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."

Comments

Sun and X86

[Bame Flait]

I'm eagerly awaiting their move into adult markets with XXX86 servers. And Windows XXXP support!

Incidentally, Pr0stx0r fr1stx0r

Bitches

Re:Sun and X86

[NanoGator]

"And Windows XXXP support!"

Complete with Orifice XP!

wow

[banka]

is this a ditch effort by sun to stay alive? it seems as though they've just been slipping away in recent years; they had the "One" platform of ubiquotous distributed computing and then that sort of disappeared, are we going to see the end of solaris soon?

"An anonymous reader"

[Anonymous Coward]

From 68-248.sun.com

Sun is taking the same route as SGI

[mikael]

Remember when the x86 workstations began to eat into SGIs bottom line? They responded with building x86 workstations. The same thing is happening to Sun. Their SPARC servers are not keeping up with x86 servers, just as SGI IRIX/MIPS workstations began to lag in performance.

Now before the slashdot crowd begins to scream "But hey! The Sun Fire V480 is really fast!", remember that it is $19,995.00 in the base configuration. You'll get 10 IBM rack servers for the same price. In a clustered enterprise situation 20 3GHz Xeon will perform better than 2 900MHz UltraSPARC. Especially if we are talking Java.

Just as SGI was faster in the absolute high-end, so is Sun. The E15k is a monster. For some very specialized applications, this may be the only way to go. But for the very large majority of systems being purchased, a simple x86 server will do, especially if you can cluster it. This is where Sun is loosing the grip. Earlier you had to have a SPARC machine for advanced enterprise computing. These days are over, just as you had to have a SGI to run 3D software.

Now they are competing head to head with Dell in the x86 arena. This is a bold move. Wonder how long they will last.

Re:Sun is taking the same route as SGI

[sisukapalli1]

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

Re:Sun is taking the same route as SGI

[phraktyl]

I've actually been looking at Sun's new entry level servers, the v210 and v240 servers.

The v210 starts at $2,995US, and the large configuration, with 2 1Ghz UltraSparc IIIi processors, 2GB of RAM, 2 36GB 10,000RPM SCSI-III drives, and 4 10/100/1000 network intarfaces comes in at $5,795US. I've seen comparible x86-based servers for more than that.

Re:Sun is taking the same route as SGI

[BWJones]

Just as SGI was faster in the absolute high-end, so is Sun. The E15k is a monster. For some very specialized applications, this may be the only way to go. But for the very large majority of systems being purchased, a simple x86 server will do, especially if you can cluster it. This is where Sun is loosing the grip. Earlier you had to have a SPARC machine for advanced enterprise computing. These days are over, just as you had to have a SGI to run 3D software.

Actually, I am seeing a number of folks either 1) migrate to or 2) seriously consider Apple's Xserve for purposes sort of in-between. The Xserve runs UNIX, it is absurdly easy to manage, they are cheap, and give pretty good performance especially when code is optimized for Altivec. Add to that the power consumption (or rather lack thereof), and for large numbers of servers, the Xserve becomes even more attractive in terms of lower electricity and cooling costs.

Re:Sun is taking the same route as SGI

[maitas]

> In a clustered enterprise situation 20 3GHz Xeon will perform better than 2 900MHz UltraSPARC. Especially if we are talking Java.

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) but latency will always have to increase...

Re:Sun is taking the same route as SGI

[EinarH]

Mod parent up, nail on head.

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.

Re:Sun is taking the same route as SGI

[zrm8y5m02]

Sun has always been competing with itself - they are notorious for canibalizing its own sale with a new product. After all, it's not that surprising, considering that if they don't do it themselves, someone else will.

Re:Sun is taking the same route as SGI

[u19925]

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.

Re:Sun is taking the same route as SGI

[iomud]

I agree, it will even be a more compelling product once the 970 comes out and we see improved io with very large memory configurations.

Re:Sun is taking the same route as SGI

[KingRamsis]

but it looks as if the V65x is better overall especially for CPU intensive tasks.

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 ...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 ?.

Re:Sun is taking the same route as SGI

[mmol_6453]

It depends on the application. The V240's CPUs may be 1GHZ, but they have twice the cache of Intel's Xeons. I'm willing to bet that the cache difference will have a large effect on databases and image processing.

Re:Sun is taking the same route as SGI

[CatOne]

The IO on the box is already amazing, for large file transfers/etc. And if you want disk speed, hook up an Xserve RAID and run a 7 disk SCSI 5 array. Benchmarks are showing 210 MB/second *sustained* for reads and writes.

Re:Sun is taking the same route as SGI

[georgewilliamherbert]

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 ?

What has been discussed in this thread are not the lowest end SPARC systems, but low/mid workgroup servers. The cheapest servers and workstations are under a thousand dollars (V100, SB150).

This is irrelevant to the larger thread, however.

disclaimer
I work for a Sun VAR in my day job.

Re:Sun is taking the same route as SGI

[joeykiller]

Because people in purchasing and management are stupid. There hasn't been a Sun worth the premium since the SS20.

Actually, I don't know if I agree with you about Sun not being worth the premium.

We run a very large web site that mainly consists of cheap Intel based hardware. But at the core of it all we've always used Sun servers with Solaris. Sure, the Sun servers have always cost us 10 times the price of comparable Intel hardware, but the Sun hardware comes with two things the Intel hardware does not:

1) The hardware (and the OS) is remarkably stable. One server ran for five years under heavy load the entire time without needing any maintenance. In the same time period we had to replace a lot of the Intel hardware.

2) In the unlikely event that something actually breaks, even if it's at 2AM in the morning, a guy comes rushing in and repairs the machine. The most amazing thing is that he always seems to have the right spare parts stored away, just in case. It's a fantastic service, and when you run a large scale, business critical operation, that kind of service is _extremely_ valuable.

And although this has nothing to do with hardware, there's (for me) an important point that concerns the OS too:

3) Even when upgrading the OS from 2.6 to 9, old software and strange old Apache modules (which we have to continue using, even though it's developer has stopped supporting them a long time ago) keeps working. I can't think of many Linux binaries from 1997 that would work for me out-of-the-box on a modern distribution today.

I'm not saying Intel hardware or Linux is bad, but I say that there are a few cases where the safety that overpriced Sun hardware can give you, gets more or less priceless.

Re:Sun is taking the same route as SGI

[christophersaul]

It depends. The 210/240 run Solaris for Sparc, which is a great OS. The internal system bandwidth is higher than the Dell and you get 4 Gbe NICs as standard, plus it'll go up to 8Gb of RAM.

Re:Sun is taking the same route as SGI

[sean23007]

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...

Re:Sun is taking the same route as SGI

[KingRamsis]

please read my post carefully, i didnt say it is the cheapest machine i said of the same class

and the highest end x86 machine of the same class ?

Re:Sun is taking the same route as SGI

[drunkenbatman]

Actually, I am seeing a number of folks either 1) migrate to or 2) seriously consider Apple's Xserve for purposes sort of in-between. The Xserve runs UNIX, it is absurdly easy to manage, they are cheap, and give pretty good performance especially when code is optimized for Altivec.

I've been on the lookout for this (and possibly webobjects uptake) and just haven't seen it... where I have seen xserve adoption has been in certain areas where macs would have been the preferred platform (ie, mac clients) but for many reasons they had to go with a higher-end unix or NT server as apple just didn't have much to offer for that market. There was a small market for people who wanted to use Apple servers but they just didn't meet their needs- so Apple saw a big spike in sales for them when they were released. Heck, some of these people use OS9 with webstar... I'll be more impressed if they can actually grow unit shipments quarter after quarter.

I mean... for 99% of the server tasks out there where are you going to see massive improvements due to altivec? You don't see apache getting big gains from using SSE on x86. Much more important to the xserve's large performance increase over past apple offerings was the new DDR bus, and the just as important new architecture with some mondo bridge chips for cutting the processors out of the equation as much as possible via DMA requests. This is because the bandwidth to the processor is very limited with the current machines in general, and in a dual config they have to share it... cutting them out of the process helped a lot.

That's why you hardly saw any improvement with the new DDR machines for things like photoshop over the past towers, as bandwidth but for server related tasks it helps sooo much.

Add to that the power consumption (or rather lack thereof), and for large numbers of servers, the Xserve becomes even more attractive in terms of lower electricity and cooling costs.

I'd be interested in knowing just what thermal savings there actually are in using an xserve over a competing x86/sparc 1U server. I've used them, and they are NOT cool running machines... they're very hot, and extremely noisy as a quick google will show.

People always think that the PPC is so much cooler than x86, and in general it is... but we aren't talking about 1/4 of the thermals here. Crack open a new P4 or AMD box and there is some big heatsink stuff going on there... kinda funny. Crack open a G4 quicksilver where Apple has been having to essentially overclock the processor and they're ungodly big also, and run really, really hot with huge fans that have made their customers pretty peeved. Just look at these pictures to get an idea of just how big the heatsinks are in new mac towers... and realize that the fans are very, very loud.

So we know that the current G4's are hot as hell, as are the pentiums and amd processors. Apple uses some monster chipsets as well, and it isn't as though apple uses different disk drives or memory... so where are the big thermal savings with the xserve? Companies make custom enclosures like this and this just to make them run cooler and quieter... I doubt people would spend the money on them if there simply wasn't a problem.

Now if you were talking about something like this... gotcha. But they're a whole different ball of wax.

Don't get me wrong- the xserve is cool, and a lot of the points you make about it are valid... as are things like this (largest xserve cluster i know of). But it isn't a miracle worker and it isn't a cool and quiet server.

Re:Sun is taking the same route as SGI

[christophersaul]

You can't just automatically replace any 4 way server with 4 one or two way Intels. There's a tonne of other stuff to consider. What app are you running? Set ups such as HPC/render farms will certainly be better off with a load of single cpu Xeons. Big app servers or databases needing a lot of memory or/and decent internal system bandwidth will benefit from a multi cpu machine, which is where Sparc performs very well. A decent workgroup Oracle server will perform very well on the v480. An Oracle RAC set up won't function well on lots of single or even dual cpu Intel machines and will cost a lot to manage.

With all of these systems it's horses for courses - there's a place for small Linux/Solaris x86/Intel machines and a place for the larger Sparc based boxes.

Re:Sun is taking the same route as SGI

[stanwirth]

Yup. The other way in which Sun's move is similar to SGI's is that the last thing Sun has left that's "special" is JAVA--and the last thing SGI had that was special was OpenGL and VRML.

Very nice stuff, use it all the time-- but neither technologies provide them with anything near the leverage each had in the marketplace when they also had the best hardware and OS to do the job -- enterprise computing in Sun's case, and 3D animation in SGI's case.

