-C H A P T E R

C H A P T E R 3

Differences Between Sun Fire High-End System Software and Sun Enterprise 10000 Software

Many Sun Fire high-end system administrators have significant experience with Sun Enterprise 10000 (Starfire trademark ) systems. This chapter provides a quick overview of major differences between the software on the two systems.

The Sun Enterprise 10000 system is the predecessor of the Sun Fire high-end systems, and the two families of systems share a number of architectural features. Most important, they both feature a single-chassis platform that contains sufficient processors, memory, and input-output (I/O) channels for many separately configured domains to run completely separated applications in separate instances of the Solaris Operating Environment within the same physical chassis.

For both Sun Enterprise 10000 systems and Sun Fire high-end systems, the software monitors and enables control of the entire platform.

Sun Enterprise 10000 system software is called System Service Processor (SSP) software. The SSP software runs in the Solaris Operating Environment on a physically separate Sun workstation.
Sun Fire high-end systems software is called System Management Services (SMS) software and runs on a single-board computer called a system controller (SC). A second system controller is configured inside the chassis as well, so that platform monitoring and management operations can fail over to the spare SC in case a problem develops with the main SC.

System Management Services Software

System administrators familiar with SSP software will have little trouble adapting to SMS software. Both use similar command-line interface (CLI) commands to perform platform management. SMS software has several advantages over SSP software:

SMS software is more flexible than SSP software.
SMS software is more secure than SSP software.
SMS software is sufficient for complete platform management.

Unlike SSP software, there is no equivalent of the SSP hostview(1M) graphical user interface (GUI). To perform Sun Fire high-end systems monitoring and management with a GUI, use Sun Management Center software. See Chapter 7 for more information about Sun Management Center software.

Since the Sun Fire high-end system controller is housed inside the Sun Fire high-end systems chassis, there is no equivalent to the control boards found on the SSP. Hardware access, performed by the control boards on the SSP, is handled on Sun Fire high-end systems by the 1²C, console, and pci busses.

The Sun Enterprise 10000 public network provided DR and console communication. The Management Network hardware and software on the Sun Fire high-end system controls communication between the SC and individual domains. The Management Network is a closed network with no user interaction. Although no user involvement is required, it is necessary to configure a block of available IP addresses for the Management Network before the Sun Fire high-end systems are put into service. For a checklist that includes this step, refer to the Sun Fire 15K/12K System Site Planning Guide shipped with the Sun Fire high-end systems.

In addition to increases in size and performance, Sun Fire high-end systems use a different system architecture, featuring the Sun trademark Fireplane interconnect, a higher-bandwidth centerplane and bus architecture. As a result, the nomenclature for identifying devices and attachment points differs from that of Sun Enterprise 10000 systems. This nomenclature change also affects dynamic reconfiguration and Sun Management Center operations.

For enhanced security between domains, Sun Fire high-end systems use and enforce a community separation model. This security model is different from that used on Sun Enterprise 10000 systems. Refer to System Management Services Administrator Guide for more information about community separation.

Administering Solaris Domains

The same Solaris Operating Environment runs on Sun Fire high-end system domains and system controllers as on other Sun hardware platforms. This commonality is advantageous for customers who are adding Sun Fire high-end systems to an existing Sun network, and for system administrators who are already familiar with the Solaris Operating Environment running on workstations and other systems.

The Solaris software release incorporates Sun Fire high-end system software commands, drivers, and support files, including domain-side dynamic reconfiguration and Management Network software components.

Installation documentation for the Solaris Operating Environment has been revised to accommodate platforms that support multiple domains, such as Sun Fire high-end systems and Sun Enterprise 10000 systems. As a result, the separate installation instructions for Sun Enterprise 10000 systems found in the Hardware Platform Guide are now contained in the Solaris installation documentation and in the System Management Services Administrator Guide.

Dynamic Reconfiguration Software

Dynamic reconfiguration software enables you to move, remove, and add physical resources such as system boards and processors to and from operating domains. Unlike SMS software operations, DR operations can be performed both on the platform system controller, affecting multiple domains, and by logging directly on to an individual domain.

Dynamic reconfiguration on Sun Fire high-end systems is more powerful and more streamlined than on Sun Enterprise 10000 systems, but the underlying concepts and operations are similar.

Syntax differs somewhat between the two systems when operations are performed while logged on to the system controller. DR operations performed while logged on to an individual domain, however, are similar.

Sun Management Center Software

Sun Management Center software on Sun Fire high-end systems is very similar to Sun Management Center software on Sun Enterprise 10000 systems. There are, however, two important differences:

Because the physical architecture of the two systems is substantially different, Sun Management Center will report different properties and values for many hardware components. These properties are displayed in different tables and with different names. The rules governing the alarms for these properties also have different names.
In addition to the platform-monitoring capabilities found on both systems, Sun Management Center on Sun Fire high-end systems enables you to perform platform-management operations such as dynamic reconfiguration. These operations are explained in the Sun Management Center Supplement for Sun Fire 15K/12K Systems.

IDN and AP Software

Inter-Domain Networking (IDN) and alternate pathing (AP) software is available for Sun Enterprise 10000 systems but does not exist on Sun Fire high-end systems in the current release.

The AP functionality found in Sun Enterprise 10000 system software is superseded by functionality included in the Solaris Operating Environment.