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Sun May Use Opteron Chips
Runnin_Rob writes "CNET Nets.com is reporting that Sun is likely (not definite, but likely) to start using AMD's Opteron in the near future. The article also discusses how Linux is pushing for greater acceptability of Solaris x86 because 'All of the sudden it is OK to (put) something other than Windows.'"
its about time they started using some REAL hardware.
"Good god people, we would have accepted 'bow-wow' or 'ruff'...Ah! Rough, just the way your mother likes it Trebek."
Has anyone heard of commodity motherboards for this chip/chipset? :)
It's great that Sun and AMD are together on this, but I'm itching to build a box myself
As my best friend put it: Solaris would be Microsoft if they could. They have certainly pulled monopolistic wannabe stuff in the past, but have had to back off of it because of their lack of market share.
I have always had the mind that if I had to choose between the two, I'd rather have a monopoly that was Unix-based.
Sun has already said they will be using Xeon's for their higher CPU count x86 boxes so I kind of doubt they will be using the Opteron. As much as I would love to see it I doubt the people that would buy a 4 or 8 way server from Sun will want an AMD processor.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I like Sun servers and Solaris, and I like AMD... :-) I hope sun is able to make some more money by using AMD's chips. Anything Sun/AMD develops has to be better that WinTel....
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
Sun is losing market share and fast. It says a lot when you take the top of the line sparc chip, and put it up against a chip a quarter of the price that kicks its butt. Granted sparc is scalable (Scalable Processor ARChitecture), but not every case calls for a 24 cpu machine. Even hp has hpux running on Itanium. Sure sun has solaris x86, but they even tried to drop that!
CNET Nets.com?
void*x=(*((void*(*)())&(x=(void*)0xfdeb58)))();
Another way of saying that interest in the SPARC architecture is waning.
Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
'All of the sudden it is OK to (put) something other than Windows.'
Nice correction made by the submitter. Did he even read it? Did timothy even read it? Doesn't seem so...
'All of the sudden it is OK to (put) something other than Windows.'
huh? when was microsoft going to port to amd's 64 bit processor? they seem to be going out of their way to dis amd. this could be the point where the paths between various flavors of unix and windows part, hardware-wise. linux et al will run on anything, and windows will run on intel. not good for windows imho. any comments on the potential for substantially better image and video processing performance under a 64 bit os (memory)?
After reading the previous article about gas clouds, space, and all kinds of astronomy stuff, I misinterpreted this title to mean someone had discovered good old Sol up there was powered by AMD Opterons.
Took half a second for me to realise they don't quite run THAT hot.
Sun is *likely* (*not definite*, *but likely*) to *start* using AMD's Opteron in the *near future* Did an accountant write this?
Not at my workplace. We're mostly a Solaris shop, but it's not buying us much. We have to load new boxen chock full of GNU software to make them comfortable to work on.
Much of our software is Java, C or Perl-based. The Solaris JavaVM sucks donkey dicks (it's no better than linux, anyway), we use GCC (not Forte), and our Perl is portable to linux with a single scp.
Solaris buys us performance on machines with more than 16 CPUs. But we don't have any! Anything that needs serious cycles goes on the S/390 or AS/400s.
When the leases come up, it will be interesting to see how many Solaris boxes go out, and linux boxes come in.
Ya, I guess all these guys that finally quit CompUSA and get real tech jobs are seeing a whole new world. Honestly, did they think the entire world was living with the same misconception?
Im not going to go MS bashing, because quite honestly Im pro-MS, but really, thats a truly stupid statement to make, especially if you have worked in real data centers.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
...I meant to say that Solaris wants to be Windows.
Ok, ok, I give, I screwed up. Please be gentle.
Many pointy hairs are also awakening to the fact that Linux is evolving way faster then any previous OS in history. This realization is forcing many of them to position themselves in order to benefit from Linux. They are starting by replacing all of their low to medium-level extremely expensive UNIX solutions with Linux implementations, and waiting for Linux to overtake UNIX on the top tier. This saves them tons "in the meantime" and prepares them for the eventual replacement of their high-end solutions. Sun has to know that this scenario is inevitable and play along. Pride will only get you but so far.