Another analogy is that Sun's move to the industry standard X86 architecture is similar to SGI's attempts to move to industry standard NTOS, then Linux. Both were a bust, causing huge code migration issues for companies that had to make the switch away from IRIX. Didn't exactly endear them to thei existing customers.

The whole Sun/SGI story is really the last gasp of the last wave of computing -- workstations and mini-mainframes -- from the 80's. Just as IBM's attempts to get into the workstation space in the 80's was eaten alive by Sun, HP and SGI, and their attempts to get into the mini-mainframe space were eaten alive by DEC.

What IBM had going for it, in terms of survival, was that it was just so darn BIG. The failed attempts to get into the workstation and mini-mainframe space were balanced by spectacular success in the PC space while managing to hold on to the mainframe and midrange enterprise computing space (S390's and AS/400's -- now called what, Zseries and Iseries).

Remember when PCs were called "microcomputers"? IBM coined the term Personal Computer for one of their products, and it stuck like Kleenex to your Hush Puppies.

Re:Sun is taking the same route as SGI

[Gerald]

I'm confused. Is he trolling Mac lovers or apostrophe abuse haters?

Re:Sun is taking the same route as SGI

[nosferatu-man]

Those are good points; however, they're not specific to Sun. Any real corporate support works likes that -- it's just a matter of how much you're willing to spend. As the costs associated with good support radically outweigh those for hardware, I suppose one could argue that it doesn't really matter what the hardware is, as long as you've got this fantastic support organization underneath it.

I have heard -- no, not on slashdot -- that Sun's support organization is slipping even from where it was in the late '90s, when I had a very very bad experience with Gold level support (an incompetent and unprepared tech killed a UE6000, thankfully a hot spare). I know that their quality control on the hardware has slipped dramatically.

The world will become very interesting for Sun once the Opteron and the 970 are widely available.

Best,
'jfb

Re:Sun is taking the same route as SGI

[CatOne]

Come on... you're comparing a rack mount server versus a "white box" PC... are you gonna fill your data center with your "x86 Based machine (built with quality components)? Does this include 200 GB ATA drives from Fry's that run across the 2 IDE channels on your board? Oh, that's nice. Then add a CD drive and have it scarf at your bandwidth :-P If you're talking commercially supportable rack mounted servers, then the Xserves are quite competitive with similar products by Dell and IBM (the announced Sun box is pretty cheap). Especially when you load the Dell/IBM boxes up with SCSI drives... Apple's 4 channel IDE solution is pretty darned nice and rippin' fast, based on the tests I've run. One final thing -- that "Ultimate" box includes a fibre channel card and 2 fibre channel cables... add that to your white box and it'll tag about $2K onto the price ;-)

Re:Sun is taking the same route as SGI

[nutznboltz]

In the unlikely event that something actually breaks, even if it's at 2AM in the morning, a guy comes rushing in and repairs the machine.

Well you have to be there to let him in and he's only going to try to repair the unit. You might still have a down server the next day.

I can't think of many Linux binaries from 1997 that would work for me out-of-the-box on a modern distribution today.

Says more about Linux than about Solaris. I have some very old FreeBSD dynamically linked binaries like Veritas Netbackup that keep on plugging away. Linux developers love to break compatibility for no good reason. That's the number one reason we don't deploy it.

Re:Sun is taking the same route as SGI

[Cyberdyne]

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.

Merging n ordered lists into a single list with the same ordering is pretty trivial: consider the first item of each list, and take the first of those. Rinse, repeat. Extremely fast and simple; where the lists cover discrete ranges (e.g. node 1 has the first X items in this ordering, node 2 has the 2nd, etc) it is as simple as appending the lists!

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) but latency will always have to increase...

You can also do much better than Ethernet for latency, although cost explodes as a result; look at Dolphin for example. (Microsecond latency on data transfers between nodes.) Not quite RAM speeds, but much much faster (and with lower CPU usage) than Ethernet.

Why not.. Follow SGI

[acomj]

Wow.. I mean it worked so well for SGI, its a wonder everyone doesn't realease servers like this..

Re:wow

[MSBob]

SunOne is still alive and kicking. It may not be as big as WebLogic or Websphere but they have some market share. Like 10% or so...

This could make life easy for redhat users

[sisukapalli1]

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

Re:This could make life easy for redhat users

[outsider007]

sure and when you think of it, when a distro already needs 5 cd's, what's one more?

Re:This could make life easy for redhat users

[chez69]

two of those CDs are source.

Re:This could make life easy for redhat users

[thomas.galvin]

And a third is documentation, at least on the personal edition.

Re:This could make life easy for redhat users

[IamTheRealMike]

The main reason I think Red Hat have not shipped Java before is that Suns JVM is not free. There is a free implementation of java in the form of gcj and GNU Classpath, I'm guessing that is not being used because this is a Sun-specific version of RHL.

Nonetheless, considering that they've indirectly funded the development of a free Java implementation, it's a pity it wasn't used.

Re:This could make life easy for redhat users

[greg_barton]

Yes, and hopefully they'll follow some sane packaging standards like these found here

Re:This could make life easy for redhat users

[glwtta]

Ugh, that just means 'rpm -e'ing a lot more stuff after an install to install it the way I like it.

sun becomes a commodity vendor

[havaloc]

Let's see. Sun decides to release commodity hardware with the option to take commodity software, and charge a non-commodity price. So what makes Sun better than say, Dell, HP or the many other commodity vendors? Sun will be finished at this rate.

