How many domains can you configure on a Sun M5000 system?

Question

We have a few Sun M5000 servers with the following configuration:

• Each system has 2 system boards each containing 2 x 2.5Ghz quad core processors
• Each system board has 16GB of RAM
• Each system has 4 x 300GB disks

I would like to know how many hardware domains can I configure per system? Do I need one system board per domain (implying a total of 2 domains), or can I create 4 domains, each with one cpu each?

Solution 1

Even though the maximum number of domains supported on the M5000 is four, that also requires 4 system boards.

So in this configuration (2 system boards), the max number of domains is 2. To get 4 domains two more system boards were required.

Solution 2

The maximum number of domains on an M5000 is four.

http://www.sun.com/servers/midrange/m5000/specs.xml

Comments

[Andre Miller]

Yes, in a fully populated M5000 you can have 4 domains, but I want to know how many domains I can configure with my configuration (only 2 system boards)

[Kevin Kuphal]

Since you can only have 4 CPU, 2 CPU per board, you are maxed out which leads me to believe you can have up to four domains.

[Andre Miller]

No, the M5000 can have have up to 8 CPU's

[Kevin Kuphal]

Better tell Sun to update their specs

[Andre Miller]

Not sure where you saw it can only support 4, in the specs you linked it clearly states: "Ability to mix and match up to 8 SPARC64 VII quad-core processors or SPARC64 VI dual-core processors in the same system"