The Sun Blade 8000 Series supports up to 10 hot-pluggable Server Modules (blades).
This topic includes the following sections:
Front Panel Features
CPU and Memory
Power
Cooling
I/O Connectivity
Management
Indicators and Buttons
The user-accessible features on the front panel of the blade include up to two Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) or Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) drives, a VGA port, a serial port, and two USB 2.0 ports. The I/O connectors provide access to the graphical console with USB ports for keyboard and mouse, and alternately to COM1 for operating systems that make use of a text console, such as Solaris x86 and Linux. On the front panel of the blade are the Locator indicator and associated button; the Ready-to-Remove, Service Action Required, and OK indicators; as well as a Power button.
For more information about the CPUs and memory modules (DIMMs), see About CPUs and Memory Module Specifications.
Each blade contains its own power distribution starting from the 48V provided by the power supplies.
The blade power-on policy is set by default to automatically apply 12V standby power to the service processor when the blade is inserted into a powered-on chassis. This means that the blade will not automatically power on to full 48V power mode when inserted into a powered-on chassis.
To apply full power to the blade, you need to enable the blade power-on policy or manually press the Power button on the blade. If you enable the blade power-on policy or if the blade was manually powered on using the Power button, the last power-on state of ON applies. When the blade boots next, it will receive main, 48V power, enabling the host on the blade to power on.
For information about setting the blade power-on policy, see Blade Power-On Policy.
The Chassis Monitoring Module (CMM) grants permission to power on the blade based on the last power-on state. If the last power-on state was ON and the CMM is down when you insert the blade, the blade will be unable to power on.
The blade power-on policy is in effect for the ILOM 1.1.5 firmware and later firmware updates. If you are using an ILOM firmware version before version 1.1.5, the Policy tab in the ILOM web GUI and the ILOM CLI power-on policy command are not available.
In the Sun Blade 8000 Chassis, the blade also supplies 12V and standby power to its two associated PCI Express ExpressModules. There are separate indicators that differentiate initial power-on from OS loading so that users can identify the current state of the blade and know what to do to put the blade into a required state for servicing.
Power to the blade is managed by the Chassis Monitoring Module (CMM), which takes into account the amount of heat each blade is generating. The CMM can direct a blade to use less power in order to reduce the amount of heat it is generating. In addition, blades can adjust their own operating points to conserve power when CPUs are under utilized. This power management is subordinate to the CMM blade power management. For example, if the CMM establishes a maximum power consumption level for a blade, the blade can choose to operate at that level or below that level.
For information about the supported hard disk drives, see About Disk Drives
There are no fans on the blades, which helps to increase the reliability of the blades. All airflow is provided by separate fan modules. There are sensors for temperature, voltage, current, and other sensors that can determine the health of the blade.
The blades provide PCI Express I/O connectivity to the Network Express Modules (NEMs) and to the PCI Express ExpressModules (EMs; Sun Blade 8000 Chassis only) using HyperTransport links. For information about NEMs or EMs, see About I_O Modules
The blade also includes a service processor (SP) that provides IPMI baseboard management controller (BMC) functions; remote keyboard, video, and mouse (KVM) over IP; as well as emulation of USB attached storage devices using virtual connections to remote network-based storage devices. These functions enable a remote Administrator to manage a blade with the same level of console functionality as a local user, including the ability to initiate a remote floppy boot or operating system installation via CD-ROM.
The functions of the SP are independent of the operating system, so that the same level of manageability is provided regardless of the choice of OS. The SP is available for blade management even when the blade is powered off, but the chassis is powered on. However, certain management functions, such as DIMM inventory, are not available in this state.
For information about system management, see What Is ILOMand ILOM on the SP and CMM
The front panel of the blade provides these LED indicators:
Locator – Lights when the Locator button is pressed, or in response to a software command from SP or CMM management interfaces.
Ready-to-Remove – Lights after ILOM-initiated preparation for a hot-plug procedure has finished shutting down and powering off the blade operating system.
Service Action Required – Lights to indicate a fault condition in the blade (use the ILOM management interfaces to identify the exact nature of the fault condition).
OK – Slow Blink (on/off cycle at 1 Hz) indicates that the SP is booting; Standby Blink (on/off cycle at 0.1 second on, 2.9 seconds off) indicates standby mode (SP is on, blade OS is off); Steady On indicates that the blade operating system is online.
The Power button is also available from the front panel of the blade. This button provides these functions:
In a powered-on blade, when pressed and immediately released, the button invokes a graceful (OS aware) shutdown of the blade. If you press and immediately release the button again, the OS will be restarted.
In a powered-on blade, when pressed and held for four seconds, the button invokes a forced shutdown of the blade with no OS notification. If you press and immediately release the button again, the OS will be restarted
In a powered-off blade, when pressed and immediately released, the blade is brought online and the OS is started.
For more information, see these topics: