Sun4d is a computer architecture introduced by Sun Microsystems in 1992. It is a development of the earlier Sun-4 architecture, using the XDBus system bus, SuperSPARC processors, and SBus I/O cards. The XDBus was the result of a collaboration between Sun and Xerox; its name comes from an earlier Xerox project, the Xerox Dragon. These were Sun's largest machines to date, and their first attempt at making a mainframe-class server.
Sun4d computers are true SMP systems; although memory and CPUs are installed per system board, the memory on a given board is not in any way "closer" to the CPUs on that same board. All memory and I/O devices are equally connected to all CPUs.
All of these computers use a passive backplane into which system boards are plugged. Each system board provides CPUs, memory, and an I/O bus. As system boards are added, these components are added to the whole in a completely seamless fashion. It is not a cluster, but works as a single large machine.
Sun4d computers include the SPARCcenter 2000 (1992) and SPARCserver 1000 (1993) from Sun Microsystems, and the Cray CS6400 (1993) from Cray Research. The system boards in these three machines are all slightly different, physically and electronically, and are not interchangeable.
All Sun4d machines provide JTAG ports, although unlike later systems the SPARCcenter and SPARCserver only use it for maintenance purposes.
The SPARCserver 1000 is a 5U rackmountable chassis with four 40 MHz XDBus slots, and space for four half-height 3.5" SCSI drives plus two half-height front-accessible 5.25" SCSI drives (typically used for CD-ROM and DAT). Each system board connects to one XDBus and provides two MBus slots for CPUs, three SBus slots for I/O boards, four banks of memory (four SIMMs apiece), and builtin SCSI-2, 10baseT Ethernet, and two serial ports. [1]
Maximum configuration: eight CPUs and 2 GB RAM.
The SPARCserver 1000E has a slightly faster XDBus (50 MHz). The system boards are not backwards compatible.
The SPARCserver 1000, like earlier Sun-4/xxx servers, has a set of LEDs on each system board that display diagnostics on POST, and CPU load while running. These allow the user to see at a glance how busy each processor on the system is. They are informally referred to as "Cylon" displays, because of the way each displays a single light bouncing back and forth resembles the scanner of the robots in the original Battlestar Galactica television series. [2]
The SPARCserver 1000 will run a slightly-patched Linux 2.4 kernel in SMP mode. [3]
A single octo-processor SPARCserver 1000 helped 117 SPARCstation 20 Model HS11 units, 87 with two 100 MHz hyperSPARC processors and 30 with four 100 MHz hyperSPARC processors, to render Toy Story . [4]
The SPARCcenter 2000 is a full rack system that includes a main chassis with ten 40MHz dual-XDBus slots and several disk arrays. The system boards connect to two XDBuses for extra bandwidth, and provide two MBus slots, four SBus slots, four banks of memory (four SIMMs apiece), and two serial ports apiece. Unlike the SPARCserver 1000 boards, they do not have a builtin SCSI and Ethernet port per system board. [5]
Maximum configuration: twenty CPUs and 5 GB RAM.
The SPARCcenter 2000E has a slightly faster XDBus (50 MHz). The system boards are not backwards compatible.
The Cray CS6400 is a 16-slot, 55 MHz quad-XDBus system. Each system board provides four MBus slots, four SBus slots, four banks of memory, and no builtin I/O ports.
Maximum configuration: sixty-four CPUs and 16 GB RAM. [6]
When SGI purchased Cray Research in 1996, they sold the division responsible for the CS6400 to Sun, where it was developed into the extremely successful Sun Enterprise 10000. [7]
Relative performance of Sun-4d machines, based on SPEC CINT92 Rate benchmarks: [8] [9]
| System | Processors | geometric mean rate_int92 | 008 espresso SPEC rate | 022 li SPEC rate | 023 eqntott SPEC rate | 026 compress SPEC rate | 072 sc SPEC rate | 085 gcc SPEC rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CS6400 | 64 | 101969 | 98449 | 147287 | 139144 | 32849 | 214882 | 78932 |
| SC2000E | 20 | 53714 | 46817 | 54551 | 74541 | 28564 | 107441 | 41111 |
| SS1000E | 8 | 21758 | 19578 | 26184 | 26089 | 11680 | 45238 | 15014 |
SBus is a computer bus system that was used in most SPARC-based computers from Sun Microsystems and others during the 1990s. It was introduced by Sun in 1989 to be a high-speed bus counterpart to their high-speed SPARC processors, replacing the earlier VMEbus used in their Motorola 68020- and 68030-based systems and early SPARC boxes. When Sun moved to open the SPARC definition in the early 1990s, SBus was likewise standardized and became IEEE-1496. In 1997 Sun started to migrate away from SBus to the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus, and today SBus is no longer used.
Sun Enterprise is a range of UNIX server computers produced by Sun Microsystems from 1996 to 2001. The line was launched as the Sun Ultra Enterprise series; the Ultra prefix was dropped around 1998. These systems are based on the 64-bit UltraSPARC microprocessor architecture and related to the contemporary Ultra series of computer workstations. Like the Ultra series, they run Solaris. Various models, from single-processor entry-level servers to large high-end multiprocessor servers were produced. The Enterprise brand was phased out in favor of the Sun Fire model line from 2001 onwards.