Re:sun becomes a commodity vendor

[irokitt]

At least they don't have that damn power supply issue...

Re:sun becomes a commodity vendor

[zrm8y5m02]

This is obviously a troll. Did you ever bother to look at the price of the newly announced systems ? v60x and v65x servers are quite cheap even compared to Dell's similarly configured systems.

Re:sun becomes a commodity vendor

[teeker]

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.

Who'd have thought?

[prgrmr]

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.

Re:Who'd have thought?

[deanj]

How do you get that Sun needs RedHat? RedHat's the one adding Java to their distribution....

Re:Who'd have thought?

[saintjab]

How is this going to hurt the MS strangle-hold over the desktop environment? Neither SUN or RH could compete with MS for the desktop; why would the two together be any different? If the two were to partner up and dump huge amounts of capital into developing a more robust and usable desktop there may be a chance.. But I doubt seriously that this is their intention. This may put a ding in MSs armor, but it won't affect their overall control of the desktop arena. But that's just my worthless $0.02.

Re:Who'd have thought?

[MAXOMENOS]

This could be the combination that breaks the Microsoft desktop hegemony, if Sun and Redhat market it correctly toward that end.

Not in your lifetime. RH just isn't a good desktop distribution; Mandrake is much more polished and has fewer bugs. RH's real strength is in an enterprise envirionment. Similarly: Java is pretty weak for desktop apps (a survey of AWT, Swing and SWT should bear this out) but it's perfect for web interfaces and business logic.

The real fight is in the server world. Java + RedHat Linux is a winning combination, if they can get it right.

Re:Who'd have thought?

[prgrmr]

If the two were to partner up and dump huge amounts of capital into developing a more robust and usable desktop there may be a chance.

This is what I was meant and should have just stated. Given that this is exactly how MS got control of the desktop in the first place, it becomes one of the more obvious solutions to take that control away from them. Note that obvious != efficient.

SGI didn't see the signs

[deanj]

It wasn't building x86 stuff the wiped out SGI into what it is today. It was trying to build NT workstations, and not realizing they couldn't ride the graphics gravy train forever.

Re:SGI didn't see the signs

[Anonymous Coward]

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..

Re:SGI didn't see the signs

[Tuzanor]

Every major company that has got in bed with M$ and based their business on NT offerings is either dead or dying: Intergraph, DEC

as well as Dell, IBM, HP...oh wait...
Seriously, I agree with your statement to companies with regards to companies that had very niche markets and tried to move away from them, but Dell is almost exclusivly MS, and HP and IBM are mostly mixed.

Re:SGI didn't see the signs

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:SGI didn't see the signs

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly my point: Intergraph moved from their propietary line of HW and OS, to a wintel line. We know what happened next. DEC pushed M$ products in lieu of their Own VMS and Unix solutions, we see the support that M$ gave to the Alpha.... and on and on. IBM retained their core technologies, i.e. AIX/Mainframe/OS400, and PowerPC/POWER hw, they did not ditched their own stuff for a dive into a wintel only solutions providement.

Uh, Xeno? What about Opteron?

[Fefe]

Yet another disappointment from Sun.

They keep using inferior PC technology so there are at least some minor benefits from SPARC left over to point at.

How disgusting.

Oracle because...

[feepcreature]

In the corporate market, Oracle is far from irrelevant. For users (however unnecessarily) nervous about Open Source support, or those who require the heavyweight features of a mature RDBMS (there are still some things that MySQL & PostgreSQL can't do), Oracle may well be an approriate choice.

Sure, not every DB user needs these features, but neither Sun nor Oracle have been going after the "every user" market. Although it looks like Sun may be broadening its appeal a little here...

Re:Oracle because...

[KingRamsis]

I agree 100% as much as I love to see mature open source databases with enterprise featuers I got to admit that it is still not coming anytime soon.
IIRC 6-7 months ago a marketing person from Oracle came to our company to discuss if Oracle will be suitable for our next development project, our customer contracted us to develop an online electronic components database with over +20 Million component with all their information, spec sheets. In the first year the database is expected to reach 0.7TB.
I recall asking her that we plan to implement heavy server side logic in stored procedures, and she said "if it couldn't be done with Oracle then it can never be done", you get to love Oracle's marketing people but technically she was right.

The only ready-today open source database that comes near Oracle (actually it is equivalent to Oracle 7) is SAPDB and what drives me really nuts is that the open source community ignores it completely in favor for something like MySQL (not that something is wrong with MySQL).

Sun's new move...

[bsdparasite]

Sun's new move is good enough for them to get into the x86 server space. I don't think anyone at the enterprise level is replacing all their SPARCs quite yet, even though the average x86 user thinks that's the way to go for servers. And when enterprise users think of a good vendor to do hardware business with, they might as well go with Sun. I also don't believe all the hype that predicts the death of every other form of Unix other than Linux. Solaris is a solid platform, and will continue to be until Linux can perform SMP like Solaris, handle I/O banks like Solaris.

"Free your OS"

Price Comparasion

[Deathlizard]

IBM's 1U Server
Sun's 1U Server

At least they are price competitive with IBM. I'm not too sure about Dell but it's a start.

Re:Price Comparasion

[t482]

No big companies pay list price for IBM stuff. Larger customers get a 20-40% discount.

