Solaris on Intel's new Microarchitecture (Nehalem) - a new white paper offers a high-level overview of key features of the new Intel Core Micro-architecture, and the advantages of running Solaris in this environment. The intended audience includes business decision makers, developers and IT professionals.

The new Intel Core Micro-architecture focuses on improvements in how the processor uses available clock cycles and power, rather than just increasing clock speeds which raises energy requirements. In nearly every way, the new Intel Core Micro-architecture delivers more capability - performance, scalability, reliability, and virtualization - with the same or reduced power envelope compared to current-generation Intel Xeon processors.

This scalable and modular processor architecture can be had in versions optimized for mobile, desktop, and data center markets. Intel can deliver versions differing in the number of cores, cache sizes, interconnect capabilities, and memory controller capabilities, as well as the optional use of an integrated graphics controller, which allows users to choose from a wide range of price, performance, and energy efficient implementations for servers, workstations, desktops, and laptops, all using a common micro-architecture to ensure application compatibility.

The Solaris ecosystem, in conjunction with the new Intel Core Micro-architecture processors, is a superior choice for both leading edge applications such as Web 2.0 and high performance computing, as well as all forms of enterprise computing. Organizations can leverage Solaris as the mission-critical enterprise class operating system on new Intel Core Micro-architecture processor systems from Sun, as well as other manufacturers - the Solaris OS is supported on over 1,000 systems, and OpenSolaris on over 2,500 systems.

Because the improved Intel Core Micro-architecture increases both single-thread and multi-thread performance, the Solaris kernel and existing single- or multi-threaded applications will run faster, with no code changes or recompilation necessary. The resultant synergy delivers performance boosts in several areas, including:

• Turbo mode, which converts any available power headroom into higher frequencies, delivering more work for less overall heat and power consumption.

• Intel Hyper-threading Technology provides two threads per core, enabling a more energy efficient means of increasing performance for multi-threaded workloads. With specific optimizations for the new Intel Core Micro-architecture, the outstanding threading model of the Solaris OS can adapt as applications incorporate multi-threaded design, increasing throughput, responsiveness, efficiency, scalability, and overall performance.

• Optimized scheduler and memory placement optimization result from the ability of the Solaris OS to leverage the capabilities of the new Intel QuickPath Interconnect (Intel® QPI) architecture with proven performance benefits in non-uniform memory access (NUMA) architecture systems.

• Solaris is being optimized to take advantage of the capability in the new Intel Core Micro-architecture Intel Smart Cache to add up to 8 MB of shared L3 (last-level) memory, improving speed and throughput in multi-threaded solutions.

• Optimized routines in Solaris OS will take advantage of the innovative extensions to the Intel Streaming SIMD Extensions 4 -- especially the string and text processing instruction extensions -- so as to enhance XML, string, and text processing, resulting in improved performance in areas such as Web 2.0 applications and virus scanning.

By measuring the benefit of the performance gain against the power cost, Intel was able to design the new Intel Core Micro-architecture to deliver greater power efficiency at any power envelope, resulting in performance-enhanced dynamic power management. Solaris will enable Intel Xeon processors based on the new Intel Core Micro-architecture to stay longer in idle states (C-states), have better granularity in power management states (P-states), and have better responsiveness to changes in demand. The end result is reducing unnecessary power costs.

Sun and Intel are working together to leverage status information throughout the new Intel Core Micro-architecture to help the Solaris Fault Manager system diagnose a hardware fault correctly. This verification ensures that users running the Solaris OS on Intel Xeon processor-based systems will get a correct diagnosis and recovery should a hardware fault occur, resulting in improved system reliability.

At a time when IT managers are increasingly turning to virtualization as a cost management tactic, users will appreciate the fact that the Sun xVM portfolio will offer comprehensive support for new Intel Core Micro-architecture virtualization capabilities.

The collaboration of Sun and Intel, including the joint engineering work from both companies, has already resulted in state-of-the-art development and deployment platforms for environments based on Intel Xeon processors. The next step will focus on delivering the Solaris OS optimized for Intel Xeon processors based on the new Intel Core Microarchitecture - maximizing performance, power efficiency, reliability, and virtualization.

More Information

The Solaris Operating System and the New Intel Core Micro-architecture

4-Page PDF datasheet

Sun Fire X4450 servers

Try and Buy Sun Servers with Intel Processors at 20% off the list price.

The Sun xVM Portfolio

Sun xVM Server

Sun xVM Ops Center

White Paper: Solaris on Xeon

http://www.sun.com/x64/intel Intel Sun Alliance http://www.intel.com/sunalliance Sun Intel Alliance

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