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New Machines From Sun
Another reader, nameless for his or her own protection, writes with more Sun hardware information: "Sun / Cobalt announced their new XTR machine ... I know a bit about it from their beta but couldn't say anything due to non-disclosure until they announced it.
It's not an AMD chip as has been reported, it uses Intel Coppermine P3's running up to 933 Mhz (or at least that's the highest they offer right now). Apparently the P3 was picked for lower heat/power consumption and so that they can do SMP in the near future. The unit we saw had a 2nd socket for SMP but the BIOS and software is not ready for it for this release. I'm guessing in another 6 months or so they'll release an SMP version.
This unit also had standard IDE drives in the 4 (yep, 4 all available in the front) hotswap bays but the sleds and backplane look like their considering SCA SCSI drives in the future, all they need to do is swap the controller card and drives and everything is ready since the controller is no longer built-in to the motherboard and the backplane has SCA connectors (the sled adapts the IDE drive to an SCA connector)."
That X1, besides giving you a rack-mounted 400MHz UltraSPARC for your under-a-grand, has what I think is the largest silkscreened logo I've ever seen on a computer. Why don't they just admit they want to and start hiring graphic artists from skateboard companies?
Seems like that acquisition of Cobalt Networks is bearing some fruit.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
Clustering is a much better way to scale than SMP. Also, with clusters, you are better off with central shared storage than with having it on each one. There's no reason for your web servers to have good storage capabilities - its just a waste of money. Leave that to the NFS server.
Engineering and the Ultimate
It's the ++Y2K bug!!
-antipop
The BEST 1U Linux boxes are the VA Linux servers. They really rock (actually, we use the 2U version, but I'm pretty sure the 1U is almost the same, just a little pricier). Anyway, VA Linux has the _best_ intel Linux hardware around. VERY well-tested, and VERY solid.
Engineering and the Ultimate
Isn't that an oxymoron? Of all the firewall products I've ever had the, errr, pleasure to work on, Firewall-1 is the least advanced, most unpleasant. The ipfilter module for Solaris is just as functional and at least it's open-sourced.
-=-=-=-=-
-=-=-=-=-
My mom's going to kick you in the face!
Cobolt isn't competing with this. This doesn't just "work" out of the box. You still need a Sysadmin to configure it and stuff.
Engineering and the Ultimate
20G 5400 RPM, that white paper notes under "Power Management". Something tells me disk I/O rates aren't going to be stellar.
How does this computer compare to say, an AMD of comparable price (price, not MHz)? For which cases would it be better option than an AMD, and which will it be worse?
(from Sun's site):
Pricing and Availability
Sun's Netra X1 thin server will be available starting March 6, 2001 through Sun and Sun's existing worldwide sales channels. The starting list price is $995 for a system configured with an UltraSPARC IIe 400MHz processor, 128MB memory (1GB max), 1-20GB hard drive (2 drives max), and Solaris 8 and LOM management software pre-installed.
http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/2001-01/sunf lash.20010117.4.html;$sessionid$EBXDBFYAAANTXAMTA1 FU45Q
Linux doesnt scale well past two processors, so with a massive 8 way sun box running linux, you lose a bit of preformance. However, on a uniprocessor box, Linux would function just as well as Solaris. Now depending on the situation you could make a very good case for linux(perhaps a standard operating system, custom app, or staff knowledge) or one for solaris(binary compatibility with big suns, ease of maintence(jumpstart), corporate prebuilt packages). For a single processor box, its not that one clearly leads the other.
...). I've used and admined a bunch of sun boxes, and I always find them sorta different, with some nice features(serial consoles!) and some bad ones(the stock vi). Why do you prefer it?
/*
However, for a multiprocessor box, yes anyone running linux on it is insane. Im intrested in what makes you prefer solaris(symantics, os feature, preformance, or
*Not a Sermon, Just a Thought
*/
*Not a Sermon, Just a Thought
*/
I've used a Dell server. I have some queries that run for several hours. It seems that we either GBs of memory, or disk sub-system that is faster than the current SCSI RAID. Why would I want to go for expensive Sun equipment when I seem to get better value with x86 hardware? Besides, we'd have to take quite a hit moving everything from SQL Server to a non-MSFT DB solution.
Not true. Anyone can get it. I have it right
here. You can order a set of CDs, or download
it from the web site.
As a Sun Sysadmin, I see only 2 problems that keep this box from UTTERLY blowing away the competition.
1) The drives are non SCSI, so in sun land, you can't mirror the hard drives [1]
2) (Follows from 1) The drives don't hot swap.
Sun has long lagged behind Compaq (the intel servers I see most at my work) and probably others in shipping with RAID chips that can cover the 2-5 hot swap, SCSI drives that can go in the chassie. Now I understand charging serious cash for external storage, but for the root drives, lay off.
[1] Note: if there is a way around this, I would LOVE to hear it, but every where I've seen, unless you have 2 different IDE busses, you can't mirror root drives.
Zapman
sue me, now I did it too ;-)
I have a cool sig too.
Check these 1U Linux boxes out: www.interpromicro.com
We have bought several of these for production use, and so far they are very nice. Starting at just $859.00 they are cheap, small, and all round just pretty nifty.
For eight or fewer processors, Solaris is free. The media kit is $75. One media kit per licensee, not per license. Install it onto as many systems as you want. Just register them at no charge.
Windows is expensive. Solaris isn't.
Doesn't bode well for a server introduction, does it?
If you are paying $16K a pop for a Netra T1 105, you are on crack. A T1 with a 360/1MB cache and 128MB is ~$3200. Make it a 440/2MB and the price climbs all the way up to ~$5200. Single discs, no cdrom.
The RAM _is_ silly expensive, but even maxed out with two drives and 512MB, we still get them for less than $7000.
In the immortal words of Socrates, who said; 'I drank what?'
