Sun Microsystems V20z Server User Manual


 
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Sun Fire V20z and Sun Fire V40z Servers—User Guide March 2005
1.4 Shared Features of the Sun Fire V20z and
Sun Fire V40z Servers
1.4.1 Server Management
Strong server-management capabilities are crucial to maintaining mission-critical
servers. Advance notification of problems and rapid diagnosis and correction are
critical functions to an environment in which a few servers bear most of the
workload. These servers and their extensive server-management capabilities lower
costs by reducing failure and potentially eliminating hands-on management.
1.4.1.1 Service Processor
These servers include a dedicated service processor (SP) for complete
operating-system independence and maximum availability of server management.
The SP is an embedded PowerPC that provides the following:
Environmental monitoring of the platform (such as temperatures, voltages, fan
speeds and panel switches)
Alert messages when problems occur
Remote control of server operations (boot, shutdown and reboot of the server’s
operating system, turning the server’s power on and off, stopping the server’s
boot process in BIOS, and upgrading the BIOS)
The SP runs an embedded version of Linux, and all the server-management
functions are developed as standard Linux applications. Its sole purpose is to
support server management; therefore, the full functionality of the operating system
is not available in the SP. Many familiar applications, such as ftp and telnet, are not
provided as they are not required to support the server-management feature set.