BUSINESS ERA

Sun Microsystem's Sun Fire X4275 is an excellent all-rounder, although we'd love it if the noise could be cut down a little more.

External and internal design

The front of Sun's 2RU Xeon 5500 series server is dominated by 12 quick-release 3.5-inch drive bays, with a smattering of diagnostic lights — some on the drive sleds themselves for quick-look determination of failure. Six of the sleds in our supplied machine were blanks, waiting to be replaced with the real thing when necessary.

A flip lid exposes two banks of six Servo G0638D12BAZP-10 60mm fan units for a total of 12 units, each unit containing its own redundant fan. They're quick-removable simply by pulling on them, no latch required — however, you can't pull only one fan at a time if it fails, as two fans are attached to each quick removable module.

The 60mm fans are quite loud as server fans tend to be, and come in modules of two.
(Credit: CBS Interactive)

Each one of these pushes 69.3CFM of air at a maximum of 12,000rpm at 63dBA — needless to say the 12 of them, in combination with the Sanyo Denki 40mm, max 14,700rpm, 24CFM, 55dBA fans in both Power-One SPASUNM-03G 1050W, 85 per cent efficiency power supplies make a hell of a racket when the server is running at full load. Sun claims an operational noise level of 69.8dBA.

The redundant power supply. Each module runs at a stonking 1050W. (Credit: CBS Interactive)

Once you've flipped the fan lid you can push the rest of the lid off by sliding a button to the side, although if the server is running this will immediately power it down. This not only reveals the machine's innards, but the plastic baffling shielding the RAM and CPU heatsinks to direct airflow from the front of the machine to the back. This can be lifted off via a hinge attached to the rear of the fan cage.

The dual CPUs and RAM are covered with a plastic baffle to direct airflow.
(Credit: CBS Interactive)

Specs

The server supplied to us by Sun contained two Xeon E5540 "Gainestown" CPUs clocked at 2.53GHz with four physical cores apiece. With a Hyperthreading-aware OS, though, it presents itself as capable of handling 16 threads, resulting in a task manager likely to create a bit of envy. Three 2GB PC3-8500 RAM sticks were dedicated to each CPU for a total of 12GB system RAM, with timings of 7:7:7:20:1T. There's 18 RAM slots total, supporting a maximum of 144GB RAM.

Internally Sun supplies three proprietary slots that are connected to three daughterboards, each supplying dual-90° rotated PCI-E 2.0 8x slots. An internal USB port and a CF card slot are present on the motherboard should you need to boot an OS or VM off them, run a USB dongle internally or you require an intent log.

Two mini-SAS ports are on-board. One supports four channels, the other two, however, the two Seagate 300GB Cheetah 15K.6 SAS drives and four Hitachi Ultrastar 1TB drives that were supplied, were hooked into an Adaptec 5805 that identified itself as a "Sun STK RAID INT Controller". Interestingly, neither hardware arrays or zpools were set up, each drive was just sitting happily on the card individually, waiting for the sysadmin to configure it to their needs.

Adaptec's 5805 supplies the RAID acceleration for the Sun Fire. (Credit: CBS Interactive)

An Aspeed AST2100 performs its requisite underpowered VGA duties, only offering 4:3 resolutions. In Solaris it can manage up to 1600x1200, in Windows Server 2008, 1024x768. Flipping around to the rear presents two more USB ports, four gigabit Ethernet ports powered by Intel 82575EB chipsets, net management and serial management ports, the latter of which can be plugged into a supplied RJ45 > DB9 adapter, all connecting to Sun's ILOM.

Management ports and Ethernet ports dot the rear of the machine. To the right are two USB ports and a VGA port. (Credit: CBS Interactive)

Of course, as with any server, configuration options are vast depending on your needs and budget. While no doubt Sun would love to ship you Solaris (our review sample came with Solaris 10 10/08 installed to one of the SAS drives), being one of its x86 machines allows it to offer OpenSolaris, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.7 or 5.3, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP2, VMware ESX/i 3.5 U4, Windows Server 2003 and 2008 as well.