We ordered a Sun Blade when it came out, back in November. We still haven't seen it yet. Sun keeps claiming that it will ship Real Soon Now(tm).
We have one in our firm - 2X750MHz, 2GB RAM, 2X36GB 10k RPM FCAL disks, two Sun 17 inch (I think) flat panels - but we do buy quite a bit of Sun kit. The faceplate lights up, which is sort of cool. A guy who looks after some of our Starfires has it under his desk, and I went on a pilgrimage to his desk to see it back in mid-December.
well, i know it is not free (as in GNU) but i thought that sun was planning some weird quasi-open program in which the solaris source would be made available under a highly restrictive liscence. maybe they axed it; i don't know.
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
No, it won't have the same problem. The cpus that cause the problems are 400MHz/4MB E-cache and the 440MHz/8MB E-cache. (Other may be affected such as the 480s, but I am not sure.)
Those cpus have problems because the cache is, apparently, not ECC. Sun's 'fix' is to clear the cache every Nns. Not really a fix, but at least the box doesn't fall over.
Looking at the specs for the new X1s, the cache has been reduced to 256KB, and although it isn't stated, the cache is likely on the die.
In the immortal words of Socrates, who said; 'I drank what?'
Keep in mind that the Sparcs are RISC as opposed to CISC.
Its great for a cluster server or a single-service server (DNS/SQUID/firewall/load-balancer)
Engineering and the Ultimate
I don't know if Solaris has this, but with Linux you can just do a network install. You don't even need a floppy, you can just tftp the kernel image.
Engineering and the Ultimate
It's 1U - that makes a pretty huge difference. And it's designed to run forever, like months without heat problems. At 1U (1.5") that's serious work.
And 400MHz in an UntraSparc is something completely different than 400MHz in a Celeron. IPC (instructions per clock cycle) is significantly better.
Evan - needs to hit preview before submitting
i just have 2 questions: how much? and give it to me. where can i buy? where where where? i want to buy one this second yet it does not look like they are available yet. when when when?
Would they make any major changes in this new box that would make the Sparc port incompatible?
I'd like to find a Sparc port that would run on my old Solbourne s3000 Sparc workstation, alas that box is definately non-compatible.
air and light and time and space
http://www.ultralinux.org/ for starters, but you can bag it from SuSE: http://www.suse.com
The design conceptuality is the biggest factor here... SPARC processors are built with a common, strict instruction set, and all performance enhancements are done at the hardware level (anything that is beyond the user-definable assembly-like language). Intel adds extensions to each new processor they come out with. Comparing apples to apples doesn't exactly work, when it comes to FPU/ALU/FLOPS/etc... here's why.
Take a Pentium Pro 200 and benchmark it on the exact same software with a PIII-1ghz. Theoretically, there should be a five-fold scaling difference in performance. However, applications that have not had additional optimization code added in for the newer PIII architecture do NOT get a five-fold increase in performance. Expect to see something along the lines of three-fold.
Applications that _have_ been optimized for the newer architecture will blow away the old chips. For example, look at Quake III on a Pentium Pro 200 with a PCI Video card, and then try the same benchmarks with all the same variables with a PIII-1ghz. the difference is more like 20-25fold than it is five-fold.
Either way, it's a lose-lose situation for Intel. If you buy a fast, expensive server, it won't be scalably faster than your old server when using the same software. Also, in another year, when SSE3 and MMX revision 234023 come out on Intel's next chip (or at least, next microcode release), your now-old server won't be optimized for the code in new software and will run it poorly.
With Sun's SPARC architecture, this stuff doesn't happen. Of course, it did from SPARC to UltraSPARC, but that's a HUGE architectural change - that's expected. Just like going from a PIII to an IA64-based chip, when they come out. Bottom line is that you're playing guessing games and software-matching-tag to figure out if an Intel-based server upgrade will really help you, where in the Sun market, your upgrade will be matched equally and as-expected with greater performance.
If you really *like* tweaking and modifying and optimizing software at the instruction-level on your servers, hey, I won't stop you... I know that I've got way too many servers to manage to possibly consider that as a reasonable option in the enterprise.
.... um, i lost you after "0110100001101001".
Seems odd that the product lines have crossed. $1000 for a Sparc server and $4800 for a Cobalt? If someone tried to pull that one on me a year ago I would have laughed in their faces.
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WWhhaatt ddooeess dduupplleexx mmeeaann??
This sig intentionally left justified.
I have 2 DL360's and 2 DS10L's from Compaq on my desk right now. They are a bit loud, but they work just fine ;-)
If you're really so autointoxicated that you'd consider buying Sun equipment, it would be much more cost effective in the long run to get a PinkBoard instead.
"You will be surprised at what comes out of you."
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
I'm no expert, so feel free to flame away, but I would imagine that this is not aimed at being a bullet-proof, hot-swap drive, redundant power-supply dual processing bad-boy - at this price the whole box would probably get swapped out if there was a problem. Use them as web or application servers, and keep your database on something a little more chunky.
The 220R is much different from the E250 (which, btw, is rackmountable). Yes, both support two CPUs. Yes, both support 2GB of RAM. Yes, both are PCI. But the 220R is 4U and holds two internal SCSI disks. The E250 is 6U and holds 6.
Ditto for the 420R/E450. The 420R is essentially the same as the 220R, except that it supports 4 CPUs and 4GB of RAM. The E450 is the same, except that it supports up to 20 internal SCSI disks.
As for the X1, it supports more than just one drive and 128MB of RAM. The base model just comes configured that way. The X1 would make a more-than-adquate web/name/mail server most businesses. Yes, what a suprise that you DON'T need a 800Mhz chip to run these services. Or even multiple chips.
For accessing a single disk, IDE is usually just as fast as SCSI.
Engineering and the Ultimate
Bull.
I ordered 2 Ultra 5's Friday (1-12-01) and recived them yesterday. (1-17-01) And they weren't even stock orders. (just extra RAM)
If you voted for Nader, THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!
Many n-tier system architectures use machines that are almost pure CPUs connected to networks. The machine would receive a request from a client application on the tier "above", make it's own requests for data from servers on the tier "below", perform some processing and then send a reply upwards and logging information down. You only really need a disk in these things for convenience sake, if they've been properly configured they won't even need to hit the pagefile during normal operation. You'd have real servers for your data storage, and you would be able to hot swap and/or add entire nodes to the system whenever you felt like it, because as long as they complete whatever they're working on before you disconnect them, they have no state on them at all. Very scalable, very easy to maintain, and quite cheap.
Sure it'd make a cheap singe server, but at that price the whole damn thing is practically disposable. Stuff a rack with them, hook 'em up to a SAN, or an NFS mounted data repository (to eliminate the need to replicate data) and front the whole thing with a nice load balancer (or 2 boxes running the Linux Director stuff). Voila - you've got a $50k rack with enough SSL encrypting, HTML pushing, PERL punching, and bandwidth blasting power to rival ANY $150k piece of 'big iron'.
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
This is just a pity to see they preferred to put an IDE disc in this box.
OK, for monothreading apps, IDE is okay and can even be fast enough but it relies in some way on the processor's power.
Why not putting some SCSI disc(s) inside, hmmmm ?
BTW, I love the idea of a service processor in this low-cost device: this will save much space in my machine rooms.
--
Trolling using another account since 2005.
...what's the point of getting a Sun box to run Linux?
Is SPARC *that* special?
....I have found (at least in .au) is the Intel 1100 series. This is actually a 1RU case + motherboard + 2xIntel Pro 100 NIC's. Add your own HD/RAM/CPU/OS. You can also add a video card or CDROM if you need to, but these things are designed for headless deployment (Ghost/PXE/etc) and they have a serial port on the front so you can plug in a vt100 console if you want to see the bios or text mode/dos stuff.
I have built some linux servers, PIII plus 128MB ram plus 9GB IDE drive came to about $2300 AUD so I would guess given exchange rates etc would be around $1K US.
Either way, thanks for pointing out the Ultralinux website earlier... there is no better SPARC/Linux resource out there.
They're a good price/spec for web servers load balanced by something like Cisco LocalDirector. I'm setting this up right now with Netra T1's, though each of the Netra's will only use the local disk for the OS, Apps and Logging. All the HTTP content will be NFS mounted by an E-4500 + Photon disk array.
I'll bet Sun's compiler still costs $1995. I guess there's always gcc.
The average place won't see anywhere near that sort of traffic.
wonder if there is any clustering software for these things, or run linux on it.. you could build a pretty sweet cluster for $40 grand.
lastly.. these are worth the price.. hell, a 1U case alone goes for like $400.. what's up with that??
-b
Just to clear it up, the [42]20R's are not Netras, they are Enterprise servers: E420R, E220R.
I can actually see these very handy for DNS servers, and large arrays of web servers (at this price you can buy 3 of these to take the place of 1 slightly bigger/better machine, and have more points of failure)
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WWhhaatt ddooeess dduupplleexx mmeeaann??
This sig intentionally left justified.
We ordered a Sun Blade when it came out, back in November. We still haven't seen it yet. Sun keeps claiming that it will ship Real Soon Now(tm).
It seems to me Sun is trying awfully hard to become the next Micro$oft. Their marketing department is a close second to Micro$oft's when it comes to making tall claims and vaporware.
That's a little misleading. While you don't save all that much space between the E250 and the E220R, you *do* with the E420R vs. the E450. The E450 is nice with all those internal drive bays, but it's fscking huge.
That, and as an AC said below, video/frame buffer could be a drawback for some.
Evan - needs to hit preview before submitting
1U Cobalts are nice, because they can fit in any cheap 19" rack that a musician may have lying around. 2U Dell or Compaq servers weigh a ton and really need rear rails (and no standard depth in the industry, it seems) to hold them.
Ack.
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WWhhaatt ddooeess dduupplleexx mmeeaann??
This sig intentionally left justified.
$75 is cheap. There's a catch though...the licence doesn't include upgrades. So, if an exploit or other defect is discovered and fixed, you need to;
If there's a way to get updates that I don't know about, feel free to hit me with a Clue Stick(tm).
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Does I don't think it has a graphics card, and that is why an ANSI terminal is required. What sun should do is have an X-server run on startup, so that you can login using X from a PC, or another Sun Box.
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
You are talking about a Nextra T1, this discussion is about the Nextra X1. Hence the cost difference.
If you voted for Nader, THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!
You don't, do you? If you actually delt with servers on a regular basis, you'd understand the coolness of getting a SUN for under a grand. That's cheaper than the Cobalt RaQ4's and Qubes. Which run on AMD K6-2's. Guess what, this will stomp a hole in the cobalts w/o a problem. and it's cheaper. So no, I take it you don't get it, do you?
dopp
-- If a god of love and life ever did exist, he's long since dead. Someone, something, rules in his place
The company I work for currently puts an Ultra 5 in each office for DHCP & secondary DNS. We'll be looking hard at these as a way to save cash as we expand.
As explained in an earlier post....
Some of the chipsets used have not been implemented
in the kernel code for that specific architecture yet.
It's being worked on by an Admiral group of folks.
Sun would probably install Linux on it for you...
IF
1) They were interested in linux.
2) They completed the port to this hardware
3) They can train their support staff to
handle the sudden increase in tech
support calls.
Not that I mind, since I'm one of those who's
still waiting for 2 other things.....
1) Completed port to the new chipsets
2) 1K to get one of my own.
Friends don't let friends buy Compaq's. (Dell/Gateway... same same) You want a good computer? Build it yourself.
*whack* You are correct that it doesn't include upgrades. However, the Recommended Cluster Patches, which include include security and reliability patches, are free. Check http://sunsolve.sun.com and look for 'patches'.
> and under $1000usd simply amazing...
m l
It certainly would be, except in the UK, where they come in at over $4000usd!
https://www.suncatalogue.com/cgi/uk1/pr0015p.ht
"Netra t1 Model 105, 360 MHz UltraSPARC-IIi 1 MB Cache, 64 MB DRAM, 18.2 GB 10000 RPM Hard Disk, AC Power"
It's cheaper for us to nip accross to the US, for the weekend and pick one up
-- This message may have an automatic disclaimer attached. In which case it does not in its entirety represent my opi
THANK YOU SUN! :-)
-Z
A 'modern high spec Athlon system' may beat it's equivl'nt Sun system, but you'd be hard pressed to beat the stuff hiding in the machine room - said Athlon can't beat what I've got at work in the server room for reliability and service.
Display some adaptability.
And why, pray tell, would you want to waste space on a video board in something that is meant to be crammed into a single rack with 10 other thin servers like it? This isn't a desktop system -- it's supposed to be something you throw a rack & forget about where it is physically.
From the article: "... it employs standard PC components, including PC memory and IDE disk drives...." I assume that means it takes standard RAM.
Close -- it has a single network card. But, that built-in card is dual ported, each port having 10/100 capability.
--Mid
Because there is no CDROM nor a floppy drive.
Thus, you'd have to take out the harddisk, install it somewhere else, then put it back in.
Don't forget to stuff the empty space in your racks with the nice stuff they make at FunkLogic
Sooo stylish...
I've been developing a networked application (i.e., something where tons of folks on the net will have clients but they will need to speak to a big server -- like Napster). We chose to use Suns because of scalability.
The lower-end (1 400MHz UltraSPARC) benchmarked on our apps just slightly below the most tweaked-out Athalon boxes we could build and at a slightly higher cost, but the difference was probably negligible. Some of the app servers, multithreading stuff, HA, and Databse (read: Oracle) stuff was much more mature on the Suns however, so everything balanced out in the end.
So, why did we choose Sun? Simple: they scale. If our system takes off -- as we hope it will -- in a big way, we'll need big database servers with massive I/O throughput, Sun can sell them to us.
I don't want to knock Linux (I use it for other stuff and at home), but it doesn't take full advantage of these massive I/O monsters like the E10k. We don't need them today, but if out little Netra is overloaded, we can get a 450, or a E4500, or a 6500, or a 10k. Yeah, we might be able to cluster machines on the front end (though it would require far more work), but making the database scale across 100s on PCs is not something I'd sign up for. The Suns are pretty much plug-and-play.
Up till now, the big barrier was that they were too expensive. You enter the PC-as-server game for just a few bucks thanks to the miracle of Linux. I haven't looked at the specs in detail, so I won't promise anything, but my sense is that this makes it practical to develop and deploy all sorts of stuff for the SPARC/Solaris environment at first. Then, if you need it, you can scale easily.
Kudos to Sun. Now scurry off and make a cheap workstation (with a big enough framebuffer: no lame PGX24s -- you're embarassing Sun by letting people see folks using Suns with a PGX24 connected.)
Why not? My VT220 is the only piece of hardware that I've had since the early 80's that still works.
--
All men are great
before declaring war
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
Uh, wake up? Don't you realize how popular Linux is with ISPs? Besides, most people here are interested in replacing closed source OSs with Linux/xBSD for ideological reasons, and it's working.
this seems like a really cool system but i wonder why sun isn't marketing this or anything similar as pcs. i as well as many others out there would really love to have a sparc especially at these kinds of prices, but i have never seen them marketed as pcs, from sun or anybody. i think most people are tried of x86 and many are starting to look to sparcs and powerpc's (i have a feeling x86 will max out in a few years and alternatives like sparcs will still be growing just as fast as always).i am sure they would probably need more support from the linux and windows communities but i do not see why it wouldn't be successful. how old is the x86 architecture anyway, i am pretty sure its well over a decade old.
Look, its a piece of Sun hardware that is actually cheap for once!
I think this is a sure sign of the coming apocalypse.
A former company I worked for ended up buying a lot of Netra T1's because our co-location providers (AT&T) were bastards and demanded that everything going into their space be NEBS compliant.
NEBS compliance is evil evil evil!
We could have used Concorde's Netra clones and saved over 1 *million* dollars....but noooo AT&T has to have NEBS compliant hardware only and *only* the Sun Netra T1 series is 1U and rackmountable and NEBS....but the damn things cost us like $16k a pop. Too bad this new Netra isn't NEBS, but at least Sun isn't bending the customer over the barrel for this unit....unlike other crap of theirs.
No, I'm not bitter, not at all. I just despise the markup on Sun hardware and then having to defend a Sun clone (Concorde, great stuff, really good prices and reliable also) to upper management who wants to buy Sun directly because someone in upper management is boing some chick for a Sun reseller.
Grrrr!
Nope, not bitter, really, seriously!
http://www.nonmundane.org/
or DHCP servers or routers. They are nice and small and at these prices, you can use individual boxes dedicated to each of these functions and have replacement boxes ready to go.
Sigh, Sun used to be a good company, now they make Microsoft look like the 'good guys'.
Sounds like you'd be better off with an Enterprise 250 or 450. These el cheapo Netras are not aimed any anyone who needs SCSI, or RAID, or multiple CPUs. Check out the rest of Sun's product line, and throw that Compaq in the trash.
Wow. Sarcasm must not translate very well in text. I was trying to make a statement about many of the comments I typically see on Slashdot when a Mac news bit comes up.
Do they mean a....terminal?
haven't done it, but it can be done. the www.ultralinux.org FAQ has more deatils.
