Sun To Use AMD Mobile Processor In Blade Servers

An anonymous reader writes "Looks like AMD is finally making some headway into supplying 1st tier business computer makers which the announcement that Sun will use their chips in upcoming blade servers. Apparently CNET can't help but speculate what this means for AMD's 64 bit Hammer."

Comments

But what about the end of Sun?

[stewartj]

Cringely seems to think that Sun won't last long though, so will there be long-term benefit to AMD?

Re:But what about the end of Sun?

[ihateashcroft]

Cringely doesn't make much sense. His arguments imply that IBM and HP will be going out of business too. He seems to think the future server market will be dominated by Intel and AMD running Linux, which seems a little silly to me.

Re:But what about the end of Sun?

[etcshadow]

I don't know that it is so unreasonable to imagine the future of servers based on Intel and AMD running linux. Just look at how much ground theyve covered recently. What is silly is the notion that that doesn't leave room for folks like IBM, and maybe Sun. After all, there is a lot more to a server than just a processor and a free O/S kernel. Personally, I'm kind of taken with the way that (big bad) IBM has been pushing x86 and linux on the small to medium (and growing) end server.

True, linux on x86 is not big iron... yet... but do you relly mean to discount the possibility that it could become a cheaper solution to big iron? For one example, look at Oracle RAC on x86 blades. It's not exactly one megalythic server... it's really more like a beowulf cluster, actually... but what works works.

Anyway... it'll be intersting to see how this all plays out.

Sun wants Solaris to be known as the 64 bit OS

[bartash]

Sun wants 64 bit capability to be a differentiator for Solaris. So they will not rush to use AMD's 64 bit offerings.

OTOH who is going to try to make a go of AMD/64? For sure not any of the system vendors who have commited to IA64. That means no Dell, no IBM, no HP. So there is an opportunity for Sun.

Re:Sun wants Solaris to be known as the 64 bit OS

[Hoser McMoose]

This might have been Sun's selling point a while ago, but I think that this plan is starting to fall apart with just about every server processor moving quickly to 64-bits with the exception of Intel's Xeon line.

As for who will use AMD's x86-64 Opteron processors, I'd say that it actually makes most sense for Dell. Dell is now the only major server vendor that doesn't have their own processor. Sun has their Sparcs, IBM has their Power line, Fujitsu has their Sparc64 line, while HP essentially has the Itanium as their own processor.

Sure, Dell can buy Itanium's from Intel, but they end up with a the same processor that HP uses but lower quality chipsets and supporting architecture, and all 6+ months after HP gets their stuff. Any company selling Itanium based servers is going to be competing against HP at a serious disadvantage unless that company also puts the research and development money into developing their own chipsets and motherboards. IBM has made some motions in this direction, but research and development is definitaly NOT Dell's cup of tea.

Dell's strong point is slapping together systems that others have done almost all of the R&D for and most of the testing as well. Their strong point in servers is the Xeon market, and this is first and foremost where the Opteron is going to compete. What's more, a company called Newisys has made quite a bit of noise recently about their Opteron system designs. What this company proposes is to do all of the R&D work and most of the testing work in setting up Opteron servers and than selling these to big OEMs. The OEMs would than just need to slap all the parts together and sell them, ie right up Dell's alley.

Now, as for Sun, they're a bit of an odd case here. They're still kind of finding their feet in the x86 server world, so it's kind of tough to decide just where they're likely to go in the future. However, I would definitely guess that Opteron based x86-64 servers could offer them a reasonable solution for what they're after.

what about long term?

[falconed]

looks like sun is going for the underdog in both the os and chip markets with a linux/amd combo. could this be in response to some beliefs that sun is fading? obviously this is good for amd and linux, but what if sun really does go away? will people blame amd hw and/or linux sw?

Press

[Fished]

Is it just me, or is 64-bit computing, the hammer, and AMD getting a lot of press for the past few days? I wonder if this is the start of a big media blitz.

Now we just need...

[etcshadow]

Now we just need for linux to get good support for the 64-bit addressable memory (read: more than 4 gigs).

Lower cost overall?

[mao che minh]

Lower cost overall....or at least one would hope. We all know that Sun's OS can outperform Linux in many respects. But Sun knows that they cannot compete with the open source crowd (Compete directly that is. I know that Sun contributes to open source, but they are hampered by McNealy who feels the need to keep calling Linux "just a tool", and does not commit to it more), as Linux tends to make huge leaps and bounds in a short time while Sun usually just tweaks a few interest points at a time. This should be expected, since heart felt developers and programmers on the "take" improve Linux daily, and these improvements are widespread since the interests of the many Linux developers vary. On the low end Sun servers cost $250,000 (unless you cut a deal), while IBM Linux servers that can accomplish much of the same tasks as the Sun equivalent run you roughly $4,000 (unless again, you cut a deal). This leaves alot of money left over for support and contracts, including software customization fees.

In any event, the Sun blades aren't in direct competition with commercial Linux offerings (yet), so I don't see how much this will help them. The inclusion of AMD CPUs will only marginally improve costs on the Blades.

Well, many researchers foretold Sun slowly to move to AMD as they enter the x86 market. You would expect that their next move will be low cost (low for Sun) Linux offerings with AMD chips to compete with IBM's $4,000 offerings.

Re:Lower cost overall?

[MissMyNewton]

Linux tends to make huge leaps and bounds in a short time while Sun usually just tweaks a few interest points at a time.

This might be because Solaris is ahead of Linux in a lot of places (scalability and storage management are two areas that come to mind right away).

There are diminishing returns as an OS matures -- refinement becomes the goal rather than feature addition.

