How many domains can you configure on a Sun M5000 system?

Question

We have a few Sun M5000 servers with the following configuration:

Each system has 2 system boards each containing 2 x 2.5Ghz quad core processors
Each system board has 16GB of RAM
Each system has 4 x 300GB disks

I would like to know how many hardware domains can I configure per system? Do I need one system board per domain (implying a total of 2 domains), or can I create 4 domains, each with one cpu each?

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 05 '09 at 16:32

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The maximum number of domains on an M5000 is four.

http://www.sun.com/servers/midrange/m5000/specs.xml

answered Aug 05 '09 at 16:32

Kevin Kuphal

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Yes, in a fully populated M5000 you can have 4 domains, but I want to know how many domains I can configure with my configuration (only 2 system boards) – Andre Miller Aug 06 '09 at 07:50
Since you can only have 4 CPU, 2 CPU per board, you are maxed out which leads me to believe you can have up to four domains. – Kevin Kuphal Aug 06 '09 at 19:21
No, the M5000 can have have up to 8 CPU's – Andre Miller Aug 09 '09 at 13:07
Better tell Sun to update their specs – Kevin Kuphal Aug 15 '09 at 04:13
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Not sure where you saw it can only support 4, in the specs you linked it clearly states: "Ability to mix and match up to 8 SPARC64 VII quad-core processors or SPARC64 VI dual-core processors in the same system" – Andre Miller Oct 22 '09 at 14:08

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 22 '09 at 14:10

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Even though the maximum number of domains supported on the M5000 is four, that also requires 4 system boards.

So in this configuration (2 system boards), the max number of domains is 2. To get 4 domains two more system boards were required.

answered Oct 22 '09 at 14:10

Andre Miller

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered May 03 '10 at 19:32

The Maximum number of domains is 4.

The M5000 has 2 System Boards, can take 4 CPU trays, 8 RAM trays, 2 IOboats, 4 HDD, 1 CDROM, and am optional tape drive.

Most of the answers confuse system boards (SB) with CPU trays. The M5000 comes with 2 SBs in the case at purchase, each SB has slots for 2 CPU trays (with 2 cpu each) and 4 RAM trays.

With both system boards in UNI-Board config you have a maximum of 2 domains. However if a SB is fully populated with CPU trays (ie 2), then the SB can be put in X-board config. Meaning each of the 4 CPUs get associated with one of the 4 RAM trays and each CPU can be assigned to a domain. Note that a domain also requires RAM, so you cannot create a domain with only CPUs and no RAM trays.

So with only 1 fully populated SB (aka 2 CPU trays + 4 RAM trays) you can create 4 domains with 1 CPU (half a CPU tray) and 1 RAM tray each.

Hard drives and PCIe/PCIX slots can all be individually assigned to different domains.

ps. If you can, use same size ram trays. You cannot just mix say 2x16GB trays and 2x32GB trays, all trays need to be opened and DIMMs relocated

How many domains can you configure on a Sun M5000 system?

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