So, does anybody know when these things will be available for purchase? It's not in the "store" section of their website. Also, I called the 800-SUN-4USA (or 800-USA-4SUN, don't remember which) and the guy I talked to told me to request price quotes from an email address that turned-out to be non-existent.
But they have a tiny logo on the front for that all important calm authority :)
I wonder if that nice logo shown on the top of the unit is just for looks in the photos? Once you mount the thing in a rack, who is going to see it anyway? Skip the logo and knock $10 off the price.
Excellent for application servers.
Rackable too. Buy five; run three or four Enterprise Java Beans servers on each in a large cluster. You have just what you need fast and stable CPU and memory. Fast disks are reserved for database servers. Need to install more memory though.
*OUCH!* Thanks...I think!
Sun should make it easy to find these kind of things. Only a few sites are harder to deal with, and almost all of them high-profile.
[GRIPE] Why hide every patch and upgrade under a layer of menus that use phrases from a marketing handbook, as opposed to...well...an FTP site? What's so hard about that old favorite, plus a simple directory structure?
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
In response to the statement about running anything but solaris on a Sun box...I must agree.
You're nuts to run linux on Sun hardware, unless you absolutely dont care about any support from Sun. If you run linux and get a kernel panic (which we've seen a lot from UE 400+MHz boxes here at work - actually ECACHE errors) and you have a support contract (good idea IMO), Sun will probably refuse to analyze the core file because you're running an unsupported OS.
This is, ultimately, a business decision, but an easy on IMO.
As far as the number of linux jobs out there...I've never seen one posted on Monster for my town, at least there were no linux sysadmin jobs that I could find. I can find tons of Solaris jobs though.
I know a guy who has 2 or 3 years experience of running his own company setting up linux and Free/OpenBSD boxes for companies as a firewall, router, mailserver, whatever. He had trouble finding a linux job, still is having trouble actually.
Maybe it's different here, maybe I'm just blind...but Solaris is where it's at right now (according to a SANS survey, Solaris admins are the best paid, and Cisco IOS folks are second).
I've grown sick of the world and its people's mindless games
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.-Franklin
The Register is reporting that the UK list price for the X1 is going to be £1200 - almost double the straight currency conversion of £679 (US$1000 == GBP£679 at the moment, according to this site.
WTF is that all about then?
I noted that Apple UK's pricing of the Titanium Powerbook is only marginally above the straight conversion, which sounds fair to me. But almost double?
...j
Hmm. IDE drives are as fast, large and reliable now as SCSI drives were only two years ago. My server requirements haven't really changed since then, have yours? Were the SCSI drives inadequate for you then?
I'm with ya there. I had to reread their page a few times before I let myself believe. I was waiting to see *disk/cpu not included or something.
After reading the specs though, I'm totally in awe. What it really means to me is that I can finally have a decent (rackmount!) sparc box at home (for cheaper than a PC!). Yes!
--
All men are great
before declaring war
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
What I have arranged on my machines is similar, but there is still too much Solaris and too few OSS.
Ciao
----
FB
I agree that performance-wise you will the differences between Solaris and Linux are less apparent -- but why would you chose an operating system which is not endorsed by the vendor when the vendor OS is excellent and well supported? If you encounter any subtle hardware issues, you will have to spend lots of time on the phone convincing the support engineers that Linux isn't the problem. I don't have that time.
/devices, /dev and the quirks that Sun threw in for configuration files and such. As you mentioned, linux SMP performance sucks, I believe that even SCO (ick) is better in large systems.
Plus, Solaris 8 licenses are free (as in beer), so that is not an issue. What is incentive to use Linux? I could give a shit about software licensing philosophy.
As far as my preference vis a vis Solaris and Linux goes, it's hard to put a handle on. Serial consoles rock, and I am more accostomed to the Solaris
Linux is perfect for many applications; we've moved report modules, DNS, email, etc. from NT and Solaris to Linux with stellar results. However, in some medium database apps, Solaris rocked the house, especially when under heavy i/o load.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Now yes we are in the process of hooking up a Sun 250 to replace it but a 486 will do dhcp and secondary DNS wortk pretty adequately for a LOT of people.
Deploying sparc 5's for that task sounds like a VERY expensive approach.
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
Keep in mind that this dont mean anything. Intel chips outperform SPARCS mhz for mhz in all the important benchmarks.
I only wish there was an Apple hardware story on today's front page to make the sarcasm even drippier. Thank you.
itachi
Isn't it odd that the huge logo is on the top, where no one will ever see it, except during installation?
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
Who'd use it in production? Well, production means different things. Oracle databases? No. Bind? Sure. Plus, I think we're going to buy a bunch as development test servers, and for building network mock-ups and stuff like that. Talk about a great way to prototype a production network without spending a hundred thousand dollars...
In any field, find the strangest thing and then explore it. -John Archibald Wheeler
As a Mac user (multiple) smarting from the stupid MHz comments in the press, I'm surprised that they didn't put a 2GHz clock on the bastard (and step it down 5:1 at the chip, which would give them an ultra-precise 400 MHz clock.)
I'd have some real decisions to make if I hadn't already budgeted for a Titanium PowerBook.
But the next rack unit I buy...
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Well, mostly the fact that, according to the site, these particular units DON'T have any localhost ports on them.
k ing/netrax/X1/details.html#rc See subheading "Interconnect".
http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/hw/networ
If you take a close look at the details, the price of $995 USD includes the Solaris 8 OS.
all persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental. - Kurt Vonnegut
Evan - needs to hit preview before submitting
there are, however, 2 USB ports and 2 "RS-232C/RS-423 serial ports (DB25)" (i've never heard of those, unless they are just normal serial ports). if one were so inclined, they could hack support for USB (or the other kind of serial) keyboards and mice (isn't the solaris source available now?). If they don't like that, there is always Linux or NetBSD, both of which run on UltraSparc, and maybe this will bring about a port of OpenBSD, which as of now, only supports regular Sparc. Plus, I don't think there is a video adapter.
I realize that slashdot is a Linux site, but why would you want to run something other than Solaris on a MODERN sun box?
Solaris is a very good operating system, and I have found it more suitable for the databases and programs that I work with. (No, I am not interested in Postgre or mySQL, don't flame please)
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Who will use this? I will.
Every real project requires development machines, pilot machines, and production machines. Now we just use old Ultra2, 5, and 10 machines as development boxes - they take up space that we don't really have. We use expensive copies of our production boxes as pilot machines - though normally with less ram / fewer cpus.
These nice little rack jobs are just the ticket - no reason now that every developer can't have their own dev machine or two, without the worry of where to put the things.
(+we can get rid of those nasty NOISY old Ultras under our desks.)
Seriously... There are a lot of small development companies out there, especially those building ASP/Netapps, who don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars to lay out on Sparc boxes for their QA and development work.
I wonder what these are going to do to the countless leasing companies that are reaming small shops for a good $14-16k (low-end) Ultra2 boxes...
- A.P.
--
* CmdrTaco is an idiot.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
But most of us don't care for huge datbabases. Sure, solaris may be great for ISPs (BSD is better)or whatnot, but we've gotten used to linux and most of us know how to harden(secure) and put to good use a linux box than a solaris one. One reason why linux on sparcs has been negligable is the fact that most of us can't affort sun hardwara...this may change just that.
Keep in mind that this dont mean anything. Intel chips outperform SPARCS mhz for mhz in all the important benchmarks.
Yeah, the video game dept. Does anyone realize that there is a difference between designing a machine for multitasking vs. number crunching? Intel chips are faster for a single thread of execution, but their scalability suck hind tit. Sun machines on the other hand don't excute each thread all that fast in comparison, but my God! Have you seen that sucker when you ramp up the number of processes/threads?!
The Intel machine was dead long ago, even with Linux. (Linux is more stable, but still doesn't scale Intel hardware. See FreeBSD for an excellent attempt at Intel scalability.) Sun machines don't even sweat it under the most extreme loads! Compare that to the puny Intel servers which start throwing GPFs (translated to SEGFAULTS in the Unix world), nasty processor exceptions, and sometimes even lock-up. Surfice it to say, Intel boxes suck for servers, and Sun boxes suck for video games. End of story.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
How can that be? I thought CPU frequency was an absolute measure of performance. What gives?!?
Sorry to burst your thinly-veiled Mac G4 advocacy but CPU performance is only a fraction of what constitutes overall server performance...
Perhaps the most important factor is memory bandwidth, something that both x86 PCs and Mac PPCs have always lacked.
Big bandwidth controllers are expensive and will always be relegated to Big Iron systems: Sun USPARC, SGI MIPS, Compaq Alpha.
If this little 1U 400Mhz USPARC has the same memory controllers as its larger bretheren, then it will easily trounce most PCs and definitely your beloved G4 Macs with ease.
~AC
blessings,
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
We have a number of these as web servers, and yes, they hold two internal drives. For a web server, that is usually fine (2x36GB is usually plenty). However, you can always add an external array if you wish for. Of course, Compaq's dual 933MHz is a lot more respectable.
As for the X1, it supports more than just one drive and 128MB of RAM. The base model just comes configured that way. The X1 would make a more-than-adquate web/name/mail server most businesses. Yes, what a suprise that you DON'T need a 800Mhz chip to run these services. Or even multiple chips.
The Netra X1 would also make a very nice firewall as it has two ethernet ports - just be very, very careful to plug the right cable in the right socket...
For higher volume mail/web servers, the Netra T1 would be a better choice as it has SCSI disks, but is otherwise equivalent to the X1.
We have several disconnectable sections of our network. Each of these sections requires a local DNS/NIS/NTP server so everything dosn't die when the link to the main backbone is pulled. I have found that it is often simpler to run such services on a small dedicated system without general user access. A second use I can see is an inexpensive integration test box. Places I have worked seem to always have great development servers but never have enough expendable/scratch boxes to install the product cleanly from scratch during testing.
Just think, you could make a really sweet mp3 player out of this!! All it would need is a sound card that fits the profile, a rack for your living room (it'll look nice next to the T.V., hon, I promise!) and someone stupid enough to do it!! Man, I can see the rush on these already. I gotta go buy one before they are sold out...
Oh, and remember, when you start seeing "Howto convert your Netra into a Home MP3 Playing Machine" websites springing up all over the 'net, you heard it here first!
Many years ago, I was pondering the idea of the Amiga 500 as a skateboard deck. The most important trick to learn with this would be to flip it up and change the disk in the floppy drive before landing on it again. Not easy.
For a sun box this isnt weak on the low end. That sparc will outperform most x86 servers. It's squarely aimed at the same crowd that would like to use cobalts as well as the people building cheap web farms. considering the thing can holde 1gb RAM and another drive it's the type of thing you setup to do simple intranet or clustering.
this space for rent
This thing uses a serial console. They realize odds are this wil;l be a headless box plus installs would be from a jumpstart server.
There is an openbsd port in the works actually. The serial console means it doesnt need a video port.
this space for rent
Simple.
You have a jumpstart server around to jumpstart it. But of course you shouldn't need this, because the install does *not* require a GUI. If it detects no framebuffer it defaults to the text only install option, throughout.
--- I do not moderate.
Well it is "FrameBuffer, Audio, SCSI" not included. Not that FrameBuffer has any value for a rackmount server, Audio has almost none, and SCSI, well, that would be nice, but I guess they have to cut the cost some how. NEBS would be nice as well, but again...
The drawback is no PCI slot. So there are a lot of things you can't use it for. Beyond memory and disk space there is basically no expansion at all. No gigabit ethernet. No RAID. None of that. A pity. But there are other Netras.
