Sun’s T2000 “Coolthreads” Server: First Impressions and Experiences
by Johan De Gelas on March 24, 2006 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
Words of thanks
A lot of people gave us assistance with this project, and we like to thank them, of course.
Chhandomay.Mandal, Sun US
Luojia Chen, Sun US
Peter A.Wilson, Sun US
Peter Hendrickx, Sun Belgium
(www.sun.com)
Colin Boroski, LPP (www.lpp.com)
Damon Muzny, AMD US (www.amd.com)
Ilona van Poppel, MSI Netherlands
Ruudt Swanen, MSI Netherlands
(www.msi-computer.nl)
Waseem Ahmad, Intel US
Matty Bakkeren, Intel Netherlands
Trevor E. Lawless, Intel US
(www.intel.com)
Bert Devriese, developer of MySQL&PHP benchmark
Brecht Kets , Development of improved Bench program
Tijl Deneut, Solaris support
Dieter Saeys, Linux support
Ben Motmans, .Net development
Sam Van Broeck, DB2 support
I also like to thank Lode De Geyter, manager of the PIH, for letting us, once again, use the infrastructure of the Technical University of Kortrijk to test the servers.
Benchmark configuration
We used Solaris 10 for the Sun T2000, as the only supported OS for the T2000 right now is Solaris 10 3/05 HW2 (and upwards). The T1 is fully binary compatible with the existing SPARC binaries, but it needs this version of Solaris.
The Sun T2000 server was the only that used 16 x 2 GB DIMMs, resulting in 32 GB of RAM. This gives the T2000 a small disadvantage in our first round of benchmarking (we do not use more than 4 GB in our web server test). So, the Sun CPU has a bit more "managing pages" overhead. However, Sun advised us to populate all DIMMs; so we did.
Our web server tests were performed on Apache2 2.0.55, including the mod_deflate module for gzip compression, PHP 4.4.0-r9 and Mysql 4.0.24. This last MySQL version was chosen because it came standard with our Sun T2000 and all tests proved to be very reliable with this version
Hardware configurations
Here is the list of the different configurations:
Sun T2000: Sun UltraSparc T1 1 GHz, 8 cores, 32 threads
Sun Solaris 10
32 GB (16x2048 MB) Crucial DDR-2 533
NIC: 1 Gb Intel RC82540EM - Intel E1000 driver
Gentoo Kernel 2.6.15-gentoo-r1
Intel® Server Board SE7520AF2
8 GB (8x1024 MB) Micron Registered DDR-II PC2-3200R, 400 MHz CAS 3, ECC enabled
NIC: Dual Intel® PRO/1000 Server NIC (Intel® 82546GB controller)
Opteron Server 1: Dual DualCore Opteron 275 and 27HE (2.2 GHz - 4 cores total)
Gentoo Kernel 2.6.15-gentoo-r1
Solaris x86 10
MSI K8N Master2-FAR
4 GB: 4x1GB MB Crucial DDR400 - (3-3-3-6)
NIC: Broadcom BCM5721 (PCI-E)
Opteron Server 2: MSI K2-102A2M, Dual Dual Core Opteron 275 and 275 HE
Gentoo Kernel 2.6.15-gentoo-r1
Solaris x86 10
4 GB: 4x1GB MB Crucial DDR400 - (3-3-3-6)
NIC: Broadcom BCM5721 (PCI-E)
Client Configuration: Dual Opteron 850
MSI K8T Master1-FAR
4x512 MB Infineon PC2700 Registered, ECC
NIC: Broadcom 5705
Shared Components
1 Seagate Cheetah 36 GB - 15000 RPM - SCSI 320 MB/s Maxtor 120 GB DiamondMax Plus 9 (7200 RPM, ATA-100/133, 8 MB cache)
Common Software
Apache2 2.0.55 + mod_deflate module for gzip compression
PHP 4.4.0-r9
Mysql 4.0.24
A lot of people gave us assistance with this project, and we like to thank them, of course.