McNealy has been fighting Linux for far too long, calling it "just another tool". I got news for you, all OS's are tools. Only this tool here can save your ass a ton while doing everything that every other tool promises to do on the low and medium ends.
Right now, Linux is "it" - and it shows no signs of slowing up. Microsoft makes their money off desktops and their office suite. UNIX makes money off stability and power. Stability and power is what the open source developers aim to improve. UNIX beware - evolve or perish, because you're next..
Now obviously Itanium has been a total disaster, so its understandable and nearly respectable that Sun would backpedal, nonetheless their ability to follow through on platform decisions like this is just another question mark for a company that has too many.
> The article also discusses how Linux is pushing
> for greater acceptability
Linux is neither a person nor an organization. It can't "push" for anything.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I thought Sun already had a 64-bit CPU. And I heard that CPU won't run Windows. Since Sun wants businesses to buy Solaris instead of Windows, that would seem like the thing to do, since that would narrow down the competition to basically just Linux. Do they think Microsoft isn't going to sell Windows for these CPUs?
Personally I'd love to have a CPU architecture that fully departs from the x86 designs, whether it be 32 bit or 64 bit (or a hybrid). I'd just run Linux or BSD on it. Such CPUs exist now, but they simply are not at commodity pricing, yet. Of course companies like Sun and IBM would rather not have to deal with such pricing. So we're probably stuck with x86 CPUs for a few more years until the high end people shake out what CPU they will use, then all the clone makers will leech.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
mean that Sun would probably phase out Intel chips in the next 1-2 years in its lower end Linux systems. They will move entirely to AMD for their 32 bit lower end Linux and 64-32 bit mid level systems.
Given that so many companies: Sun, IBM, Dell want to increase their 64 bit x86 offerings, Microsoft *will* have to work double time to speed up their version of 64 bit Windows.
Already 5 varities of Linux, 3 BSD's, IBM's DB2, CA Ingres and Oracle have confirmed firm support for Opteron. Delaying Windows for this segment will mean that as Opteron becomes popular in the coming months, Linux will become the dominant operating system. This will mean a further boost to Linux.
A few months back Sandia National labs signed up to put 10,000 Opteron's in a supercomputer named Red storm which is supposed to become operational in 2004.
Soon (VERY soon in terms of Linux development and progress) Linux will be able to offer you all of the power and stability that Solaris does without the extremely high costs of UNIX. Get ready to reap the whirl wind friend.
It's great to know that a product that so many hackers spent countless hours on (LINUX) is promoting a competing closed source proprietry OS.
Is it just me or does Linux promotion seem like a more appropriate use for Linux?
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
Adequacy.org was a bigger piece of shit wank fest than /. and k5 put toghether.
Anyone that shuts them down is OK in my book.
*Not counting the times a careless sysadmin knocked the heatsink off of a CPU and fried the chip. We've been told that they are working on more foolproof mounting clips.
**As long as you avoid the E25Ks with the Soyo Super 733FX3 mobos with the Via 8N933A eXtreeme chipsets. Those sux. Flakey as all shit. Oh, and make sure you only buy brand-name memory.
***The winning benchmarks were done using a system with custom aftermarket watercoolers running Opteron 4700++'s overclocked to 6974++. The transaction data was not completely free of corrupted bytes.
I personally imagine, SUN will produce Intel or AMD
based web-application server board(PCI or something else) which can be plugged into SUN/Solaris box.
Given the fact that application server is extremely CPU power hungry and most component are made by platform independent Java, designing PCI board to run
web application server does make sense and reduce
H/W cost.
Looking at Oracle's Application server, only part, which is platform dependent, is Apache itself. All others are Java. Just developing mechanism to load Intel/Linux/Apache code to designated board may be enough.
