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Sun Announces New x86 Servers
An anonymous reader writes "Sun announced the new V60x and V65x servers (1U and 2U respectively). The 1U has 2.8GHz Xeon CPUs and the 2U has 3.06GHz Xeon CPUs. They also announced a partnership with RedHat and Oracle running on these boxes. RedHat will also start shipping Sun's Java with their distribution."
Having the latest versions JDK and also J2EE SDK built in with the system may mean that the Apache Tomcat/ant and other things will also come bundled with redhat (and most likely pre-configured just like mod_perl and mod_php).
A brand new installation of redhat can then run things like servlets, jsps, etc., just like we can now run mod_perl and all that without end users having to build and install it.
S
that is would be Sun in need of RedHat and not the reverse? This could be the combination that breaks the Microsoft desktop hegemony, if Sun and Redhat market it correctly toward that end.
SGI ditched their core IRIX. They started moving towards NT on their machines. So, the analogy does not apply directly here.
Furthermore, regarding competing with Dell in the x86 arena, the redhat/sun/oracle partnership has some chance of becoming stronger than redhat/dell partnership.
Well, we will have to wait and see. I think sun is a good company -- and teaming up with oracle and redhat can't be a bad move at this point.
S
"Free your OS"
Actually it was the incompetent management of Mr. Beluzzo who wanted to force feed NT down SGI's throats. SGI had long moved from the "graphics gravy train" and were making inroads in the Super and server markets. Mr. Belluzzo or whatever the spelling of his name is tried to move towards NT when SGI still had a technological lead, plust it made disasterours alliances with Microsoft (they gave tons of IP to Redmond for mere peanuts).
Incidentally Belluzo left SGI after almost running it to the ground, and jooined Microsoft right away, some people think that he was on M$ payroll even while he was destroying, er I mean managing SGI. Coincidende?
Every major company that has got in bed with M$ and based their business on NT offerings is either dead or dying: Intergraph, DEC, etc. etc..
> In a clustered enterprise situation 20 3GHz Xeon will perform better than 2 900MHz UltraSPARC. Especially if we are talking Java.
) but latency will always have to increase...
Well... show me one real application benchmark (like SAP or ORACLE apps., not TPC-C) where 10 one CPU machines has 9x times the performance of single of those same machines and I belive your speach. Currently, there's now paralell database that supports massive inserts using more than 2 nodes.
Clearly http://c-jdbc.objectweb.org/ looks promising, but there's still the problem of "order by" queries, since eahc node will answer its own order and the final appended result won't be valid.
Latency is the name of the game, with Ethernet in 10s of miliseconds and memory in the 10s of nanoseconds, there will always be a huge penalty for sincronization through network.
There's alway ways to add throughput (http://geocities.com/feromus/db-scalability.html
To me it looks like Sun x86 are competing with Sun SPARC with this move.
Who wants to buy a Sun Fire V240 at $6495 when they can this Sun Fire V65x at $4595?
Lets look at the specs:
V240 (SPARC),2U 2*1GHz UltraSPARC3, 1 MB Cache pr.CPU, 2 GB RAM max 8GB, 2 x 36 GB max 4, 4 x1Gb Ethernet, Solaris 8.
V65x (x86),2U 2*3GHz Xeon, 512 KB Cache pr.CPU, 1 GB RAM max 12GB, 1 x 36 GB, max 6, 2 x1Gb Ethernet, Solaris 9 or Linux.
Maybe the SPARC have better "troughput" for some applications, but it looks as if the V65x is better overall especially for CPU intensive tasks.
Since the volume of total SPARC CPU's will go further down as more Sun machines are sold with Intel CPU's they will become even more expensive.
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
Not true. The SGI didn't have and still doesn't have IRIX on X86, so they couldn't migrate their customers successfully. If I am installing Linux or Windows on X86, why should SGI matter? On the other hand, if you need Solaris X86, it does matter. Thanks to SCO, Sun's importance is even higher. This is number one difference between DEC, SGI, HP migration to PC and Sun's.
SGI also didn't have SGI proprietary software installed free on their x86 boxes. OTOH, Sun includes StarOffice, JDK, App Server etc.
SGI was more expensive than Dell, HP etc... I just compared Sun offering and found that they are cheaper than even Dell.
SGI x86 hardware (initial) was proprietary. I remember stock Linux would not install on them. Sun hardware is same as rest of X86.
"Hey, not enough people are buying our most profitable hardware! Lets give them MORE reasons to think about buying something else!!!" - Scott McNeely.
Captain Ahab is not going to do down with the ship until he has managed to feed the White(Wintel) Whale his entire reason for being. Thank you, Scott. We hardly knew ya. I hope you Sun employees out there know how to tread water, and while you are at it, try to keep those resumes dry long enough to get them distributed.
