Sun Fire is a series of

server Server may refer to: Computing *Server (computing), a computer program or a device that provides functionality for other programs or devices, called clients Role * Waiting staff, those who work at a restaurant or a bar attending customers and su ...

computers introduced in 2001 by

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the ...

(since 2010, part of

Oracle Corporation Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation headquartered in Austin, Texas. In 2020, Oracle was the third-largest software company in the world by revenue and market capitalization. The company sells da ...

). The Sun Fire branding coincided with the introduction of the UltraSPARC III processor, superseding the

UltraSPARC II The UltraSPARC II, code-named "Blackbird", is a microprocessor implementation of the SPARC, SPARC V9 instruction set architecture (ISA) developed by Sun Microsystems. Marc Tremblay was the chief architect. Introduced in 1997, it was further deve ...

-based Sun Enterprise series. In 2003, Sun broadened the Sun Fire brand, introducing Sun Fire servers using the Intel

Xeon Xeon ( ) is a brand of x86 microprocessors designed, manufactured, and marketed by Intel, targeted at the non-consumer workstation, server, and embedded system markets. It was introduced in June 1998. Xeon processors are based on the same arc ...

processor. In 2004, these early Intel Xeon models were superseded by models powered by AMD

Opteron Opteron is AMD's x86 former server and workstation processor line, and was the first processor which supported the AMD64 instruction set architecture (known generically as x86-64 or AMD64). It was released on April 22, 2003, with the ''SledgeHa ...

processors. Also in 2004, Sun introduced Sun Fire servers powered by the

UltraSPARC IV The UltraSPARC IV ''Jaguar'' and follow-up UltraSPARC IV+ ''Panther'' are microprocessors designed by Sun Microsystems and manufactured by Texas Instruments. They are the fourth generation of UltraSPARC microprocessors, and implement the 64-bit S ...

dual-core processor. In 2007, Sun again introduced Intel Xeon Sun Fire servers, while continuing to offer the AMD Opteron versions as well.

SPARC SPARC (Scalable Processor Architecture) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture originally developed by Sun Microsystems. Its design was strongly influenced by the experimental Berkeley RISC system developed ...

-based Sun Fire systems were produced until 2010, while

x86-64 x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit version of the x86 instruction set, first released in 1999. It introduced two new modes of operation, 64-bit mode and compatibility mode, along with a new 4-level paging mod ...

based machines were marketed until mid-2012. In mid-2012, Oracle Corporation ceased to use the Sun Fire brand for new server models.

Operating systems

UltraSPARC-based Sun Fire models are licensed to run the

Solaris Solaris may refer to: Arts and entertainment Literature, television and film * ''Solaris'' (novel), a 1961 science fiction novel by Stanisław Lem ** ''Solaris'' (1968 film), directed by Boris Nirenburg ** ''Solaris'' (1972 film), directed by ...

operating system versions 8, 9, and 10. Although not officially supported, some

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

versions are also available from third parties, as well as

OpenBSD OpenBSD is a security-focused, free and open-source, Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Theo de Raadt created OpenBSD in 1995 by forking NetBSD 1.0. According to the website, the OpenBSD project em ...

and

NetBSD NetBSD is a free and open-source Unix operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). It was the first open-source BSD descendant officially released after 386BSD was forked. It continues to be actively developed and is a ...

. Intel Xeon and AMD Opteron based Sun Fire servers support Solaris 9 and 10,

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is a commercial open-source Linux distribution developed by Red Hat for the commercial market. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is released in server versions for x86-64, Power ISA, ARM64, and IBM Z and a desktop version ...

versions 3 - 6,

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server SUSE Linux Enterprise (often abbreviated to SLE) is a Linux-based operating system developed by SUSE. It is available in two editions, suffixed with Server (SLES) for servers and mainframes, and Desktop (SLED) for workstations and desktop compu ...

10 and 11,

Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), releas ...

Windows Server 2003 Windows Server 2003 is the sixth version of Windows Server operating system produced by Microsoft. It is part of the Windows NT family of operating systems and was released to manufacturing on March 28, 2003 and generally available on April 24, 2 ...

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

, and 2008 R2 .

Model nomenclature

Later Sun Fire model numbers have prefixes indicating the type of system, thus: * V: entry level and mid-range rackmount and cabinet servers (UltraSPARC, IA-32 or AMD64) * E: high-end enterprise class cabinet servers with high-availability features (UltraSPARC) * B:

blade server A blade server is a stripped-down server computer with a modular design optimized to minimize the use of physical space and energy. Blade servers have many components removed to save space, minimize power consumption and other considerations, whil ...

s (UltraSPARC or IA-32) * X: rackmount x86-64 based servers * T: entry level and mid-range rackmount servers based on UltraSPARC T-series ''CoolThreads'' processors When Sun offered Intel

and AMD

Sun Fire servers under the V-Series sub brand, Sun used an x suffix to denote Intel Xeon processor based systems and a z suffix for AMD Opteron processor based systems, but this convention was later dropped. The z suffix was also used previously to differentiate the V880z Visualization Server variant of the V880 server. Sun's first-generation

platform, the Sun Fire B1600 chassis and associated blade servers, was branded under the Sun Fire server brand. Later Sun blade systems were sold under the

Sun Blade Sun Blade is a line of blade server computer systems sold by Sun Microsystems from 2006 onwards. In June 2006, Sun announced the AMD Opteron-based Sun Blade 8000 modular blade server system. The Sun Blade 8000 chassis can hold up to 10 Sun Blade X ...

brand. In 2007, Sun,

Fujitsu is a Japanese multinational information and communications technology equipment and services corporation, established in 1935 and headquartered in Tokyo. Fujitsu is the world's sixth-largest IT services provider by annual revenue, and the la ...

and

Fujitsu Siemens Fujitsu Siemens Computers GmbH was a Japanese and Germany, German vendor of information technology. The company was founded in 1999 as a 50/50 joint venture between Fujitsu, Fujitsu Limited of Japan and Siemens of Germany. On April 1, 2009, the c ...

introduced the common

SPARC Enterprise The SPARC Enterprise series is a range of UNIX server computers based on the SPARC V9 architecture. It was co-developed by Sun Microsystems and Fujitsu, announced on June 1st, 2004 and introduced in 2007. They were marketed and sold by Sun Microsyst ...

brand for server products. The first SPARC Enterprise models were the Fujitsu-developed successors to the midrange and high-end Sun Fire E-series. In addition, the Sun Fire T1000 and T2000 servers were rebranded as the SPARC Enterprise T1000 and T2000 and sold under the Fujitsu brands, although Sun continued to offer these with their original names. Later T-series servers have also been badged SPARC Enterprise rather than Sun Fire. Since late 2010,

no longer uses Sun Fire brand for their current T series SPARC servers, and since mid-2012 for new X series x86-64 machines based on Intel Xeon CPUs. x86-64 server models which had been developed by Sun Microsystems before its acquisition, and were still in production, have all been rebranded as Sun Server X-series.

Sun Fire model range

Some servers were produced in two versions, the original version and a later

RoHS The Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive 2002/95/EC (RoHS 1), short for Directive on the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment, was adopted in February 2003 by the European Unio ...

version. Since a general maintenance and upgrade guideline is that RoHS components and spares may be installed into the original non-RoHS versions of that server, the end-of-life (EOL) date of a server is deemed the EOL date of the RoHS version of that server in this listing.

UltraSPARC architecture

x86/x64 architecture

Sun Server / Oracle Server

As of 2012, the x86 server range continued under the "Sun Server" or "Oracle Server" names.

References

Sun System Handbook, Version 2.1.8, April 2005

External links

Sun Servers
Sun Microsystems

{{Oracle

Fire Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction Product (chemistry), products. At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition ...

Oracle hardware Computer-related introductions in 2001 SPARC microprocessor products