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Starfire Administration
Jeff Ruggeri
The Enterprise line of Sun servers has proven, over time, to be an indomitable force in large-scale UNIX installations. Despite this fact, administration of the largest enterprise server still remains something of a mystery to many Solaris sys admins. The E10000, or Starfire, has brought many interesting new dimensions to the Solaris environment that dramatically enhance the existing flexibility and power of a Sun. The goal of this article is to explain precisely what makes this machine so different, and to demystify some of the concepts and eccentricities surrounding administration of what is arguably one of the most versatile machines available today.
The System
The first difference between the Starfire and its enterprise line of cousins is its capacity. Physically, the Starfire is much larger than the rest of the line, and its curvy design is made to stand out in a data center full of boxy machines. Peeking under the hood proves that it doesn't just look big and fast. With support for up to 64 CPUs overall, this machine can give nearly any vendor's largest workhorse a run for its money. However, the central concept that differentiates the Starfire from any other system is that it is capable of being partitioned into several logical machines, or domains, each of which can operate as a stand-alone Solaris box. Beyond that, system boards can be dynamically added to or removed from a running domain, allowing for previously unthinkable levels of flexibility in production environments. In addition to dynamic reconfiguration, other features such as a floating network console (netcon) and a system service processor (SSP) further enrich the machine. The SSP is the hub of operations for the Starfire, actually a separate machine, from which every aspect of the environment can be controlled.
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