Performance

Performance in any situation when it comes to a server is an open-ended question. How is it configured? What environment is it installed in? What software do you need to run? What's more important, CPU grunt or disk I/O? Ultimately establishing a set of meaningful benchmarks that can appeal to all is a tough exercise at the server-end of town, and most would be best off running an evaluation program and testing what IOPS they can pull in their own environment before purchasing.

For those interested in the new Xeon 5500 architecture though, a few "canned", CPU-based benchmarks were run for the sake of comparison: Cinebench R10, STARS Euler3d CFD, and wPrime.

Cinebench R10, 1 CPU	3641CB
Cinebench R10, 16 CPU	24210CB
STARS Euler3d CFD, 16 threads	5.857Hz
wPrime 32M	6.02s
wPrime 1024M	144.581s

Verdict

Sun Microsystem's Sun Fire is an excellent all-rounder that can be custom-specced to suit most small-to-medium-business needs. Whether you need to apply yourself with some dense storage or just need the compute power of 16 cores, its flexibility is commendable. It's not the quietest server around, but stuck in a server room no one is likely to notice.

SPECIFICATIONS

Manufacturer: Sun

Connectivity

• Network interface
• 10/100/1000 LAN

Drives

• Primary hard drive
• 300 GB

General

• Dimensions (H x W x D)
• 87.6 x 436.5 x 762.0 mm

• Weight
• 29.54 kg

Graphics

• Graphics hardware
• Aspeed AST 2100

Memory

• Amt of RAM
• 12GB

• RAM type
• DDR3-1066

Processor

• Processor
• Intel Xeon

• Processor speed
• 2.53 GHz

Software

• Operating system
• Sun Solaris 10

Source:zdnet

The Altos R520 is a 1U rack-mount server with a clear role hosting infrastructure services such as Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, security firewalls and so on. It's also very scalable: it can be configured with enough processing power to handle Web applications, and has room for enough internal storage to cope with basic file- and print-sharing duties. At a push you could even use it as a database or e-mail server, although you may need to add external storage or connect to a SAN (Storage Area Network) where large amounts of data are involved.

It's only 1U high, but there's a lot crammed into the Altos R520, including dual core processors, masses of memory and up to eight internal hard disks.

Housed in a solid metal chassis with a clip-on front bezel, Acer has opted for a standard Intel OEM case with a slide-off lid giving plenty of elbow room when the internals need attention. Dual redundant power supplies were fitted on the review system, and we also counted some ten cooling fans in the main cavity plus two more in each of the power supplies. That's more than enough to ensure adequate airflow in a crowded rack, but when they're all running they do make the R520 sound a bit like a jet fighter.

The internal layout is extremely neat. The Intel S5000PAL motherboard occupies about a third of the space with very few cables required; those that are needed are all clearly labelled. Diagrams and part lists are also pasted on the inside of the lid.

Two sockets are provided for 64-bit Intel Xeon processors. The test machine came with a pair of dual-core 1.6GHz Xeon 5110 chips, but any processor from the Xeon 5000 family can be specified including both dual and quad core implementations, with 4MB of L2 cache and clock speeds of up to 3GHz.

That makes the server very scalable. With dual-core processors, for example, you're effectively buying a 4-way server, while with quad-cores fitted you're into 8-way territory. Moreover, the Xeon 5000 processors all include support for Intel's Virtualisation Technology (VT), making the R520 a good choice when it comes to running the latest VMWare, XenSource and Microsoft virtualisation tools that can take advantage of this feature.

To go with the processors the motherboard has lots of room to add memory, with eight paired DIMM slots on the quad-channel memory bus designed to take fully buffered DDR2 667 modules. The review server came with a modest 2GB installed, but, with the right capacity DIMMs, you can fit as much as 32GB altogether.

Error Checking and Correction (ECC), also comes as standard with optional memory mirroring and sparing to cope with possible failures. However, you'll need at least double the RAM to take advantage of these options, making the server unnecessarily expensive if high availability isn't a priority.

A year or so ago we wouldn't have expected much internal storage on this kind of 1U server. However, with the advent of smaller 2.5in. disks that's no longer the case. In fact, the Intel chassis used here has slots to take up to eight such disks altogether, plus an optional optical drive if required. In Acer's configuration, two of these slots are for fixed disks while the remaining six are designed to be hot-swappable, with the disks mounted in special slide-out carriers.