I hope BSD/OS runs on it :-)
And before anyone goes "what they charge!!". Remeber this is a 6 cd set with nice documentation. If you've ever seen the sun solaris box you know it comes with like 3 or 4 manuals. And consider the costs of say a windows. It's really a nice deal when it comes down to it. 75 bucks (US) for as many systems as you want with less than 8 cpus.
this space for rent
Does anyone have a "Thousand dollar review" for this thing yet - or do we have to wait for Chris Chabot/redir to rip something off?
Misleading? I was comparing size. The E220/420 use the same chassis. That chassis IS smaller than both the 250 (by 2U) and the 450 (by alot).
Even so, the 450 is still a waste of space. A 420R configured with 2 external D1000 units takes up less verticle space and affords you more hard drive slots than the 450, and can carry the same amount of CPUs and RAM. One might argue that this kind of set up is more redundant in some ways.
They're posting from the future! You should have bought Sun stock, knowing how in the future they were going to release this netra thing....
--
Sun has been selling new Sun Ultra 5s 10s and higher off of E-Bay sience Augest. YOu can get a Ultra 5 for around $2000 and a Ultra 10 for around $3000 It is still a little more expensive then a x86 but runing and Ultra Sparc is a nice experence.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
if only i had mod rights!!
LOL
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
Oh well... I guess it's understandable... we probably won't see AMD really breaking into server marketplace untill SMP boards make it onto the market.
Even if the system hardware didnt cost you an armand a leg, software for it would...Solaris costs as much as the computer I'm using now!
Note: I haven't actually *tried* booting into ultrapenguin linux...for the time being, Solaris is fine for me.
No video, single NIC, IDE
1 PCI slot, good for a nice fast, stable SCSI or FCAL card. 2x100Mb ports. 1GB of PC133.
Sounds pretty sweet to me, and as expandable as I really need for many roles..
btw, got a T1 105 hooked up to a big ol' external RAID, works like the beez neez, though mezzanine memory costs $$$ out the a$$ (more than RAMBUS!)
Your Working Boy,
This throws a lot of stuff out the window. I'm completely blown away that Sun have done this.
:)
Say you're putting together a hosting provider or other such consumer of rackmounted gear. Go to your boss and suggest you either buy:
a, VALinux 1120's for $1400 each.
b, BSDi 1210's for $1300 each.
c, 'Proper' sun boxes for $1000 each.
No brainer, particularly with Sun's excellent reputation.
And before you start flaming away, consider what this does to 1U dell boxes running win2k server... like, two and a half grand? BWaaaahahahahahaaa! Fuck you Bill!
They're going to sell millions of these things. And do not, for one second, underestimate the good this is going to do Unix.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
only to educational institutions, IIRC. Essentially sun found a cheap way to get young developers, by having students code as projects for them. If you looked hard enough i'm sure you could find it on the internet, but it'd probably be hard as hell.
I wouldn't be surprised if they truely open sourced solaris, though(what the hell, they've been really good to the open source community compared to a lot of other companies thier size). It is free so long as you don't use it on more than 8 proccesor boxen so sun wouldn't lose too much revenue from it.
You do not have to run Solaris on it... :-)
Solaris 8 is free (beer) for up to and including 8 CPUs though they charge $75 for the media package (several CDROMs)..
(check here for details)
Your Working Boy,
I know you are probably trolling, but do you have any proof of that?
I wish Sun would take this approach towards their desktops as well....I'd kill for a SPARC over an x86 any day - if only they didn't cost an arm and a leg...
Yes, I have. They still fall behind. On the other hand the hardware almost never fails, is a lot simpler to "fix" remotly (tell it to boot off of another drive, or boot of of CD and reload the OS, or just power down and back up). They are also much simpler to get in the same config for more then 3 months in a row.
Even real fixing is frequently simpler. SCA drives are wonderful (and yes, you can get SCA PCs, but once you configure a SCA PC the price tends to go above Suns!)
That is why we use them for servers a lot. A lot lot. A very very lot. Even with the CPU gap.
someone can confirm that the Sparc port of Linux will run on this, I will be getting out my credit cards. This looks really sweet.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
According to the this sun site it uses standard PC133 memory. No more high sun memory prices! Why wouldn't you buy one of these?
Uh, why do you need video support on a rackmountable server?
(and Ultra5's are worthless pieces of junk..)
I wonder if Linux will run on these.
Dell now manufactures a 1U single-processor machine (the 1400) that's not too long to fit in a standard rack (like the 2450 is). You can get them with DeadRat pre-installed, if that's what makes you happy.
The 2450's not bad, for a 2U dual-processor box, except that it's 27 inches long and sounds like a city bus. Which is fine for a server room, but sucks when you have one one your desk for testing purposes.
--
I *invented* pants!
That X1, besides giving you a rack-mounted 400MHz UltraSPARC for your under-a-grand, has what I think is the largest silkscreened logo I've ever seen on a computer. Why don't they just admit they want to and start hiring graphic artists from skateboard companies?
Why not actually use the X1 as a skateboard deck? put a few little wheels on it and Whamo! Instant Geek/Board culture cross. I could see these things really catching on at lunch hour in the industrial parks. Then you could really start making sparks with that sparc.
air and light and time and space
Do you actually have to have a rack, or it can nicely fit on my desk?
You might want to read the story again; the Sun X1 holds 2 drives, and the Cobalt RaQ XTR holds 4 drives.
I am one of SuSE's SPARC/Linux developers. Currently, I don't think Linux will run on one of those machines. If you look at their Product White Paper, you'll see (from the description and pictures) that the machine has both an UltraSPARC-IIe processor and an ALi PCI chipset. The US-IIe, while probably easy to add support for, just isn't known to the kernel currently. The ALi PCI chipset is a new thing for SPARC machines. Also, the machine has USB ports that the SPARC/Linux port won't currently take advantage of. Support will, of course, be worked on... just have patience. :)
Yeah. The Netra 112x and 140x use the SUNW,Ultra-60 and SUNW,Ultra-80 boards respectively as well.
Unfortunately, some of our customer complain to us, thinking that we're running their server on a "workstation" and not a "server". sigh :)
http://www.xcomputing.com - has a variety of 1U Intel machines, great prices, very fast delivery. I have a couple in my basement. http://www.aslab.com also looks like they have nice stuff but I haven't bought any from them (yet).
AS far as administration is consonered Administration a Sparc System with Solaris is much simpler then Adming a Linux System. Not to put Linux Down it run Beutifully on Sparc and Intel Systems. While Sparc only runs very well on Sparc systems and it is Slow on Intel Systems. But admining a solaris system is much smoother then Linux for the simple reasons there are less hardware configuration issues with detecting hardware and the hardcoded frame buffer make X run Very Stable without the occasional X windows crash that linux has. Solaris Has many advantages over Linux as an OS. And Linux has many advantages over Solaris. Except for flaming Solaris you should work with it for a while and understand its difference then use the right OS for the right job.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I find it really interesting that servers are now reaching into the "value" pricing segment of the market. Maybe this tells us a little something about the increasing demand for lower priced servers, and servers in general?
I personally run a cluster of servers, and if you ask me, this would be a great addition to our cluster. Why? Well I mean at under $1000 you really can't lose, especially at the price to performance ratio this is running at. I could see a box like this used to server ads, as a backup webserver, an addition to a loadbalanced cluster, or even a database server if you expanded its RAM.
With Sun moving its grande butt into a low end arena like this, I think we will begin to see more and more of those on the market as companies look to fill in more servers all while keeping costs low.
"On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami."
The thing about Sun equipment is that, yeah, it's overpriced. But it offers something that not a lot of other vendors can offer in terms of hardware quality. The parts used by Sun are generally of very high quality (and I'm talking the stupid, but important stuff, like cables, power supplies, and PCBs). Sun hardware, while never being a shining star in the CPU department, makes up for it in I/O throughput, if those type of apps are your deal (though CPU intensive stuff is best left to CPUs like IA32/Alpha).
The Netra T1 boxes (at least the 105s, and I assume the 220s) run Linux, have lights-out managment of power via dial-in or terminal server, and come standard with 10kRPM disks, and have dual ethernet, and have plenty of expansion (via the E1 box for 4 extra PCI cards, if you need it).
Overall, the netras might be overpriced, but they are a good choice for folks that have the money (and the people) to use them in the right situation.
I shoulda known someone much better than I'll ever be would read that, and post.
Thanks for the correction. I don't want to mislead people. Guess I shoulda checked the hardware compatibility list for the components, and not just the CPU.
mea culpa.
So what would you use this for?
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
The time posted on the story isn't for another 40 minutes.... Why is that?
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Big SUN logo on the top of a rackmount, GREAT place... like people will ever see it, what with all the other junk on the rack, plus the dust
------
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
sign me up.
Where does it say the price?
Sorry - Solaris kicks ass if done right. 500+ day uptimes, automatic hardware detection (on sparc) and perfectly acceptable software support. You pay for hardware, but I have yet to see proper serial console support on an Intel box (serial console = difference between a long drive in the dark and a good night's sleep if a box goes down) -deke
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
It seems (as of this writing) that the Slashdot Effect has overwhelmed even Sun's mighty web server. Hmph.
If you were to, say, for example, pull your head out of the sand, you would realize a couple of things:
1) It has 2 10/100 ethernet ports
2) It uses PC133 ram
3) Why the heck do you need video on a server?
Sure, IDE means that it isn't for everybody, but farming these things as web servers will be great.
Sparc CPUs are not going to match up to the performance you will get for cluster use that you would get out of an alpha or an intel CPU.
That said, they might just kick ass at this price (in theory) for a load-balanced HA web farm...
From the sun white paper on the X1, it states that it can only hold 2 IDE drives. The beta version that unnamed source refers to probably had heat issues.
Granted, at $1000 a piece, you can afford to cluster these thingies, but I still feel a lot better about my Compaq DL360s. With 2 Pentium IIIS, hardware RAID1 SCSI drives and a Remote Insight board, these puppies rock for serious use in remote data centers. Sun's current offering is a bit too departemental for me...
220/420
17.8 cm H
44.9 cm W
69.6 cm D
250
51.7 cm H
26.2 cm W
73.2 cm D
450
58.1 cm H
44.8 cm W
69.6 cm D
Put an UltraSparc at 400mhz next to a p3 at 800mhz when your "oh so critical" website gets slashdotted.
Tell me; which one, won out?
I have the same machine sitting right here on my desk and just bought another scsi 10k drive and a 256mb mezzanine card. Cost about 2300.. Sucks.. however they did have a 10% discount on these items at the time of purchase.
Is this one of those rare occaisions where the phrase "Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these" is actually appropriate?
I work at a company who uses lots of the Netra machines, and they're awesome. The Netra 220R is the same as an Ultra Enterprise 250 only rackmountable and the Netra 420R is the same as a Ultra Enterprise 450 only again, it's rack mountable.
The question I have is who is going to use a machine with an IDE drive an only 128 megs of RAM in a production environment? Normal users probably won't use it since it's only rack-mountable, and it's pretty low end to be a business server.
Thoughts?
We're building a suite of app servers in my (job) and have started looking into HP's new LPr's rumored to come out (dual PIII in 1U). Sun has made 1U machines for a while, but they've been expensive.
And sometimes I wonder if an 8-CPU 4U box may be a better deal over 4 1U boxes.... Still, having a rack stacked full on 1U machenes, some acting as firewalls, some as web servers, some as app servers, some as DB servers, etc... It's kind of sweet.
Evan - needs to hit preview before submitting