Watch MacOS X to see the same phenomenon in action...

Re:Lower cost overall?

[watzinaneihm]

Now, The Comparison with Dell as it appears is an outright lie. The base PE6650 costs around 7k. Add almost all the periperals and still could be under 15 k.Try it yourselves here
Can the original contributor explain?

Funny dat

[pitr256]

I was just configuring Debian on a E450 dev box to bring our servers more in line with our production servers.

What does this mean for Sun? No one knows for sure. Is it the beginning of the end or a stop gap measure until their new processors come out in 2004. The ones all the analysts are so hyper over, not the USIV or USV but the Afara procs.

But what does this mean for AMD? Now every enterprise can ask the question, why not go with AMD? Sun uses their procs... why shouldn't we use them also.

This is just good news for AMD and may be a kick in the groin for Intel to wake up to the 64 bit to the desktop question.

Re:Good news for Linux

[Geekboy(Wizard)]

No they are not. Sun still wants you to run Solaris. I am trying to buy a Sun machine (to run OpenBSD on), and they won't return my calls.

Fine. Don't take my money. Don't save on the lack of support calls you'll get. Save money on my lack of downloading your service packs. Sun is retarded for ignoring those who just want hardware.

If Sun didn't suffer from foolish pride

[fz00]

They'd use AMDs to compete aggressively with IA64 offerings. As far as I'm concerned, this is Sun's only pathway to survival. Linux is killing their lowend Unix business. They should embrace Hammers and push the crap out of Linux boxes. I personally think they should put out Windows boxes as well but that's uncool to say here.

Why not?

[LinuxXPHybrid]

> ... they are probably preparing for the day when Solaris will be phased out.

They are in business, not gambling, so yes, they need to think about what if, but Solaris is still the core of Sun (like Solaris is the core of N1).

> Wow -- Sun is boosting Linux in a BIG way now.

Why not? Though they were cutting work force dramatically, they are still one of the biggest players in server market and if you look back for the last 10 years, they have achieved quite a lot. 10 years ago, they were nowhere. They were pretty interesting 5 years ago, and now they are competing with players like IBM with head to head, toe to toe. They don't have a big share in low end server market, so they push Linux. Since they built their business around Solaris (Unix), their engineers can easily shift to Linux; training cost is insignificant. So why not?

The negative shift from dot com bubble was so dramatic that, many seem to believe that Sun is turning around the direction that they are going, but I (and probably many other) don't think so. They are in server business, and they are investing a lot there. They established themselves as one of the biggest players in high end server market, so now they are targeting low end as well. While they pursue the whole server market, they push, what they call, N1.

The point is "What's so surprising? What's so unpredictable?"

Re:Good news for Linux

[calidoscope]

I don't think Solaris is going away anytime soon - after all, there was a big push to get Sun to release Solaris 9 (SunOS 5.9) for the x86.

I've run Linux and Solaris on x86 boxes - Linux has a lot of neat bells and whistles, but Solaris seems to be a bit better thought out (have yet to try a BSD on x86). My biggest complaints with Solaris are the lack of an "smbmount" facility. and limited HW support My biggest complaint with Linux is that the desktops lack the refinement of CDE - CDE was designed, KDE and Gnome evolved.

Remember that Linux is just the kernel - a good portion of what you find in a typical distro can easily be ported to Solaris.

Re:BSD is DEAD

[Anonymous Coward]

There is an interesting discussion over on Usenet about why BSD failed commercially. Some have offered up the hope that a couple of companies are using BSD in an embedded role. But the general consensus is that BSD failed overall because it is non-standard. The global OS poles have aligned along a Windows/Linux axis. This is the main polarity of the industry today, the de facto standards so to speak.

I would say that there is a lot of merit in this argument. BSD has found itself in the unpleasant position of being completely non-standard with respect to this new axis. Throw in a big dollop of bad luck and you can see how BSD arrived at its unfortunate situation today.

Re:BSD is DEAD

[Anonymous Coward]

which is really interesting since bsd supposedly has this superior bsd license (superior over gpl) that is supposed to be more enticing busines-wise.

what does linux prevail despite it's supposedly less enticing gpl license?

This isn't the first time AMD has been here...

[xenophrak]

Sun has used AMD CPU's before, although not in the primetime in their servers. They did use them in the SunPCi cards for workstations. I still have one.

The reason that Sun used AMD (the K6-2, I believe) instead of a Pentium, like they did with the SunPCi 2, is that at the time it made more sense price-wise. I see no difference here.

Bothered to read?

[FullCircle]

Look at all the non-reading fools posting...

These are the notebook AMD XP-M CPU's.

That means low power and heat.
It also means no 64bit support.

I had a tough decision to make

[dragontooth]

Moderate this thread or comment on it....hmmmm

I had to comment because I saw quite a few posts on the ability of Sun's slaes staff to reduce you too feeling like a non-human, loser who isn't worthy of their products because you are only spending 25, 50 or 75K worth of gear.

I work for an MSP and we do a lot of business with Sun (although we have sold more Dell/Linux solutions that Sun Solaris at the 3:1 ratio in the last 9 months). I am really tired of dealing with them. I even get attitude fromt heir teir 1 support! When a tier 1 peon asks me if I am sure that the drive is broken 3 times, and then tells me to get someone else to check it I get very angry and feel like cramming that drive down his stupid throat!

I mean really....I was supporting this stuff since before he was even a twinkle in his father's eyes. Am I not a repeat and well paying customer? Did we not spend several million dollars with Sun in the past? Do they not want to continue this relationship? I ask my sales rep these questions everytime I call....and he promptly hangs up on me.....BASTARDS!