Sun/Microsoft Interoperability Center Build Out Phase II
This is our second trip to Redmond to work on the Sun/Microsoft Interoperability center. A number of additional systems have been delivered since the holiday break. We are going to spend the next two days assembling, racking and cabling these puppies. These new systems create a lot of excitement around us because of their unique and innovative designs. For example one of the stars is the Sun Fire X4500 data server that packs 48 disk drives and a 2-socket x64 server in a 4U form factor.
Here is a couple of Sun Fire X4500's sitting next to part of the ST6140 storage array.
As we go in the storage room downstairs, we find some Sun Fire X4450 (2U, 4 sockets) and Sun Fire X4600 (4U, 8 sockets) x64 servers. Here is Bill moving a 50+ Kg X4600 with just two fingers...
Also waiting for us are some Sun Blade 6000 chassis and blades. The 6000 chassis can host up to 10 blades (a. k. a. Server Modules) with either Sun UltraSPARC T2, AMD Opteron or Intel Xeon processors.
Some of the systems require assembly. For those that thought that a 2U high rackmount server is a small server, think again. The Sun Fire X4450 server packs 4 Quad-Core Xeon 7300 processors (that is 16 computing cores) with 32 DIMM slots (that is up to 128 GB of RAM using 4 GB DIMMs), 6 PCIe expansion slots and 8 internal SAS disk drives! Need to see it to believe it? Here is Trevor loading memory in a X4450. The 4 CPUs are located under the memory tray.
As we go back to the EEC data center to rack the new systems, I try to keep up with Trevor "Flash" McGill as he racks and cables everything in no time. Here he is racking a ST6140 Storage Array in .037 sec. I had to set my camera to a special action sport setting to capture this shot.
At the end of day 2 we have all the new gear racked and cabled. Part of the storage will be directly attached to the servers. Here are some Sun Fire X4450 servers with Sun StorageTek 2530 arrays directly connected. At the bottom are the rack power distribution units with the power switches ready to be turned ON.
At the bottom of the next rack is a Sun Blade 6000 chassis and blades ready to go. Bill and Trevor looking at a job well done.
The racks in the MPSC also received several additional systems, including a Sun Blade 6000 chassis.
The next and final steps will be to configure the networks and systems for remote management (all Sun x64 systems include a fully featured Service Processor with KVM over IP) and OS provisioning, then test the storage and we will be ready to go. Some of the systems are actually already running as I am typing this...
To be continued...
Looks like a lot of fun. Nice work.
One little thing I noticed: it appears the installer is not following ESD safe procedures. Laying the chassis on a cardboard box and plopping-in the DIMMs without a wrist strap seems a little counter productive in the long run, but what do I know?
Posted by noyb on January 30, 2008 at 08:13 PM PST #