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SPARC M8 and SPARC M7 Servers Administration Guide

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Updated: September 2017
 
 

Glossary

A
Active SP

An SP selected by Oracle ILOM to manage server resources. When an Active SP can no longer serve this role, the Standby SP assumes its role. See also SP and Standby SP.

ASR

Auto Service Request. Oracle software that provides the ability to notify Oracle Support automatically.

B
BE

Boot environment. A bootable instance of the Oracle Solaris image. A BE can contain additional installed software packages.

BoB

Memory buffer on board. An ASIC on a CMIOU board that transfers data between a DIMM and a CMP.

boot pool

A special pool on firmware-accessible devices that contains the set of files required to boot the Oracle Solaris kernel for a BE. Each dataset in the boot pool is linked to a BE. See also BE and pool.

C
CMIOU

CPU, memory, and I/O unit. Each CMIOU contains 1 CMP, 16 DIMM slots, and 1 IOH chip. Each CMIOU also hosts an eUSB device.

CMP

Chip multiprocessing. Each CMIOU contains 1 CMP. The SPARC M8-8 and SPARC M7-8 servers can contain a maximum of 8 CMPs each.

CMT

Chip multithreading. Processor technology enabling multiple hardware threads (also known as strands) to execute on the same chip, through multiple cores per chip, multiple threads per core, or through a combination of both.

D
dataset

A generic term used to refer to a ZFS file system, snapshot, clone, or volume.

DCU

Domain configurable unit. The smallest building block for PDomains. A SPARC M8-8 or SPARC M7-8 server with two PDomains has two DCUs, and a SPARC M8-8 or SPARC M7-8 server with one PDomain has one DCU. Those DCUs are static. Their assignment cannot be changed. See also PDomain.

deferred dump

If a server crashes, the crash dump is preserved in memory until after the server reboots. During the reboot, the crash dump files are extracted from memory to a predefined file system location.

DCU SPM

In a SPARC M7 series server, Oracle ILOM identifies one SPM from an SPM pair to manage DCU activity. See also SPM and DCU.

DHCP

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. Software that automatically assigns IP addresses to clients on a TCP/IP network. The SPs do not support DHCP. You must assign static IP addresses to SP components.

DLMP

Datalink multipathing aggregations. An Oracle Solaris feature enabling you to configure several interfaces on a system as a single, logical unit to increase throughput of network traffic.

DIMM

Dual in-line memory module.

E
eUSB

Embedded USB. A flash-based drive designed specifically to be used as a boot device. An eUSB does not provide storage for applications or customer data.

F
FC

Fibre Channel. High-speed network technology primarily used to connect computer data storage.

FMA

Fault management architecture. Generates fault indictments from the SP. FMA provides three system activities: error handling, fault diagnosis, and response.

G
GB

Gigabyte. 1 gigabyte = 1024 megabytes.

H
HBA

Host bus adapter. Provides I/O processing and physical connectivity between a server and a storage or network device.

HCA

Host channel adapter. Primarily used to describe InfiniBand interface cards.

I
ILOM

See Oracle ILOM.

InfiniBand

A networking communications standard that features very high throughput and very low latency.

IOH

I/O hub.

IPMP

IP network multipathing. An Oracle Solaris feature providing multipathing and load-balancing capabilities for IP network interfaces.

IPoIB

Internet protocol over InfiniBand.

iSCSI

Internet small computer system interface. An IP-based storage networking standard that enables a server to access storage across a network. In an iSCSI network, the remote storage is called the iSCSI target.

iSCSI using IPoIB

A boot process that enables a server to boot an iSCSI target accessible using IP over an InfiniBand network. See also IPoIB.

K
KVM

Keyboard video mouse.

KVMS

Keyboard video mouse storage.

L
LDAP

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol.

logical domain

A virtual machine comprising a discrete logical grouping of resources that has its own operating system and identity within a single computer system.

M
MIB

Management information base.

miniroot

A miniroot is a minimal root file system consisting of the Oracle Solaris software required to boot the OS to either install or upgrade the OS and is used as a fallback image. You might need to patch the miniroot if you need to add driver and hardware support to the boot image.

MP

Multipathing. See also multipathing.

mpgroups

Oracle VM Server for SPARC virtual disk multipathing. Enables you to configure a guest domain's virtual disk to access its back-end storage using more than one path.

MPxIO

Multipathing I/O. An Oracle Solaris feature enabling you to configure the multipathing features of FC devices to control all supported FC HBAs.

multipathing

Multipathing software enables you to define and control redundant physical paths to I/O devices such as storage devices and network interfaces.

N
NPRD

Non-primary root domain. This type of guest domain is assigned an entire root complex and all of the devices on that PCIe bus. Typically, this type of guest domain provides virtualized I/O services to other guest domains, but you can also run applications in NPRDs to achieve bare-metal performance.

NTP

Network Time Protocol.

NVRAM

Non-volatile random-access memory.

O
OpenBoot

Oracle firmware that enables a PDomain to boot the Oracle Solaris OS. Provides an interface for testing hardware and software interactively.

Oracle ILOM

Oracle Integrated Lights Out Manager. The system management firmware that is preinstalled on the server SPs.

Oracle VTS

Oracle Validation Test Suite. An application that exercises the system, provides hardware validation, and identifies possible faulty components.

P
PCIe

Peripheral Component Interconnect Express.

PDomain

Physical domain. The SPARC M8-8 and SPARC M7-8 servers can have one or two configured PDomains. These PDomains are static and cannot be reconfigured.

See also DCU and static PDomain.

PDomain SPM

The lead SPM of a PDomain. The PDomain SPM manages tasks and provides rKVMS service for that PDomain. See also PDomain and SPM.

pool

A logical group of devices describing the layout and physical characteristics of the available storage. Storage space for datasets is allocated from a pool. ZFS uses a model where storage devices are aggregated into a storage pool. See also boot pool, root pool, and dataset.

POST

Power-on self-test. Diagnostic software that runs when the server boots.

PROM

Programmable read-only memory.

R
RAS

Reliability, availability, and serviceability. Many of the SPARC server components provide high-RAS features, such as the ability to hot-plug PCIe devices. The level of RAS for the server is also affected by the configuration of PDomain components. For instance, for I/O domain resiliency (which is a high-RAS domain configuration strategy), the I/O domain must get its network and storage connections from two different IOHs on two CMIOUs.

RC

Root complex. The first element in a PCIe device path (for example, /pci@300).

rKVMS

Remote keyboard video mouse and storage.

root pool

A dataset containing a complete Oracle Solaris image or a BE. See also pool.

root port

In a PCIe device path, the root port is always the second element (for example, /pci@300/pci@0).

S
SAN

Storage area network. A dedicated network providing access to computer storage devices.

SAS

Serial attached SCSI.

SCC

SPARC core cluster.

SNMP

Simple Network Mail Protocol.

SP

Service processor. For redundancy, the server contains two service processors, one active and one on standby.

SPM

Service processor module. A component of the SPs. SPMs contain processors that enable the SPs to manage the server resources. See also DCU SPM and PDomain SPM.

SSH

Secure shell. A program for logging in and executing commands on a system or service processor.

Standby SP

A redundant SP that will manage server resources if the Active SP fails. See also SP and Active SP.

static PDomain

A SPARC M8-8 or SPARC M7-8 server PDomain. Static PDomains cannot be reconfigured. See also PDomain.

system

In the SPARC M7 series servers documentation, system refers to the /System level in the Oracle ILOM firmware.

T
TPM

Trusted platform module.

V
VLAN

Virtual local area network.

VNC

Virtual network computing. The Oracle ILOM Remote System VNC Console is a VNC system implementation that enables you to remotely redirect the host server KVM events to a graphical shared desktop display.

VTS

See Oracle VTS.

Z
ZFS

Zettabyte file system. A file system that uses storage pools to manage physical storage. See also BE, pool, boot pool, and root pool.