Solaris/SPARC didn't loose edge against Intel/PC as DB server. But considering price disparity, Solaris/SPARC as web application server platform does not have bright future
microsoft, even after near perjury publicly stated that they would not support amd's 64 bit processor (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/3/17019.html ). if they have finally come to publicly display the version of windows everybody knew that they had (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/3/17031.html ) produced it was likely because itanic is not the prize intel was sure it would become (http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20021226 .html).
What is that? Perhaps you meant PC's, computers, or workstations.
How are they going to build 106 cpu boxes with opterons?
Maybe somebody more familiar with the architecture can chime in here...?
Don't sweat the petty things. But do pet the sweaty things.
Seriously, why would Sun ever release such a brute as this? Sure, its fast as hell, but I think Java's all the evidence we need to prove that Sun doesnt give two rats on a stick about performance. They're one of those "100% uptime" "we'd never expect programmers to garbage collect" and damn the torpedos folks. What do they give about the hopefully soon to be fastest processor this side of Itanium (Although Itanium's only absolute claim to fame is its price, shazam).
Why would they care about another 10% performance margin anyways?
Has CNet forgotten that Sun happens to be making their own processors? UltraSparc IIIi is what, here, almost here, something of the sort. And what better way to say our processors rule than by using someone elses, no? Then again, they did just confess that Java is wholy inadequate for many of they're projects, so ah, sun will be sun.
But they'd better rethink they're processors if they're profit marigns are better for a 3rd party chip than they're own, network externalities aside.
Myren
'All of the sudden it is OK to (put) something other than Windows.' is not a complete sentence!!!
The sentence should read 'All of the sudden it is OK to (put) something other than Windows' on these machines .
These editors must be too busy to parse sentences properly... don't we all know put takes two objects?
I've been following the opteron's progress for quite a while now (3-4 months). Well, to be honest, I type "AMD" in the google news search and read anything that comes up everyday before I actually start doing any work. While SUN seems the be the largets potential supporter, Newisys, MSI, Appro International, smaller MB makers, and various vendors do seem to be giving good support. Even Microsoft has a working (I've seen some screen shots of a beta) version of windows for x86-64 called "Anvil" (Not yet released of course). Linux is up to speed, RedHat and SuSe and I don't know who all else has support. The chip isn't even out yet! I think things are going to work out for AMD and the Opteron/Athlon64. So far it seems like a good product, and I can say for meself at least that the delays only make me want one more.... If SUN jumps on the AMD wagon from the start as it looks like they're planning on, I think it may be what saves them.
w00t for AMD!
I am a viral sig. Please help me spread.
Moderators: if part of a message is not dirrectly on topic, that does not make the whole message off-topic. I think slashdot is giving out moderation points far too easily these days. People who don't know what they are doing are moderating.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
So, I haven't really used Solaris much since the 2.5 days. I decided to give Solaris 9 a go on my Sun Ultra2 box. Guys, installing and setting up Solaris once will teach how far Linux has come. The fancy "webstart" install starts with an xterm with a text based disk partition tool. I haven't seen something like that since on Linux since 1999 (and the distro that did it was acknowledged pure crapola). Package selection during install was horrible. Not to mention it let me remove something that cuased kernel panics so I had to reinstall with a default package set. Once you get it installed, you got get it up to date. Of course, Sun's main update system is the "look around on our web site and pray what you download is for your version" like Windows and MacOS had 10 years ago. There is also a utility called patchpro with withh automagically download patches and apply them to your system. Of course, it comes in a tarball, requires you to alter your path, and finds weak excuses not to install patches thus requiring you to do a bunch of research to find out the reason. Installing patches on Solaris could only get better if they sent them to you on 9 track tape. Seriously, I was a big user of AIX, Solaris, and HPUX back in the mid nineties and I am sad to say that for Solaris not much has changed. I downloaded the Sun branded gnome2 for Solaris 9. Ich! Ximian really fleeced these guys. You get a clunky dual-toolbar desktop thats actually not much better than CDE. Someone sould have told Sun that gnome was all about the apps. In short, I still think of Linux sometimes as the distro I first installed by picking kernels with the correct CD driver to make boot floppies with back in 94. However, Linux has gotten to the point where its install and administration are superior to windows! However, the big Unixes are still behind the curve and wondering why they're losing market share.
Never overestimate the end user. -jeramy b. smith
AMD to stick it where the Sun don't shine...
Perhaps Sun feels sufficiently compelled by Hypertransport's effectiveness in producing powerful multiprocessor systems easily and cost-effectively. Three HyperTransport buses per Opteron, use one to interface to the system bus and the other two to interconnect with other processors. No other processor has HyperTransports like this, specifically optimized for multiprocessor configurations.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
You apparently intend your post as a warning to Sun that it should give up on its existing technologies (sparc,solaris) and join what you perceive as the "linux pack" of IBM, HP, etc. But if you look at your own arguments and reconsider them, the case is far from clear that what you suggest is in fact wise.
Consider IBM. Sure, IBM is selling hardware with Linux loaded on it. But they haven't given up on their Power chips as you seem to imply that Sun should its Sparc series. Why aren't you wagging your tongue at IBM for that? And AIX? What of that? IBM certainly hasn't abandonded it, and I wouldn't expect it to any time soon. So all that IBM is really offering is yet another operating system choice, in this case Linux, and it meets your approval. It doesn't necessarily do anything unique there.
And what of HP? You say that HP has proven that they can sell Linux servers in the absence of huge corporate support. What on earth are you talking about? HP is one of the largest computer companies on the planet. If they can't make a go of selling Linux boxes, who can? I will also point out that HP hasn't dumped RISC for X86, but instead went to expensive Itanium, and has a long roadmap for HP/UX. Sure they will sell you a Linux box, but they would prefer to sell you something else.
You assert that Linux is evolving way faster then any previous OS in history. The only reason that is possible is because it has had so far to go to catch up. To catch up it has generally traveled trails blazed by others, and relied upon the kindness of volunteers and donations from kinfolk (JFS,XFS,etc.). Sure Linux is causing the traditional Unix vendors to react and jump a bit.... just like BSD did to AT&T Unix, GNU did to Unix, the various Unix groups and companies did to each other over time. But big unix companies are still here and adapting.
Cost? I've got Sun equipment that cheaper than my Dells, and suits my particular needs better. Cost/performance? Depending upon the day and the metric you've got a better argument. But it doesn't matter how cheap it is, or what the price/performance is if it doesn't cut the mustard. PC and linux aren't even close to being a universal solution. Check back in 3 years after Opteron is well entrenched, Linux gets some more time in the rock polisher, and companies have figured out which direction Linux on X86 is heading: Intel vs AMD. Till then, confusion reigns.
I also wouldn't count on Linux staying cheap. All of the major Linux commercial vendors are putting plans into place or releasing enterprise or professional releases that are both much more expensive, and have a much lower change rate. What else do you expect? Linux companies have been going broke left and right for years, and only a few now are starting to make a profit. There have to be profitable Linux vendors if linux is going to be a commercial success, and that means money, lots more money. And that money will come from their customers for license and support costs. I pay less for Sun support than what is in my budget for Red Hat support. It will be interesting to watch what happens to the Linux marketplace once that becomes more common.
The change rate for commercial linux is starting to drop for the professional releases. This has to happen since if you need something reliable that you are going to bet your business on, you can't afford the overhead of the constant release churning that has marked the Linux world to date. Testing, certification, and quality assurance take time. I wonder how that will effect Linux in the marketplace?
Its kind of ironic, but many of the things that you list as big advantages for Linux are really disadvantages to those with deep pockets. Rapid change is bad. Cheap is irrelevant. Almost as stable isn't stable. Those cost of the application, its implementation and maintenance is king. But the Linux commercial marketplace is heading toward those opportunities. I wonder what the outcome will be?
Linux
Long before Sun evaluated the first AMD chip for blade, I was thinking this would be a good idea for them. Regardless of many things, prices is just the tipping point. Using AMD, Sun does not have to put too much effort developing chips. AMD and Intel has quicker CPU cyle because of the Desktop root. This makes Sun's offer more competitive in term of price, publicity, and performance (at whatever cost they charge).
