibility Guarantee helps ensure that existing SPARC applications continue to
run unchanged on UltraSPARC T2 platforms, protecting investments. Certified
multi-level security protects Solaris environments from intrusion. Sun’s
comprehensive Fault Management Architecture means that elements such as
Solaris Predictive Self Healing can communicate directly with the hardware to
help reduce both planned and unplanned downtime. Effective tools such as DTrace
help organizations tune their applications to get the most of the system’s
resources.
End-to-End Virtualization Technology
Virtualization technology is increasingly popular as organizations strive to consolidate
disparate workloads onto fewer more powerful systems, while increasing utilization.
Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120 and T5220 servers are specifically designed for
virtualization, providing very fine-grained division of multiple resources — from
processing to virtualized networking and I/O. Most importantly, Sun’s virtualization
technology is provided as a part of the system, not an expensive add-on.
A Multithreaded Hypervisor
Like the UltraSPARC T1 processor, the UltraSPARC T2 processor offers a multithreaded
hypervisor — a small firmware layer that provides a stable virtual machine architecture
that is tightly integrated with the processor. Multithreading is crucial, since the
hypervisor interacts directly with the underlying chip-multithreaded UltraSPARC T2
processor. This architecture is able to context switch between multiple threads in a