Note, though, that the base models shipped by Acer don't include any disks as standard -- that's typically down to the reseller. Ours came with a pair of 5,400rpm 80GB SATA Hitachi disks cabled to a separate daughterboard that can be swapped for a Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) card and drives if preferred. Either way, the maximum internal capacity is just under 1.2TB with plenty of choice when it comes to 2.5in. disk capacity and speed. RAID facilities are also built in, although mostly implemented in software -- in which case, if data availability is an issue, it might be worth considering a plug-in host bus adapter instead.

An ATI controller looks after the display, while a pair of Intel PRO/1000 Ethernet interfaces handle network connection. You also get two expansion slots, both capable of taking PCI Express adapters, one of which takes high-profile cards and can also accommodate PCI-X adapters. As a result, you could easily add a host bus adapter for either internal or external storage, or additional network cards for connection to an iSCSI Storage Area Network.

Remote console redirection is yet another built-in option, and Acer also bundles its own server management tools with the R520. However, unlike servers from a direct seller such as Dell, the price doesn't include an operating system or any help when it comes to installation. An optical drive is extra too, but both can be supplied by the reseller. Given that it's based on industry-standard Intel components, all the usual certifications for Windows, Linux and NetWare apply to the R520. Acer itself offers a three-year on-site warranty for the hardware with additional installation, service and support services available from the reseller or system integrator involved.

SPECIFICATIONS

Source:zdnet

It can handle a wide range of backend business applications, but HP's Proliant ML370 G5 is over-specified for organisations with more modest requirements.

The first thing you notice about the HP ProLiant ML370 G5 is its size. It's massive, with room for not just the latest dual-core Xeon processors but enough memory, storage and other options to suit a wide range of applications. Because it's very solidly built, the huge desk-side tower housing the ML370 is extremely heavy, requiring two people to lift it. It can also be rack mounted if required, although it ends up 5U high and the rack would need to be well anchored to prevent it tipping -- especially if you choose any of the optional extras. Our review model, for example, came with a redundant second power supply and an additional bank of hot-swap fans. You can also add a lot of storage, making for a very heavy and, at times, quite noisy system.

Still, all that bulk means plenty of space to configure the server to your exact requirements, starting with processors. As with the Dell PowerEdge1950, HP now supports the latest Intel dual-core Xeon "Woodcrest" chips, and our review system came with a single Xeon 5140 clocked at 2.33MHz with a 1333MHz frontside bus (FSB). However, you can choose from a variety of Xeon 5000 and 5100-series chips and fit up to two on the Intel motherboard to suit a wide range of applications.

Quad-core chips are also available for the ML370 G5. Note, though, that as on the Dell PowerEdge 1950, the faster processors can push the price up significantly so it's worth making sure that any performance gains will actually be exploited and that the rest of the configuration is up to the job.

Similar comments apply when it comes to memory: specifying more than you need will be costly and pointless unless you expect demand to grow in the future. Our review server came with 2GB, which is a good starting point; fully buffered DDR2 DRAM is used throughout, and there's support for ECC, online sparing and memory mirroring for maximum availability. You can also specify an optional second memory board, taking the maximum RAM capacity up to 64GB. This is double the amount that the 1U PowerEdge 1950 can handle, and is great for data-intensive database servers.

The massive tower chassis provides plenty of room for storage. There are eight 2.5-inch hot-swap drive bays on the review machine, but these only take up half of the available space set. Another set can also be configured with Serial Attached SCSI (SAS), which is the preferred technology here, HP having recently announced its intention to standardise on 2.5-inch SAS disks across the ProLiant family. An integrated RAID controller comes as standard, while a variety of others can be specified to fit into the two PCI-X and six free PCI Express expansion slots, plus a huge number of external storage options.

For this review, HP provided a pair of 36GB 10,000rpm drives, but 72GB and 146GB disks are also available, giving a maximum internal capacity of over 2TB, depending on the level of RAID protection configured. SATA disks can also be specified, although 60GB drives are the only option in this case. However, on this kind of server, most buyers will opt for SAS.