Dell also discounts off list prices.

Anthony

Re:Price Comparasion

[Alex]

No big companies pay list price for IBM stuff. Larger customers get a 20-40% discount.

Dell also discounts off list prices

Sun does the same,

Alex

Hmmm....

[SomeOtherGuy]

Dude, your gettin' s sun.

Re: Opteron

[hendridm]

> Uh, [Xeon]? What about Opteron?

Ummm, maybe they actually wanted to sell their hardware to the business crowd. They're silly that way.

I bet you could overclock it though and get away with only 2-3 industrial-sized exhaust fans. Check out the FPS on that, beeeyotch!

RedHat + Sun Java = w00t

[Znonymous Coward]

RedHat will also start shipping Sun's Java with their distribution

w00t. One less thing I have to do after install.

Re:RedHat + Sun Java = w00t

[repetty]

Yeah, the Linux/Java situation has been ridiculous long enough.

Hmmm... anti-aliased fonts, Java...

Maybe this Linux thing will work on the desktop.

--Richard

Re:RedHat + Sun Java = w00t

[Karn]

Have you seen this?

Pretty neat, actually. You can compile java source to machine or byte code, link to non-java libraries, mix compiled java code with libraries in your class path, and other crazy things..

Redhat abandons idealism ?

[vinodh]

Isn't this the same Redhat that refused to ship KDE because QT was not free software ?. When did java become Free Software ?

But how could this be???

[SashaM]

Wasn't it a well established fact that Except for SCO, none of the primary UNIX vendors ever developed a UNIX "flavor" to operate on an Intel-based processor chip set.

Re:But how could this be???

[stox]

I must have been hallucinating, then, when I had AT&T System V/386 boxes all over the place, Sun 386i's, and Altos's. Well, that was the 1980's, and I guess SCO can't remember back that far..

Re:But how could this be???

[SN74S181]

That was Microsoft that developed a UNIX flavor to run on the 8086 processor. (Microsoft Xenix) Back when the S in SUN stood for Stanford and nothing more.

They later sold it to what became SCO.

Sun cheaper than Dell?

[u19925]

for the first time, apple to apple comparison shows sun cheaper than dell. i selected sun v65 and tried identical system at dell. dell doesn't give 3.06 GHz in 2U rack, so i selected 2.8 GHz. This is 600 cheaper. However, Dell charges $600 for upgrade from 2.6 to 2.8, so their upgrade from 2.8 to 3.06 would have been higher than 600 (upgrade from 2.4 to 2.6 is 200, 2.6 to 2.8 is 600). dell comes with customer installed RedHat Advanced Server while Sun comes with Solaris 9 and both are atleast comparable system (to be frank, RH profession is cheaper. but i am aware of several server apps which require RH AS patches and won't be certified on RH Pro).

Sun SDK to all Distros

[w42w42]

This has always bugged me about Sun and Java. Sun needs to get *ALL* Linux distros to ship their Java SDK (if not runtimes). You can bet that Mono will start to be a part of most distros, and as an implementation of .NET, a non-response from Sun would be akin to asking your kids to go play in the street.

Stop the presses, misleading info...

[Znonymous Coward]

I just read the fine print... Suns JVM will only ship on Red Hat's Enterprise Linux Product.

Might help get x86 into Sun-only shops

[djh101010]

I'm in a corporate environment where trying to get Linux or *BSD into the data center is an uphill battle. If the box comes from Sun, and runs Oracle, that makes that argument a whole lot easier for me. Even if it's more expensive than commodity hardware, they do have a deserved reputation for solid hardware, and I can use the logic that if Sun is willing to put their name on it, they're willing to back it up. I'm building a support system that's going to need it's own database; this box is worth looking into, for me.

Re:Might help get x86 into Sun-only shops

[crotherm]

I work for a rather large aerospace corp whose name name starts with a B, and we still do not have a real linux road map. With SUN putting its name on low cost servers, hopefully this will make it that much eaiser for me to get linux in here and stop the windows server advance in the machine room.

Re:Might help get x86 into Sun-only shops

[Fulcrum of Evil]

I work for a rather large aerospace corp whose name name starts with a B, and we still do not have a real linux road map.

Might it have something to do with that large software comapny whose name starts with an M that lives just down the road?

Ahh, the final nail in the coffin called Sun.

[LibertineR]

I hope Sun notices the smoldering carcass of Silicon Graphics on the side of the road they are now traveling down. Happy to see that the death of this horribly managed beast is not too far off.

"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.

Re:Ahh, the final nail in the coffin called Sun.

[teeker]

"Hey, not enough people are buying our most profitable hardware! Lets give them MORE reasons to think about buying something else!!!" - Scott McNeely.

As opposed to sit on your laurels and wither away? The rest of the industry is not going to stop...to do nothing is certain death. Doing *something* may lead you to the same end, but you have to try.

Re:Ahh, the final nail in the coffin called Sun.

[stratjakt]

Sun, like others, looks to be making the switch towards a more software and service oriented company, and less on the hardware. I've had no first hand experience, but from what I've heard, their support is second to none.

So these things are competitively priced, and if they come with useful support by people who actually know what they're selling and building (unlike Dell who no doubt has those moronic interns answering the phone), then they could definately make a go of it.

But the writing on the wall is that all of these specialized architectures are doomed to obsoletion. Commodity hardware is ever faster, fast enough to handle what were previously 'big iron' chores.