Chhandomay.Mandal, Sun US
Luojia Chen, Sun US
Peter A.Wilson, Sun US
Peter Hendrickx, Sun Belgium
(www.sun.com)
Colin Boroski, LPP (www.lpp.com)
Damon Muzny, AMD US (www.amd.com)
Ilona van Poppel, MSI Netherlands
Ruudt Swanen, MSI Netherlands
(www.msi-computer.nl)
Waseem Ahmad, Intel US
Matty Bakkeren, Intel Netherlands
Trevor E. Lawless, Intel US
(www.intel.com)
Bert Devriese, developer of MySQL&PHP benchmark
Brecht Kets , Development of improved Bench program
Tijl Deneut, Solaris support
Dieter Saeys, Linux support
Ben Motmans, .Net development
Sam Van Broeck, DB2 support
I also like to thank Lode De Geyter, manager of the PIH, for letting us, once again, use the infrastructure of the Technical University of Kortrijk to test the servers.
Benchmark configuration
We used Solaris 10 for the Sun T2000, as the only supported OS for the T2000 right now is Solaris 10 3/05 HW2 (and upwards). The T1 is fully binary compatible with the existing SPARC binaries, but it needs this version of Solaris.
The Sun T2000 server was the only that used 16 x 2 GB DIMMs, resulting in 32 GB of RAM. This gives the T2000 a small disadvantage in our first round of benchmarking (we do not use more than 4 GB in our web server test). So, the Sun CPU has a bit more "managing pages" overhead. However, Sun advised us to populate all DIMMs; so we did.
Our web server tests were performed on Apache2 2.0.55, including the mod_deflate module for gzip compression, PHP 4.4.0-r9 and Mysql 4.0.24. This last MySQL version was chosen because it came standard with our Sun T2000 and all tests proved to be very reliable with this version
Hardware configurations
Here is the list of the different configurations:
Sun T2000: Sun UltraSparc T1 1 GHz, 8 cores, 32 threads
Sun Solaris 10
32 GB (16x2048 MB) Crucial DDR-2 533
NIC: 1 Gb Intel RC82540EM - Intel E1000 driver
Gentoo Kernel 2.6.15-gentoo-r1
Intel® Server Board SE7520AF2
8 GB (8x1024 MB) Micron Registered DDR-II PC2-3200R, 400 MHz CAS 3, ECC enabled
NIC: Dual Intel® PRO/1000 Server NIC (Intel® 82546GB controller)
Opteron Server 1: Dual DualCore Opteron 275 and 27HE (2.2 GHz - 4 cores total)
Gentoo Kernel 2.6.15-gentoo-r1
Solaris x86 10
MSI K8N Master2-FAR
4 GB: 4x1GB MB Crucial DDR400 - (3-3-3-6)
NIC: Broadcom BCM5721 (PCI-E)
Opteron Server 2: MSI K2-102A2M, Dual Dual Core Opteron 275 and 275 HE
Gentoo Kernel 2.6.15-gentoo-r1
Solaris x86 10
4 GB: 4x1GB MB Crucial DDR400 - (3-3-3-6)
NIC: Broadcom BCM5721 (PCI-E)
Client Configuration: Dual Opteron 850
MSI K8T Master1-FAR
4x512 MB Infineon PC2700 Registered, ECC
NIC: Broadcom 5705
Shared Components
1 Seagate Cheetah 36 GB - 15000 RPM - SCSI 320 MB/s Maxtor 120 GB DiamondMax Plus 9 (7200 RPM, ATA-100/133, 8 MB cache)
Common Software
Apache2 2.0.55 + mod_deflate module for gzip compression
PHP 4.4.0-r9
Mysql 4.0.24
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26 Comments
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phantasm - Wednesday, April 5, 2006 - link
While I appreciate the review, especially the performance benchmarks between Solaris and Linux on like hardware, I can't help but feel this article falls short in terms of an enterprise class server review which, undoubtedly, a lot of enterprise class folks will be looking for.* Given the enterprise characteristics of the T2000 I would have liked to see a comparison against an HP DL385 and IBM x366.
* The performance testing should have been done with the standard Opteron processors (versus the HE). The HP DL385 using non HE processors have nearly the same power and thermal characteristics as the T2000. DL385 is a 4A 1615 BTU system whereas the T2000 is a 4A 1365 BTU system.