A Gigabit Ethernet server adaptor with built-in TCP offload engine is integrated onto the motherboard, and this could be used for connecting to an iSCSI SAN. The ML370 G5 server also gets a new integrated Lights-Out (iLO) remote management processor, adding virtual KVM and power management facilities that enable the ProLiant server to be controlled remotely via a Web browser. Remote management, of course, is also possible using a variety of tools, some of which are included as standard, with others being optional extras.

Finally, the HP hardware is fully certified for all the leading Windows, Linux and Unix operating system implementations. These can also be preinstalled along with selected applications configured to customer specifications, although the range and cost of such services is likely to differ depending on the reseller or system integrator involved.

We were very impressed with what the new ML370 G5 has to offer. It's perhaps a little over the top for basic file and print sharing, but as a database server or as an ERP platform in a larger company it's got everything you might need, and then some.

With computing power to burn, the PowerEdge 1950 is ideal where high performance is required, such as clustering and Web front-end duties. However, the ramped format does make life more difficult when it comes to database hosting and other backend deployments.

A two-way SMP server designed to accommodate Intel dual-core Xeon processors, the PowerEdge 1950 sits at the top of Dell's 1U rack-mount range. It's not a particularly expandable solution -- there simply isn't room for lots of adaptors or disks -- but that hasn't stopped Dell's designers cramming a lot in to create a server that can be used for a variety of purposes.

The PE 1950 is very solid and well built. No special tools are needed to install or service it, and the whole of the top lifts off for access. A sliding rail kit can be supplied as an optional extra and there's a lockable front bezel to prevent unauthorised tampering and stop the server being switched off accidentally. You can also specify a second, redundant, power supply if required.

The Intel motherboard takes up only a fraction of the space inside the chassis, with two prominent sockets for the 64-bit Xeon processors. The review system came with Woodcrest chips fitted (now referred to as the Xeon 5000 and 5100 series), which are both faster and more energy-efficient than earlier Intel dual-core designs. However, the amount of power you'll have on tap will depend on the processors chosen, as will the price you'll have to pay.

Dual-core prices continue to fall as new designs are introduced and quad-core products are released. Our review sample, for example, had a pair of mid-range Xeon 5140 chips, clocked at 2.33GHz with a 1,333MHz front side bus (FSB). You can also specify the much faster (3GHz) 5160 chips. At the other end of the scale are the Xeon 5050 processors, also clocked at 3GHz but with a 667MHz FSB. Dell has also recently added quad-core Xeons as an option.

Of course you could start with one processor and add another later as needed, but with such a huge range of options and prices it's worth getting some expert advice. A low-cost configuration with one processor, for example, will probably be more than adequate for basic file and print sharing, but processor performance can have a big impact when it comes to clustering and application hosting. It's also worth bearing in mind that processors need to be matched, and if you don't order what you want up front you could encounter difficulties when upgrading later on. This perhaps explains why very few two-way purchases are ever beefed up with a second processor.

Memory can also have a big effect, both on your wallet and what you can do with the server. There are eight DIMM sockets on the PE 1950, which can accommodate up to 32GB of DDR2, fully buffered, DRAM with optional memory sparing and mirroring capabilities for those looking for maximum reliability. You can start with as little as 256MB, but ours had a more reasonable 4GB -- more than enough for file sharing and a decent amount if you're hosting an intranet server or a small company e-mail system.

There are yet more options when it comes to storage, starting with a choice between standard 3.5-inch internal hard disks or small 2.5-inch notebook-format drives. With 3.5-inch drives the limit is just two, using either Serial ATA (SATA) or Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) connectivity. The SATA disks can hold up to 750GB each, while the biggest SAS drive is limited to 300GB. If you opt for smaller 2.5-inch drives, SAS is your only choice, at a mere 73GB per disk; however, you can cram four 2.5-inch disks into the case, as on our review system.

Our review server also came with a basic integrated RAID controller, although more advanced plug-in RAID adaptors are optionally available. You can also specify a TCP offload engine (TOE) to be enabled as an option on the integrated Gigabit Ethernet network interface, which would be valuable when connecting the server to an iSCSI SAN.

Further expansion is via plug-in adaptors: riser cards provide either two x8 lane PCI-Express slots or a pair of 64-bit 133MHz PCI-X connectors.