Re:Ahh, the final nail in the coffin called Sun.

[LibertineR]

Sure you have to try.

At some point, you have to stop to consider the fact that geeks dont make the decision to buy expensive hardware.

Bitchey little procurement agents and sometimes incompetent CIO's who like to be wined and dined and told how smart they are, make many of the technology decisions for most large companies.

Sun keeps on marketing to the Geek, while Microsoft is taking his boss to dinner, buying him a steak.

Sun gives their potential customers a mouse pad; while Microsoft gives them a blow job.

Hell yes, do something, but if you are gonna be a whore, be a GOOD WHORE!

Re:Ahh, the final nail in the coffin called Sun.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm so bored with this same theme over and over again. Why don't you all stay in your own thread and keep your comments to yourselves.

Sun selling x86 has nothing to do with competing with Dell and everything to do with selling big kit. It's about competing with HP and IBM who can offer more flexible solutions, i.e. small web/app servers talking to huge database servers. Big kit is Sun's core business now. This is what it has to protect.

Likewise, as another writer writes, it's a way to keep Sun only shops from straying away. More and more companies are installing Linux in the low end - fact. Sun doesn't want another vendor in there selling Linux boxes, which might mean losing other sales later in the mid/high end.

Re:Ahh, the final nail in the coffin called Sun.

[teeker]

True, but most companies that are big enough to have a real CIO and procurement departments are probably not buying a lot of Intel hardware anyhow. And even if they are, they are probably already comfortable (or at least familiar) with Sun. Smaller companies (target market for this stuff) IT departments tend to rely heavily on their in-house geeks to decide what to buy. Initiatives in the smaller companies I've worked for went a lot like this:

"Your goal is to implement X. Your budget is Y. Give me status reports weekly. Go!"

Re:Ahh, the final nail in the coffin called Sun.

[LibertineR]

Ahhh, you are bored, grasshopper?

I doubt you are as bored as someone sitting in a Sun Marketing presentation. Big kit things are being done is smaller, cheaper kits everyday. The only business that Sun could exist in today belongs to IBM, who will eventually purchase the burning shell of Sun Microsystems and bury it out back next to Lotus Smartsuite.

Re:Ahh, the final nail in the coffin called Sun.

[sn00ker]

But the writing on the wall is that all of these specialized architectures are doomed to obsoletion. Commodity hardware is ever faster, fast enough to handle what were previously 'big iron' chores.

You have so totally missed the point of mainframes. Mainframes won't die for as long as there is a requirement for 99.999%+ uptime on a given box. Sure, you can crunch some serious numbers with a cluster of PCs, but their reliability just can't compare with the big boys.
Mainframes are still around because there is still a market for computers that will run forever provided that you don't interrupt their power supply - Hot-swappable everything, modular kernel architecture with the ability to "hot-swap" modules, etc

Until commodity hardware can offer all these things, and let's face it there's not much call for a home computer that will allow you to switch DIMMs mid-session, the big iron will exist.

Re:Uh, Xeno? What about Opteron?

[AlgUSF]

Yeah, with Opeteron, Sun could sell strictly 64-bit solutions, and act like Dell, HP, etc. are still in the dark ages of 32 bit computing.

The One Vendor Solution

[Greyfox]

Folks like to stay on one vendor whenever possible, since it simplifies accountability issues. If you're buying big iron from Sun anyway, it may be worth picking up the mid-range and desktop from them as well. Chances are, that'd lower support costs, make it easy to find the phone number to call when something breaks and normalize quality of support. If Sun's support desk is better than Brand X (And I can tell you first hand that Brand X support sucks,) that alone might make it worth dropping a couple extra grand per machine for the brand name.

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.

Re:The One Vendor Solution

[powerlinekid]

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.

Better than SGI, yes. Good enough to beat IBM, no. If theres one company that has done more for Java than Sun, its IBM. Their JVM smokes Sun's in performance, and SWT is incredible compared to Swing. I wouldn't be surprised if IBM employed the most java programmers out of anyone in the world (I used to be a co-op java programmer at IBM).
Most internal IBM apps are written in Java and those that aren't will be eventually.

I'm not saying that Sun is going to die, but unless you're Microsoft you're not going to take on IBM and win. Especially if you're going to keep changing your mind on what you're company is doing.

Red Hat produces more than one product...

[aksansai]

Be mindful that Red Hat attempts to provide an array of software and services to their customer base - this includes the mainstream (read: free) distribution that contains GPL (or near-equivalent license) software.

Otherwise, Red Hat produces other distributions (like Advanced Server and Enterprise Server) that might contain proprietary (read: not so free) code and software that may require additional licenses.

The spirit is in open-source - but customer wishes also pay the bills.

Re:wow

[andy1307]

they had the "One" platform

Sun-One as in Sun and their stock price a year from now...

Re:Doesn't this go against redhat's mantra?

[b17bmbr]

only on their for download distro. but the enterprise stuff, there is lots of prop. software

Sun using Linux is good!

[Grrreat]

Even if it RedHat GNU/Linux this is very good during this trying time we are going through. Way to go Sun and Redhat and Oracle too! :-) I love you GNU/Linux! Don't be hate'n.

Wow.... Java

[Kurtv]

Like it isnt easy enough to download it and unpack it on your own.....

Unfortunately...