* The T2000 is difficient in serveral design areas. It has a tool-less case lid that is easily removable. However, our experience has been that it opens too easily and given the 'embedded kill switch' it immediately shuts off without warning. Closing the case requires slamming the lid shut several times.
* The T2000 only supports *half height* PCI-E/X cards. This is an issue with using 3rd party cards.
* Solaris installation has a nifty power savings feature enabled by default. However, rather than throtteling CPU speed or fans it simply shuts down to the OK prompt after 30 minutes of a 'threshold' not being met. Luckily this 'feature' can be disabled through the OS.
* Power button -- I ask any T2000 owner to show me one that doesn't have a blue or black mark from a ball point pen on their power button. Sun really needs to make a more usable power button on these systems.
* Disk drives -- The disk drives are not labeled with FRU numbers or any indication to size and speed.
* Installing and configuring Solaris on a T2000 versus Linux on an x86 system will take a factor of 10x longer. Most commonly, this is initially done through a hyperterm access through the remote console. (Painful) Luckily subsequent builds can be done through a jumpstart server.
* HW RAID Configuration -- This can only be done through the Solaris OS commands.
I hope Anandtech takes up the former call to begin enterprise class server reviews.
JohanAnandtech - Thursday, April 6, 2006 - link
DL385 will be in our next test.All other issues you adressed will definitely be checked and tested.
That it falls short of a full review is clearly indicated by "first impressions" and it has been made clear several times in the article. Just give us a bit more time to get the issues out of our benchmarks. We had to move all our typical linux x86 benchmarks to Solaris and The T1 and keep it fair to Sun. This meant that we had to invest massive amounts of time in migrating databases and applications and tuning them.
davem330 - Friday, March 24, 2006 - link
You aren't seeing the same kind of performance that Sun is claimingregarding Spec Web2005 because Sun specifically choose workloads
that make heavy use of SSL.
Niagara has on-chip SSL acceleration, using a per-core modular
arithmetic unit.
BTW, would be nice to get a Linux review on the T2000 :-)
blackbrrd - Saturday, March 25, 2006 - link
Good point about the ssl.I can see both ssl and gzip beeing used quite often, so please include ssl into the benchmarks.
As mentioned in the article 1-2% of FP operations affect the server quite badly, so I would say that getting one FPU per core would make the cpu a lot better, looking forward to seeing results from the next generation.
.. but then again, both Intel and AMD will probably have launched quad cores by then...
Anyway, its interesting seeing a third contender :)
yonzie - Friday, March 24, 2006 - link
Nice review, a few comments though:I think that should have been , although you might mean dual channel ECC memory, but if that's the case it's a strange way to write it IMHO.
No mention of the Pentium M on page 4, but it shows up in benchmarks on page 5 but not further on... Would have been interesting :-(
And the second scenario is what exactly? ;-) (yeah, I know it's written a few paragraphs later, but...)
Oh, and more pretty pictures pls ^_^
sitheris - Friday, March 24, 2006 - link
Why not benchmark it on a more intensive application like Oracle 10gJohanAnandtech - Friday, March 24, 2006 - link
We are still tuning and making sure our results are 100% accurate. Sounds easy, but it is incredible complex.But they are coming
Anyway, no Oracle, we have no support from them so far.
JCheng - Friday, March 24, 2006 - link
By using a cache file you are all but taking MySQL and PHP out of the equation. The vast majority of requests will be filled by simply including the cached content. Can we get another set of results with the caching turned off?ormandj - Friday, March 24, 2006 - link
I would agree. Not only that, but I sure would like to know what the disk configuration was. Especially reading from a static file, this makes a big difference. Turn off caching and see how it does, that should be interesting!Disk configurations please! :)
kamper - Friday, March 31, 2006 - link
No kidding. I thought that php script was pretty dumb. Once a minute you'll get a complete anomaly as a whole load of concurrent requests all detect an out of date file, recalculate it and then try to dump their results at the same time.How much time was spent testing each request rate and did you try to make sure each run came across the anomaly in the same way, the same number of times?