The SPARCstation, SPARCserver and SPARCcenter product lines are a series of SPARC-based computer workstations and servers in desktop, desk side (pedestal) and rack-based form factor configurations, that were developed and sold by Sun Microsystems.
MBus is a computer bus designed and implemented by Sun Microsystems for communication between high speed computer system components, such as the central processing unit, motherboard and main memory. SBus is used in the same machines to connect add-on cards to the motherboard.
The SPARCstation 20 or SS20 is a discontinued Sun Microsystems workstation introduced in March 1994 based on the SuperSPARC or hyperSPARC CPU. It is one of the last models in the SPARCstation family of Sun "pizza box" computers, which was superseded by the UltraSPARC design in 1995.
The SPARCstation 10 is a workstation computer made by Sun Microsystems. Announced in May 1992, it was Sun's first desktop multiprocessor. It was later replaced with the SPARCstation 20.
SPARCstation 5 or SS5 is a workstation introduced by Sun Microsystems in March 1994. It is based on the sun4m architecture, and is enclosed in a pizza-box chassis. Sun also offered a SPARCserver 5 without a framebuffer. A simplified, cheaper version of the SS5 was released in February 1995 as the SPARCstation 4. Sun also marketed these same machines under the "Netra" brand, without framebuffers or keyboards and preconfigured with all the requisite software to be used as web servers. An estimated 400,000+ SPARCstation 5s were sold.
The Sun Fire 15K was an enterprise-class server computer from Sun Microsystems based on the SPARC V9 processor architecture. It was announced on September 25, 2001, in New York City, superseding the Sun Enterprise 10000. General availability was in January 2002; the last to be shipped was in May 2005.
Sun-4 is a series of Unix workstations and servers produced by Sun Microsystems, launched in 1987. The original Sun-4 series were VMEbus-based systems similar to the earlier Sun-3 series, but employing microprocessors based on Sun's own SPARC V7 RISC architecture in place of the 68k family processors of previous Sun models.
The Sun-2 series of UNIX workstations and servers was launched by Sun Microsystems in November 1983. As the name suggests, the Sun-2 represented the second generation of Sun systems, superseding the original Sun-1 series. The Sun-2 series used a 10 MHz Motorola 68010 microprocessor with a proprietary Sun-2 Memory Management Unit (MMU), which enabled it to be the first Sun architecture to run a full virtual memory UNIX implementation, SunOS 1.0, based on 4.1BSD. Early Sun-2 models were based on the Intel Multibus architecture, with later models using VMEbus, which continued to be used in the successor Sun-3 and Sun-4 families.
The Cray Superserver 6400, or CS6400, is a discontinued multiprocessor server computer system produced by Cray Research Superservers, Inc., a subsidiary of Cray Research, and launched in 1993. The CS6400 was also sold as the Amdahl SPARCsummit 6400E.
The SPARCstation 2, or SS2 is a SPARC workstation computer sold by Sun Microsystems. It is based on the sun4c architecture, and is implemented in a pizza box form factor.
The Ultra 1 is a family of Sun Microsystems workstations based on the 64-bit UltraSPARC microprocessor. It was the first model in the Ultra series of Sun computers, which succeeded the SPARCstation series. It launched in November 1995 alongside the MP-capable Ultra 2 and shipped with Solaris 2.5. It is capable of running other operating systems such as Linux and BSD.
The Sun Microsystems Ultra 80 is a computer workstation that shipped from November 1999 to 2002.
The SGI Origin 2000 is a family of mid-range and high-end server computers developed and manufactured by Silicon Graphics (SGI). They were introduced in 1996 to succeed the SGI Challenge and POWER Challenge. At the time of introduction, these ran the IRIX operating system, originally version 6.4 and later, 6.5. A variant of the Origin 2000 with graphics capability is known as the Onyx2. An entry-level variant based on the same architecture but with a different hardware implementation is known as the Origin 200. The Origin 2000 was succeeded by the Origin 3000 in July 2000, and was discontinued on June 30, 2002.
The SPARCclassic is a workstation introduced by Sun Microsystems in November 1992. It is based on the sun4m architecture, and is enclosed in a lunchbox chassis. It shares the code name Sunergy with the SPARCclassic X, SPARCstation LX, and SPARCstation ZX. It was replaced by the SPARCstation 4 in February 1994.
The SPARCstation LX is a workstation that was designed, manufactured, and sold by Sun Microsystems. Introduced in November 1992, it is based on the sun4m architecture and enclosed in a lunchbox chassis. It shares the code name Sunergy with the low-end range of SPARCclassic, SPARCclassic X, and SPARCstation ZX.
The SPARCstation IPX is a workstation that was sold by Sun Microsystems, introduced July 1991. It is based on the sun4c architecture, and is enclosed in a lunchbox chassis.
The Ultra 60 is a fairly large and heavy computer workstation in a tower enclosure from Sun Microsystems. The Ultra 60 was launched in November 1997 and shipped with Solaris 7. It was available in several specifications.
The Ultra 30 is a family of Sun Microsystems workstations based on the UltraSPARC II microprocessor. It was the first Sun workstation to use the industry-standard PCI bus instead of Sun's proprietary SBus, and is a member of the Sun Ultra series. It launched in July 1997 and shipped with Solaris 2.6. The Ultra 30 reached its end-of-life in May 1999.