[moogla]

While it is a very cool system... (incl. the 4 network interfaces), 1 GHz UltraSparc IIIis are slow, and they don't have the extra benefit of tons of cache compared to the regular US3. The RAM is only SDRAM (still), and 72GB of space is paltry.

So, if you absolutely need a SPARCv9 architecture rackmount, this is the way to go. But featurewise it falls short of say an Altus 140 from Penguin Computing, or even a 1000E if you want 64-bit. And Peng. Comp. is expensive as far as that kind of thing goes.

That being said, the small Enterprises are quite cool, but they aren't as cost effective. It helps if your organization has a pre-existing agreement, and can get you a break.

Re:Unfortunately...

[raptor21]

The RAM is only SDRAM (still)

I believe the USIIIi have a built in 266MHz DDR controller. The ram is 266 MHz DDR.

If the CPUs cost an fifth as much...

[moogla]

but you have to buy 60% more to get the same performance scaling, then I think it's a reasonable inefficiency to live with.

Latency is a different beast, but the Opteron is looking might delicious in this area right about now. We've got some test systems coming in soon so we can compare and contrast.

Re:wow

[mrjive]

It can't be worse than WebSphere....honestly.

Focus on bus speed

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse any hardware ignorance in this post - I am a software guy...

I always thought Sun's big advantage was the bus speed. The article seems to indicate that they have a 533MHz FSB, though 800MHz are becoming available.

If I were Sun, I would find a way to exploit my core capability and market fast busses, beyond what can be obtained for ordinary PC hardware or for cheaper.

Re:Focus on bus speed

[jedidiah]

Sun already outclasses PC hardware with their SPARC systems. Xeons plugged into Sun's NUMA systems would be interesting but redundant.

These servers address those parts of a customer's application that may not need those spiffy and expensive busses. It is good for Sun to adequately address this part of the business. They need to keep their big box customers from getting distracted when shopping Dell or IBM for pizzabox application servers.

Re:Sun is (not) taking the same route as SGI

[davecb]

Actually the high-end machines are heavily used to get database performance, while clustering is used predominantly for HPC (ie, FORTRAN) cores. Somewhat different markets.

--dave (who is biased, you understand) c-b

They don't care that Sun Java is non-free?

[epukinsk]

Correct me if I am wrong, but Sun Java is non-free, right? They don't make source releases and their license certainly isn't OSI approved. I thought Red Hat was all about squeezing non-free software out of its distro? From their mission statement:

"Red Hat believes that software infrastructure should be free. To that end, we are sharing our infrastructure technologies with the intention of establishing a common, open standard platform for software developers." [1]

Is Java really a free, open software infrastructure?

Erik

[1] http://sources.redhat.com/mission.html

Re:They don't care that Sun Java is non-free?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can get the source for java, it's at http://wwws.sun.com/software/download/technologies .html

Re:They don't care that Sun Java is non-free?

[Wesley Felter]

Red Hat only cares about open source for their regular distribution; for Enterprise Linux they're willing to make an exception. I wonder if they're going to continue to include IBM's JVM in RHEL, though.

Re:They don't care that Sun Java is non-free?

[SN74S181]

for Enterprise Linux they're willing to make an exception

translation: 'for real money they're willing to sell out.'

The suits have arrived!
(well, it was awhile ago.....)

huh...I was thinking

[anonymous loser]

that the reason is because they haven't had java running satisfactorily on sun hardware in a couple of years. It's a bit sadly ironic, but it runs *way* better on equivalent x86 servers than sun's sparc servers.

Sun x86 servers

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine a Beowolf Cluster of THESE!!!

Re:Sun x86 servers

[jedidiah]

pppppftttt...

If you are going to fantasize, at least fantasize about a 500 node beowulf cluster of 100 cpu 15Ks.

Could Java be to blame

[jefmsmit]

Its interesting to think that it could be Sun's Java that is to blame for the demise of Sun hardware to some extent. Many server sales are now for people needing servers for J2EE applications which tend to scale out instead of up. Why spend significantly more on Sun hardware to scale out when you could just throw more X86 cluster nodes at the problem and achieve similiar results for less money.

Java!

[jav1231]

I'm just glad to see that Java will ship with RH! Maybe now we can have plugins already hooked. >

SGI's problem was poor quality and communication

[benwaggoner]

Of course, SGI's failure was more of execution than strategy. First, they "Osborned" themselves by not making it clear what the long-term strategy was for Irix, reducing sales of their existing product lines. They also reduced R&D on IRIX/MIPS, giving them less of a way out if the NT strategy failed.

Then, more importantly, they built machines that were techically overambitious, with cool sounding memory technology that was a compatibilty and stability nightmare in practice. While the SGI NT boxes sounded great, they just didn't do the job in the real world.

Also, NT as a digital media platform was a little too early. It wasn't until Windows 2000 before that kernel really became competitive for video, for example.

And once all that failed, they'd spent a huge portion of their available capital, which was sunk, and they had to reinvigorate IRIX and MIPS, which was a real challenge. SGI would be a lot bigger today if they hadn't ever bothered with x86/NT.

Sun has made their long term Solaris/SPARC plan very clear. Also, they're using Linux, over which they have some measure of control to make sure the OS supports their hardware perfectly, instead of a propritary OS. I think this is a good strategy, and has a significant chance of working. Interesting they're using Linux and not Solaris for Intel, though.