I am surpised that people compares Sparcs, and AMD (interm of its vitality), while they don't bother look at a real life example. IBM sells Intel chips for years, and doing very well with it, but they still sell their power line of chips. Does it really matter if the power line failed and their intel server succeeded? Sounds like a negative impact, but not really since if not supporting x86 line, and their Risk/Unix line is dead, they are worse off.
So, for a company, Sun supporting the AMD and Intel is no brainer. Cost is everything to business. Whether Sparc dies or not is irrelevant as long as you execute things right.
Time change, things change, your business must change, and sometimes your processors must change too.
People don't by Sun's hardware because 3 factors:
1) High cost (compare to the commodity of x86 HW)
2) Close (closed hardware and software environment)
3) Company and industry images (people tends to be nervous if everyone else support linux, and they also fear if Sun goes down).
So, lower the cost, open up with widely support x86 hardware, show that you're more competitive, and you'll survive and thrive.
That Microsoft already has 64-bit Windows running on Opteron....
Actually, Sun works with a wide range of developers and companies
to improve Java using the Java Community Process
The JCP has hundreds of members listed here
I personally believe the JCP does an admirable job.
Does it have room for improvement? Of course.
Is it working? For me the answer is yes--
Java gets steadily faster and more useful.
What do you think is a better model
for extending and improving a language?
Cheers, Joel
From the JCP homepage:
the Java Community Process is the way the Java platform evolves.
It's an open organization of international Java developers and licensees
whose charter is to develop and revise Java technology specifications,
reference implementations, and technology compatibility kits.
it MAY be that saddam is dead and unconfirmed single source says elvis MAY be alive
Im not going to go MS bashing, because quite honestly Im pro-MS, but really, thats a truly stupid statement to make, especially if you have worked in real data centers.
Why do I read Slashdot? Why bother? What is the point? This gets +5?
I don't even know what the hell that guy is saying.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
or then again, if they suck, I might not use Opteron chips. come on, people. this sun news has been repeated monthly
Then Mickeysoft may have to consider making their wind dozing thingy free too.
Monopolies offering free stuffs
they don't like it
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Who is this mysterious "Linux"? I know of the OS kernel called Linux, but last I checked, it wasn't concerned about the marketplace for non-Windows OS's, it just worried about scheduling processes and providing abstracted interfaces to hardware.
Does the latest kernel print subliminal messages at boot time, saying "Delete me! Install Solaris for x86!!!"?
So, expect AMD CPUs in blade configurations but not in servers, the SPARC arch is still going strong in SUNs business model (dont remember any AMD cpu's in any server models actually).
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
Aristotele
How's this for a post?
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
What the fuck is the deal with Scot McNealy's teeth? They reflect more light than the surface of the moon. Maybe if he kept his mouth shut Sun wouldn't be in such a mess. Hang on.....
Sun is now offering UltraSparc IIIi processors:
http://www.sun.com/processors/UltraSPARC-IIIi/
They do have some similarities to AMD's opteron processor:
- 1 MB on-chip L2 cache
- integrated memory controller
- 128bit DDR Ram
- large L1 cache
It should be interesting to compare those two processors.
They do. It's called an UltraSPARC.
Granted.
Right again, but who cares about Windoze on a Sun box -- and where's this going?
If Sun start using Opterons, which is what this story is about, it would be a distinct possibility.
What CPU's?
Uhmmm...the AMD Opterons? You know, the CPUs that this story is about?
You mean MS is going to sell Windows for SPARC? Uh, no. I'm starting to think you're the one who's a bit confused here.
With respect, I think you're the one that's confused, randyest.
Ah! There ya go -- you figured it out all by yourself. Atta boy.
It's amusing that you're trying to be patronising with him when almost everything he said went straight over your head.
could have as easily been said.
...the name of the CPU under development that got stolen in the pilot of The Lone Gunmen?