Of course, they will be trying to beat both Dell and IBM at their own game. SGI was at the last Linux Expo I went to (A few years back now) and during their presentation I was struck by the fact that they were trying to beat IBM at their own game, and I knew IBM was going to end up being the better player. Sun has more market share, extreme java expertise and a full range of machines to choose from, so I think they have a much better chance than SGI did.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Because not only is Sun competing with similar hardware, they are selling it for a good price. After owning examples from both manufacturers, I would bet on Sun's hardware quality (x86 or otherwise) over Dell's any day of the week. For the same price, I'll pick Sun every time.
HP/Compaq? They're in the same league as Sun (HW quality-wise), but just spot-checking one of their ProLiant servers against the v65 configured similarly, the Sun machine is a little cheaper (no OS selected on the Compaq). Close enough to consider both. Again, after working for a company that has owned both, I still lean towards Sun as far as general hardware goodness. Hopefully this new kit lives up to that reputation.
That's what makes Sun able to compete in this market. Good hardware at a competitive price. Obviously the rest of the "commodity vendors" find it worthwhile to be in business.
teeker
Like it isnt easy enough to download it and unpack it on your own.....
but it looks as if the V65x is better overall especially for CPU intensive tasks.
...the architecture itself is different. the x86 architecture has indeed evolved a long way from the single user machine to the server land BUT a SUN is a SUN, did you ever wonder why is there a 2K$ gap between the lowest end Sparc and the highest end x86 machine of the same class ?.
Well x86 are CISC processors while Sparcs are RISC processors so you cant just judge by the clock speed alone, they are fundmentally different, another thing
Hardware RAID. Dell sells Intel boxes with it, HP sells Intel boxes with it. Why should I consider Sun without this? I know Dell's Hardware RAID isn't the best performance, but it's great for availability--actually I prefer's HP's (er, Compaq's) RAID controllers the best. What does Sun bring to the table to compete?
I think this is actually a smart move on Sun's part. For several years, Dell, IBM, Compaq have been taking away market share at the low end from Sun. Now they at least have a product that can compete in the commodity space, where price is the overriding factor. It also means they have products all the way from the low end to the mainframe class like the E15k. Even if they only sell a small number of boxes, it will be better than they have been getting before.
As an IT manager, this is great, because I can buy Sun everything if I want to, which makes purchasing and maintenance easier. I can also push for a better volume discount if I want. Better still, at the low end, there's no vendor lock in, as I can run Open Source software under Linux. I also get the choice of Solaris x86 or Redhat. My experiences with the build quality of Sun equipment would give me some confidence too.
I think this is good for the customer and Sun. About time, I say...
Unfortunately, that is exactly Apple's biggest problem: they're always about to release something newer and better, to the point where one would hesitate to purchase their current product. Although a company is in good shape if repeated excellent releases can be considered a problem...
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
SGI and DEC were going into the ground long before getting in bed with MS.
These companies were completely proprietary -- everything from the CPU to the Window Manager on their OS. Being proprietary is very, very, very expensive -- and the companies realized this. In the long term there was simply no way they would be competitive with Wintel/Lintel. So they did the only thing they could -- tried to leverage "commodity" technology onto their propreitary platforms and see if they could ride it out for a few years.
SGI also got royally screwed when Itanium was delayed for 4 years. They were left with shitty hardware while the highend got it's last hurrah boost during the dotcom years.
It's funny that IBM's and HP's "successful" Linux/Windows on Intel strategy is really no different than the failed strategies of SGI and DEC. The only reason is that IBM and HP had more money to play with until the market shifted.
No big companies pay list price for IBM stuff. Larger customers get a 20-40% discount.
Dell also discounts off list prices.
Anthony
A few years ago SGI decided that the Wintel market was where they had to be. Soon, they were peddling commodity Intel boxes running NT....and it was almost the death of the company.
I see Sun going down that road. Sun needs to learn from SGI's mistake. Their bread and butter was the high-end stuff. The stuff that makes scientists drool. These guys will pay anything for massive number-crunching ability. SGI realized this and decided to drop the low-profit commodity business.
Commodity Intel-Red Hat-Oracle boxes are NOT a way to build a profitable business.
-ted
Sun does not really compete at the low end. A 280R at 17,000 GBP (discount yadda yadda) is not really competitive with a Xeon whatever, but that's not the point. It is binary/OS/Firmware compatible with the F15K/6.8K that I will deploy on, and that's why I will specifiy if for a dev box every time.
Granted an x86 box will blow a 480/3800/280/240 into the weeds (probably) - but an x86 does not deliver the power of 72 CPUs on a 15K - or even 24 on a 6800. This is not about the back end - deploying a stateless web farm on x86 is cheap and good - but the back end DB/App server needs power (>24 CPU) and resilience (zero transaction loss fail over), and x86 does not offer the power at this stage.
Unfortunately, the Sun Fire 2x0 are the only SPARCs with DDR.
The 440 and 880s use quad-interleaved SDRAM at (!) 75 MHz. I think they could ramp up that a wee bit... considering the RAM itself costs an arm and a leg.
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE