The Sun Fire 15K (codenamed ''Starcat'') was an enterprise-class

server computer In computing, a server is a piece of computer hardware or software ( computer program) that provides functionality for other programs or devices, called " clients". This architecture is called the client–server model. Servers can provide var ...

from

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 ...

based on the

SPARC V9 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 ...

processor architecture. It was announced on September 25, 2001, in New York City, superseding the

Sun Enterprise 10000 Sun Enterprise is a range of UNIX server computers produced by Sun Microsystems from 1996 to 2001. The line was launched as the Sun Ultra Enterprise series; the ''Ultra'' prefix was dropped around 1998. These systems are based on the 64-bit Ultr ...

. General availability was in January 2002; the last to be shipped was in May 2005. The Sun Fire 15K supported up to 106

UltraSPARC The UltraSPARC is a microprocessor developed by Sun Microsystems and fabricated by Texas Instruments, introduced in mid-1995. It is the first microprocessor from Sun to implement the 64-bit SPARC V9 instruction set architecture (ISA). Marc Trembl ...

III processors (up to 1.2 GHz), or 72

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 ...

s (up to 1.35 GHz) installed across 18 system boards (''Uniboards'', containing CPU sockets and RAM slots). With the UltraSPARC III, Sun supported up to 17 dual-socket "MaxCPU" processor cards in place of I/O mezzanine cards, a configuration not supported with UltraSPARC IV. Maximum physical RAM per system is 576 GB. A maximum of 72

PCI PCI may refer to: Business and economics * Payment card industry, businesses associated with debit, credit, and other payment cards ** Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, a set of security requirements for credit card processors * Pro ...

I/O slots are available. The system can be divided into a maximum of 18 secure independent domains, each of which is a separate machine with its own filesystems, root password and the ability to run different versions of

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 ...

. The E15k, along with other enterprise Sun servers, has the Dynamic Reconfiguration feature: administrators could dynamically change the assignment of RAM and processors to the different domains to meet changes in business needs. In addition, the 15K contains two system controllers (duplicated for redundancy), which are embedded SPARC computers running Solaris and used to manage the 15K and perform tasks such as booting and shutting down domains and assigning Uniboards to domains. The 15K contains minimal storage in itself (only system controller boot disks); it is connected via SAN to a separate

storage array A disk array is a disk storage system which contains multiple disk drives. It is differentiated from a disk enclosure, in that an array has cache memory and advanced functionality, like RAID, deduplication, encryption and virtualization. Compon ...

Sun Fire 12K

The Sun Fire 12K (codenamed ''Starkitty''), was a reduced configuration version of the 15K, introduced in April 2002. It supported a maximum of 52 processors, and was intended to fill a position in Sun's server product line between the 15K and the Sun Fire 6800.

Sun Fire E25K

The Sun Fire E25K (codenamed ''Amazon 25''; the "E" denoting "Enterprise") was announced in February 2004. Its base cabinet is identical to the 15K, with the only difference between the two systems being the processor boards installed. It reached end-of-life in January, 2009, and was superseded by the Sun

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 ...

M9000 server. The E25K supports up to 72 dual-core UltraSPARC IV+ processors (up to 1.95 GHz). As with UltraSPARC IV-based 15K systems, the "MaxCPU" option was not offered for E25K systems. Overall system bandwidth is claimed as up to 172.8 GB/s aggregate, up to 115.2 GB/s peak, and up to 43.2 GB/s sustained. For overall I/O bandwidth, up to 35.8-GB/s sustained. Up to 64 GB of RAM per board is possible with a maximum of 1.15 TB of RAM for a single domain. Up to 72 hot swappable

PCI-X PCI-X, short for Peripheral Component Interconnect eXtended, is a computer bus and expansion card standard that enhances the 32-bit PCI local bus for higher bandwidth demanded mostly by servers and workstations. It uses a modified protocol t ...

I/O slots; 54 slots are 90 MHz, 18 slots are 33 MHz. It also supports 10/100 BaseT

Ethernet Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...

Gigabit Ethernet In computer networking, Gigabit Ethernet (GbE or 1 GigE) is the term applied to transmitting Ethernet frames at a rate of a gigabit per second. The most popular variant, 1000BASE-T, is defined by the IEEE 802.3ab standard. It came into use i ...

, Ultra

SCSI Small Computer System Interface (SCSI, ) is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices. The SCSI standards define commands, protocols, electrical, optical and logical interface ...

(LVD and HVD), ATM, FC-AL, HSI and SCI.

References

*{{cite news, title=Sun Takes on the Mainframe With Sun Fire 15K , author=Newman, Amy, date=September 24, 2001, publisher=Server Watch, url=http://www.serverwatch.com/news/article.php/1400741
EOL product page for Sun Fire E25K Server from a copy of old www.sun.com website
Fire 15K SPARC microprocessor products