On the software front, Dell will factory-install Windows Server 2003, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 ES or SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10. Finally, you get the usual integrated remote management controller plus additional out-of-band management options.

Dell PowerEdge 1950
Company: Dell
Price: AU$9,079.40

Source:zdnet

This is a good choice for compute-intensive applications, but the System x3455's restricted storage and availability options limit its use when it comes to general hosting duties.

Like both Dell and HP, IBM sells a variety of industry-standard servers based on Intel dual-core, and now quad-core processors. However, IBM was also one of the first server vendors to use AMD silicon, and the model we looked at, from its xSeries family, is based on the latest dual-core Opteron chips introduced in 2006. There are several different AMD models in the xSeries line-up: the System x3455 is a 1U rack-mount server targeted primarily at customers looking to run compute-intensive scientific, technical and financial modelling applications. As such, it can be fitted with two dual-core Opteron processors but is somewhat restricted when it comes to storage and redundancy options.

On the plus side, the two processor sockets are capable of accommodating a variety of chips from the 64-bit Opteron 2000 family. These processors are designed specifically for two-way server deployment.

Clock speeds vary from 1.8GHz on the Opteron 2210 through to 2.8GHz on the 2220; our review system came with a pair of 2.6GHz 2218 chips fitted. However, as with the Intel processors, some care and advice is needed here as unused power can be expensive -- as can be upgrading to faster processors should the initial configuration prove inadequate.

Note, too, that slower chips are more energy efficient, enabling the x3455 to get by on just 95W compared to around 110W with the fastest processors installed.

Other than these differences, the processor specification is much the same, with 2MB of L2 cache per socket (1MB per core), support for DDR2 memory and built-in hardware virtualisation features (AMD-V) -- useful when running applications such as VMWare, Microsoft Virtual Server and Xen Server software.

Naturally the processors also feature support for AMD's Direct Connect architecture, which does away with the concept of a frontside bus. Instead, the memory and data I/O are all managed directly by the CPUs, with on-die controllers able to communicate at processor speeds. This approach also provides much more linear scaling as processors and cores are added, with dedicated HyperTransport links for inter-processor and external I/O communications.

What this all means in actual performance terms will depend on the overall configuration. However, in independent benchmarks dual-core AMD Opterons have generally been found to outpace Intel's Xeon equivalents. Moreover, it has no effect whatsoever on compatibility, with the x3455 and other AMD-based servers certified for and able to run the same range of Windows, Linux and other industry-standard server software. Depending on the reseller, you can also have an operating system and application software preinstalled.

On the downside, quad-core Opterons are not yet available (they are planned for release later in 2007). However, the new processors will use the same socket as the existing dual-core designs, so the x3455 and other AMD Socket F-based servers will be upgradeable in much the same fashion as those designed around the latest dual-core Intel Xeon chips.

Our test server had a basic 2GB of memory fitted, while the maximum capacity on the x3455 is 48GB using 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM with six DIMMs per processor. This is part of what IBM calls its Xcelerated Memory Technology, which it claims enhances the level of performance possible over comparable Intel-based platforms. Note, however, that the memory is interleaved, so DIMMs have to be added in pairs with ECC and optional Chipkill support so that the server can continue working should a DIMM become defective.

Unfortunately it's not all good news, with the biggest limiting factor on the x3455 the provision of just two 3.5-inch internal hard disk bays. That limits storage capacity to 1TB using SATA-150 drives or 600MB with SAS, which is reasonable enough. However, there's no support for hot-swapping and the fact that there are just two spindles limits the level of redundancy that can be provided. Indeed, with just two spindles the built-in RAID controller is limited to fixed mirroring/duplexing -- although plug-in adaptors can, of course, be used to connect the IBM server to larger, more flexible, external storage arrays and SAN set-ups.

Two Gigabit Ethernet interfaces are provided, but there's no TCP offload support and you only get two 64-bit PCI-Express expansion slots. One of these can accommodate x16 adaptors while the other is an x8 slot that can also to take so-called HTx cards designed to interface with the I/O subsystem using the AMD DirectConnect architecture. An InfiniBand card is one adaptor that can take advantage of this format.