Sun Microsystems 280R manual Power Supply Redundancy, Automatic System Recovery

Power Supply Redundancy

The system can accommodate one or two power supplies. All system configurations can operate with only one power supply installed. You can use a second supply to provide redundancy, enabling the system to continue operating should one of the power supplies fail. When both power supplies are installed and functioning, they share the power load. For more information about power supplies, redundancy, and configuration rules, see “About Power Supplies” on page 95.

Hot-Swappable Power Supplies

Power supplies in a redundant configuration feature a hot-swapcapability. A qualified service provider can remove and replace a faulty power supply without turning off the system power, or even shutting down the operating system. A redundant power supply can also be added to the system without shutting down the operating system. The power supplies are easily accessed from the front of the system. For information about removing and installing a power supply, see the Sun Fire 280R Server Service Manual.

Automatic System Recovery

The system firmware provides for automatic system recovery (ASR), which enables the system to resume operation after faults or failures that cause a system reset. Recovery from a system reset is automatic from the operating environment level for the following types of failures:

■Operating environment failure

■Intermittent transient hardware failure

If the operating environment software hangs or crashes, the system is configured to automatically reboot and for the operating environment to resume.

In a running system, some types of hardware failures (for example, intermittent transient memory errors) can shut down the system. If this happens, the ASR functionality enables the system to reboot immediately.

Automatic self-test features enable the system to detect failed hardware components. During the power-on self-test (POST) sequence, if a faulty hardware component is detected, the boot sequence halts at the ok prompt. A full suite of diagnostic software is provided to diagnose such failures (see the following section for a summary of these software tools, and Chapter 6 for information about using these diagnostic tools).

68 Sun Fire 280R Server Owner’s Guide • January 2001