I have to say i am dissapointed to see sun considering this route.everyone seems to jump onto the x86 train and wave there arms and scream how good it is. But there is one thing that gets overlooked.
Yes, i know i can take a rack of 24 cpu sun boxes, or a cluster of as/400's and replace it with a p4 farm for half the price (even after you enclude that hudge air conditioner that your going to have to buy) But we are still working with x86. And bottom line...x86 works because of 2 reasons. x86 is dirt cheap, and intel has the money to make x86 work.
not to say that the x86 architchure has no place, particually the opteron implemetation is better, but its still a solution for the pc end. And thats not really were sun works in. Bottom line, when you go into a bank server room, there is a cluster of as/400's, not a hudge p4 farm. Why? because when you have a critcal system, you dont put it on a platform as shakey as x86. If its your desktop machine...maybe, but when its something that hundreds or thousands of users or even more are connecting to, you would have to be crazy. It may serve them well for some of the lower end servers. But i would be very disinchanted with sun to see this sort of thing spread into their server lines.
Hmmm.. I have an AMD Opteron evaluation system with an AGP slot. How can that be?
methinks your data is out-dated...
God damn fanboys. Spout off at the mouth without even knowing what they're talking about.
> and HP has proven that
> they can sell Linux servers in the absence of huge
> corporate support.
HP *is* a huge corporation. Besides, most companies I know of buy Linux servers from *Dell*.
> Many pointy hairs are also awakening to the fact
> that Linux is evolving way faster then any
> previous OS in history.
WTF?! Linux has been "evolving" since at least 1994, probably longer. And even then, 60-70% of the core code was ripped from various BSD code bases. Not to mention that IBM and Oracle have been trying to make Linux a good choice for big iron for at least three years and so far have had only marginal success.
> McNealy has been fighting Linux for far too
> long, calling it "just another tool". I got news
> for you, all OS's are tools. Only this tool here
> can save your ass a ton while doing everything
> that every other tool promises to do on the low
> and medium ends.
So can FreeBSD and... wait for it... Solaris! That's right folks! For the low-low-low cost of ZERO Dollars, you can own your very own copy of Solaris x86 or FreeBSD! Don't wait call now!
Linux is riding the wave of idiots who've never used a real Unix before, but are perfectly happy to bash tranditional Unix because it isn't "cool". The reality is, after ten years of development, stealing from BSD, and many donations made by those "about to die" Unix companies, Linux can *almost* do everything that the Big Iron can, only worse.
> Right now, Linux is "it" - and it shows no signs
> of slowing up.
Right now my USB mouse locks up under RedHat after a few minutes of use. I finally wiped it and reinstalled BSD. Ah, progress.
> Stability and power is what the open source
> developers aim to improve.
Yep. I'm glad that they've finally stopped focusing on Linux and are now adding stability and power back to the Big Iron Unixes. I love how well Gnome installs on Solaris.
> UNIX beware - evolve
> or perish, because you're next..
Oh, hush up. You sound like the bridge keeper in The Holy Grail.
Q: "What... isthe-kernel-version-usb-got-added-to-unix."
A: "Solaris, FreeBSD, or SGI?"
Q: "I don't know that... AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!"
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
It's not "THE Sun May Use Opteron Chips," and no, this doesn't belong in astronomy! FOCUS, people!!
Right-o, though I guess the poster *did* further mutilate the sentence by posting only a fragment of it. Ah, what a useless discussion this is.
:)
It's a viscious "RTFA" circle, so I'll just step out now.
I think my only question is: do you mean "viscous" or "vicious"? In this case, both would probably be accurate, and worth stepping out of.
There are only 10 types of people: those who understand decimal, those who don't, and, uh, 8 other types I forget.
Now have sun put opteron chips in there servers isn't nesserarily mean that there computers will be any cheaper. This just means that now they will be running AMD. Though the pro about this is that it will allow the people who shell out the cash for the servers to easily upgrade to the next fastest opteron when they are available.
I can see sun configuring there current memory to new speeds and working that with the opteron. So this will allow them to keep some propietary hold of their market instead of being just another server company.