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

Also on Ars Technica

[Hyperbolix]

This was on Ars Technica today. Check it out:
http://arstechnica.com/archive/news/1046147898.htm l
A somewhat different interpretation of the meaning?

Re:Also on Ars Technica

[Anonymous Coward]

Here on this intarweb thing we have this revolutionary technology called hypertext. The idea is to use links that you can click on to instantly view pages you didn't know existed!

Check it out!

Good news for Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow -- Sun is boosting Linux in a BIG way now. Although they have not said so, they are probably preparing for the day when Solaris will be phased out. It will be a gradual process of course, much like the way IBM is slowly depreciating AIX.

This is VERY interesting news since at this moment Sun is holding their Chip Conference where the future of Sparc is being discussed.

Re:Good news for Linux

[Monkelectric]

I used to work for a university, and made $100k+ purchases from sun from time to time ... However most frequently we were buying computers in small lots as we could afford to replace them (5 - 10k at a time), and lemme tell you, their sales reps have a *serious* attitude problem. I once had to call the regional manager because our assigned rep *wouldn't take our calls*. However, when we trotted out a 100k purchase they were all over us. I can't wait to see these bastards go out of business.

If you can get assigned a rep, the best thing to do is call 1-800-iforgetsunsphonenumber and get a quote, their tracking system will automatically notify your rep that you got a quote and usually they'll call you to try to get a comission on an easy sale.

However, have you considered ebay or one of the MANY sun resellers?

The weird part...

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at the stock listings after today's announcement...

Sun Microsystems | SUNW | 3.42 | 0.01
Advanced Micro D | AMD | 5.31 | -0.08

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?

[Amiga Trombone]

Well, Cringely is entitled to his opinion, but I doubt Sun will be going anywhere for quite some time. I can see them getting replaced with x86 on the low end, but somehow I don't think x86 boxes will be replacing machines like the E10K or the E15K any time soon. But I can see where Sun will end up a smaller, humbler company as a result.

Truthfully, I don't think this will do much for AMD one or the other. Sun is just marketing these things to prevent current customers from looking elsewhere. You can be pretty sure the main emphasis will still be on Sparc.

another proof point that Sun is dying

[Anonymous Coward]

Sun still talks out of both sides of it's mouth. In one breath they make claims that the UltraSPARC cpu is the most competitive CPU known to mankind, and in the next breath they're releasing non SPARC based systems, LX50 (Intel XEON) and AMD based blades.

Sun CPU engineers are way behind their competition. They're so far behind that their competition is litteraly lapping them in terms of price and performance.

Try and find any decent Sun server benchmarks that prove that their gear is competitive.

You can actually find benchmarks that one can make the direct comparison of an 8 way UltraSPARC 3 to a 4 way Intel Xeon MP! And the Intel based solution is faster and costs 50% or less.

Sun by virtue of their ego is becoming a boutique server/workstation vendor. Think SGI, this is likely Sun's future or worse if they don't start laying more staff off.

Businesses are realizing this, and this is why Sun is taking such a beating.

Re:Is it hot in here...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it hot in here or is it just AMD?

Nope, Its the smell of your Karma burning.

Sun should buy AMD

[puppetluva]

I've had a number of discussions with folks about this over the last few years.

1) Sun can still afford it.
2) They gain instant credibility in the x86 market.
3) AMD gains credibility in the enterprise (luring really big enterprise customers with real service)
4) Sun gets 2 of the leading 64-bit processor platforms, plus some control over the Windows hardware platform.
5) Sun gets to own their chip manufacturer (rather than rely on stinky TI and Fujitsu for the Sparc line).
6) Sun can control the cost of its Linux platform.

Do, it Sun. . . you know you want to. . . buy them.

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

[BrotherPope]

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.

While there are no announcements out of Dell yet, Infoworld published this article back in November, saying:

A high ranking executive at a Dell partner has said, on condition of anonymity, that Dell will likely ship an Opteron-based server manufactured by Newisys Inc. Both Newisys and Dell are based in Austin, Texas.

The Register published their take on the situation. It may never come to pass, but I'd be surprised if Dell wasn't at least looking at such a plan.

Re:BSD is DEAD

[oingoboingo]

For instance, the other day I was making a little presentation to my boss and suddenly used the:

1.
2. . . .
3. Profit!!

Step list . . .

That's from South Park (the 'Underpants Gnome' episode). It's not a Slashdot thing (although being unemployed and single probably is).

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.

Re:Say Goodbye to 64 bit windows

[bstadil]

As you might know there will be no support for x86-64 in the upcoming Windows Server 2003. This was made public here a few days ago.

I find this real hard to understand from a strategic viewpoint. (Maybe they are just late and do not want to hold up 2003). If indeed they have been strongarm'ed (bad joke) or something by Intel. It seems to me they are forcing a Linux / Opteron attack precisely where they want to go themselves. The middle tier server market.

With no immediate support from Windows what other choice is there for AMD than to embrace the only credible OS for their chip, Linux. They want to position Opteron against Xeon but the volume is not there initially so what else can they do than make special deals for Linux based servers. Now, this will hurt Dell as a Intel only supplier. Dell can not afford to loose momentum so either they have to get huge discounts from Intel, or embrace AMD. Either way it's bad long term for both Intel and Microsoft.

Once the middle tier market is gone to linux, they can kiss .Net goodbye. Just look at the Webserver market. No "innovations" from MS, since forever. Why?, because of Apache. They can't find traction for an embrace and extend strategy with 26% share. Same for .Net once the middle tier market is gone.

Not supporting AMD's x86-64 is like trying to corner an amimal thinking it wil not strike back. Strange.