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Pixar Eclipses Sun with Linux/Intel

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the clusters-i-desire dept.

lieutenant writes "Pixar Animation Studios is replacing servers from Sun in its render farm with eight new blade servers from Rackspace. In all, the blade system contains 1,024 Intel 2.8GHz Xeon processors, and it runs the open-source Linux operating system. Pixar has ported its Renderman software to run on Linux." I'd love to see their electric bill ;)

2 of 437 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Electric Bill Calculated... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    isn't

    720 hours @ 75,776W = 54,558,720kWh.

    actually 54,558,720Wh (watt-hours, not kilowatt hours), which is 54,558kWh

    making it not 3.2million, but only $3200 a month?

  2. This is exactly the kind of thing x86 is good at. by MisterP · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A lot of people are going to be saying "just one example of how Sun is dying", but coming from a place that runs several hundred Sun machines (and being a Sun fanboy), I can understand why they made this switch. For shere processing power on-the-cheap, the x86 world has had a lead on Sun and other big UNIX vendors for a few years. Having a decent OS (linux) to run on those machines, makes it even easier to switch.

    It's about using the right tool for the job, and now that x86/linux/bsd has matured to a point where it can be used for some professional applications, it only makes sense to see things like this happen.

    Sun is going to be around for a long time. As many other people have pointed out, they're just retreating somewhat to more a of niche market, where they are the right tool for the job.