Chapter 1 System Overview 3
Twisted-PairEthernet (TPE) connection using the telnet or the Point-to-Point
Protocol (PPP). For more information about RSC hardware,see “About the Remote
System Control (RSC) Card and Ports” on page107.
A 5.25-inch by 1.6-inch (13.35-cm x 4.06-cm) digital video disc-read only memory
(DVD-ROM) drive is standard; a tape drive with the same form factor is optional.
The drives are installed in the system’s upper bay of the removablemedia assembly
(RMA) and read and write using a Small Computer System Interface (SCSI). The
DVD-ROM drive uses the Universal Disk Format (UDF) that is compatible with CD-
ROM based media.
Youcan attach up to four external tape devices to the standard 68-pin 40-Mbyte per
second UltraSCSI port. Additional external tape devices are supported with
appropriate PCI host adapter cards.
Youcan easily connect the Sun Fire 280R server to either a 10-Mbps or a 100-Mbps
Ethernet by means of an auto-sensing Ethernet interface provided on the system’s
main logic board. Youcan establish Ethernet interfaces or connections to other
networks, such as Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI), Asynchronous Transfer
Mode (ATM),or to token ring by installing the appropriate PCI interface cards. For
more information, see “About Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) Buses” on
page84.
The Sun Fire 280R server provides two serial asynchronous/synchronous
communication ports through a pair of DB-25 connectors located on the back panel.
It also provides one external, 2-Mbyte per second, bidirectional, Centronics-
compatible, enhanced parallel port (EPP) for connecting the system to a local printer
or other compatible parallel device.
The system console device can be a standard ASCII character terminal, a local
windowing subsystem, or it can also be redirected to display over a supported
telnet connection using the RSC card. Youcan connect an ASCII terminal to one of
the system’s two serial ports, while a local windowing subsystem in a graphics
console requires installation of a PCI frame buffer card, monitor,keyboard, and
mouse. (Sun’s Universal Port Architecture (UPA)graphics is not supported in the
Sun Fire 280R server.)You can also administer the server from a remote system
connected to the server over an Ethernet network connection, or you can use an
Ethernet connection via the RSC and a redirected system console. See “About
Communicating With the System” on page33.
Full power is provided by one 560-watt power supply with its dual internal fans.
System configurations with two power supplies provide both redundancy and full
hot-swap capability.For more information about the power supplies, see “About
Power Supplies” on page 95.
The system is housed in a standard Electronic Industries Association 310 (EIA 310)
specification-compliant rackmountable enclosure measuring 6.95 inches high, 17.25
inches wide, and 27.25 inches deep (17.6 cm x 43.8 cm x 69.2 cm). The system has a