Highest Compute Density and Scalability

Focused compute power with scalability

Sun's unique unibody chassis/rack design for this system saves ~500 lbs per rack. That's a relief for raised floors. It also delivers up to 129 percent more compute cores per rack — more throughput per square foot. For scalability, you can populate it with 48 Sun Blade server modules, up to 768 processing cores per rack. Even the power is scalable: The Sun Blade 6048 chassis comes equipped with eight 8400W power supply modules that can be configured to support either 5600W or 8400W. Use only what you need now, and have built-in reserves for the future.

Virtualization built-in

What makes this a more efficient virtualization system? Muscle and flexibility. Three processor architectures, four operating systems – Solaris, Linux, Windows and VMware. Up to double the memory capacity and double the I/O bandwidth of competing systems, rackmount or blades. Add the leading virtualization power of the Solaris 10 OS and, the open, free innovation of Logical Domains (Ldoms) virtualization technology. You'll be able to trade-in and virtualize rack rows of legacy power-hungry, heat-pumping, space-wasting servers. And we'll help you through it every step of the way.

The power of choice

You get to choose the ideal processor for each job from the fastest available: Sun UltraSPARC, AMD Opteron, and Intel Xeon. The immense density of this system gives you supercomputing power in a small space. Yet, as the compute component of the Sun Constellation System, it's a platform for anything from Departmental to PetaScale Computing. And of course, Sun Blade Systems run general-purpose software, unlike most other supercomputers, which can require custom compiles and tuning. If your applications run on Solaris, Linux, or Windows, you're covered.

Modular Efficiency in a Proven Design

Improving a proven design

The Sun Blade 6048 modular system is the fourth and most dense Sun Blade Modular System. It's based on a modular design that's proven itself superior since day one. Modularity gives you flexibility, improves availability, and serviceability. As in previous Sun Blade Systems, all of its processing, I/O, networking, system management, power supply units, and fans are hot-pluggable modules. In fact, this system uses all of the same server modules as the Sun Blade 6000 modular system. It provides more compute power and I/O throughput than four Sun Blade 6000 modular systems, yet, it's more space and power efficient, and runs cooler, allowing you an incredible degree of density.

Maximize Performance and Growth with Independent, Standard I/O

The Sun Blade modular system family features the only industry standards-based I/O for blade systems. All others are proprietary. Sun Blade Independent I/O is easier to install and service, and it delivers the highest I/O capacity of any blade server. Sun Blade Independent I/O gives you total control over each individual server module. Server Modules have four dedicated PCIe interfaces that connect to the I/O modules via the passive midplane using industry-standard PCI Express technology. There are two I/O module form factors:

• PCIe ExpressModule (EM) for Server Module specific I/O
• PCIe Network Express Module (NEM) for bulk I/O configurations

Leaf switching solved

The Sun Blade 6048 InfiniBand Switched Network Express Module (NEM) is the first and only chassis-integrated leaf switch. It's the fastest HCA (host channel adapter) and provides the lowest cost per port when combined with the Sun Datacenter Switch 3456. Leveraging x8 PCI Express I/O, it connects 12 PCIe DDR dual-port HCAs to two embedded 24-port DDR switches with only eight physical 12x connectors for maximum resiliency and HPC scalability. It also has 12 pass-through Gigabit Ethernet ports. The design of the Sun Blade 6048 IB Switched NEM maximizes chassis utilization. (Please note that the Sun Blade 6048 IB Switched NEM occupies two NEM slots.)

Lower TCO, Higher ROI

Save with Sun Services

Cut your service costs by as much as 84 percent compared to comparable rackmount and blade servers from HP, IBM, and Dell with Sun's chassis-based service pricing.

Onboard lights-out management

Sun Blade server modules are manageable just like discrete rackmount servers. They have advanced remote management capabilities with fault identification and management features provided by Sun ILOM (Integrated Lights Out Manager). It's resident in the module's dedicated service processor. With ILOM features and the Sun N1 System Manager software, you can deploy state-of-the-art remote automation that integrates at the datacenter level. Zero-touch capabilities, managed through a variety of interface options, simplifies installation, deployment, and maintenance. Chassis Monitoring Modules (CMMs), one per shelf, provide system management capabilities at both the chassis and server processor level with CMM ILOM.