Sun seems terribly desperate

[doc_traig]

These new product strategies they seem to be developing really dilute what little niche Sun could still claim. I'm not saying that the damage hasn't mostly come from the rest of the market -- Intel boxes with linux, FreeBSD, or Win2K server are more than up to the task these days in terms of reliability. It used to be (and still is by a few accounts) that if you wanted a commercial server that was even close to reliable, you had to shell out for what Sun offered.

But Sun simply seems to be flailing about wildly trying to incorporate linux, Intel parts, and whatever other bits that are actually saleable into their unreasonably expensive product lineup (these new machines have more reasonable prices but I don't know that they beat similar offerings as they claim). Didn't they have a linux strategy recently fall flat on its face?

Routeness

[fm6]

You're picking up on one little parallel (both sell x86 boxes) and inflating it into a grand paradigm. The differences are more to the point:

• Sun sneers at x86 workstations. SGI would like to sell x86 workstations, but waited too long to enter the market.
• Sun used to talk about doing Itanium boxes, but lost interest. SGI's put a lot of effort into its Altix servers.
• Sun has an x86 rackmount business, SGI does not. Though I often wonder how serious Sun is about this business. I've noticed that people who were customers when it was a separate company called Cobalt are not happy with the new management. And you'll notice that Sun has two or three Sparc rackmount models for every one x86 model.
• Sun still has a huge Sparc development operation, and still uses Sparc exclusively in most of its products. SGI has spun off MIPS, and supposedly plans to give "commodity" systems equal priority -- though MIPS-based systems still dominate their product line.

Re:Routeness

[SLot]

Sun has an x86 rackmount business, SGI does not. Though I often wonder how serious Sun is about this business. I've noticed that people who were customers when it was a separate company called Cobalt are not happy with the new management. And you'll notice that Sun has two or three Sparc rackmount models for every one x86 model.

While I know you are talking about the Raq's, a lot of the earlier models from Cobalt are still around - Raq2, Qube2 & 2700. And you were right, I got so sick of waiting on patches after Sun bought Cobalt, I did the only thing I could. I put debian on my Qube2 and quit caring about what Sun did. :) Of course, this guy went with NetBSD, but hey, either way, whatever Sun does or doesn't do is what Sun does or doesn't do. I don't care anymore. :) And if you are interested in what I did with my qube, poke around in the forums on my website.

Re:Routeness

[fm6]

Yikes! I knew it was big (used to work next door to the microprocessor campus in Mountain View), but bigger than IBM, Motorola, AMD? I assume #1 is Intel.

I wonder how much of this is ego and politics. How many companies besides Sun use the Sparc processor any more? Of course, they have other products, like picoJava, but none of these have taken off. It might be difficult to justify such a huge R&D operation as commodity processors grab more and more of the server and workstation market.

Wait Im confused. Lawsuit anyone?

[fdawg]

So I recall SCO sueing IBM about their code mingling with Unix code. I also recall this including Red Hat. The question is, why sue a business partner? What software would you run on your shiney new boxes?

Related to the EOL of the Qube?

[axjms]

With all of the rumors swirling around the qube websites that Sun is EOL'ing them in July of this year I thought these 1U servers would be great replacements for a qube. Alas, it looks like these new servers were designed for a completely different purpose. And before any of you scoff at the underpowered little qubes keep in mind they are serve their purpose admirably and I am sorry that Sun is abandoning them.

Re:A joke to be modded as funny

[TheRaven64]

Why did the chicken cross the road?
To be eaten by the huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge CowboyNeal.

No, that just doesn't work. A chicken would not cross the road in order to be eaten. It might cross the road to avoid being eaten, or to avoid being flattened by a huge CowboyNeal coming in the opposite direction...

Re:1 word

[ichimunki]

Maybe. When you start to tally up the components of this system you're looking at a pretty expensive hand-build. And you're looking at the time to put the parts together. And install an OS. So while you might enjoy spending your time that way, most companies would rather be focusing on doing whatever it is they're actually good at doing.

Re:1 word

[oldmanmtn]

OK, let's assume for a second you actually can build a rackmount server with exactly the same specs for less. Can you build 200 of them?

Sun isn't getting into this market to sell individual systems for people to run in their bedroom / offices. They are in the market to sell these in multi-rack installations to run the web servers that are attached to the clusters of Sun Fire 4800 app servers, which are attached to the failover-capable pair of 15Ks running Oracle on the back end.

Now, lets see you whip up a 72-way 576GB machine with over 100 GB/s of local memory bandwidth.

Two Words

[jtharpla]

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?

Re:Two Words

[jtharpla]

Versus the Dell PowerVault NAS devices? Check out the PowerVault 725N. Seems like a very nice solution for ~$3000 for a low-end configuration.

Not that I'm a huge Dell fan, but comparing Sun's x86 offerings to a Dell/Red Hat Linux combo just doesn't favor Sun much. I mean, Dell has a team dedicated to making Red Hat Linux work on their servers...there have been issues before, but overall I'm more impressed with this solution and it's future vs. a Sun x86 solution, esp. using Solaris x86.

Re:wow

[adam872]

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...

Re:1 word

[Enrico Pulatzo]

Sure you can, but will you provide any warranty?

Competing Solaris against Linux

[HighOrbit]

are we going to see the end of solaris soon?

Absolutely not the end of Solaris. Sun is shifting some of their focus (if not most) from producing hardware to being a software and services company. Although this was announced along with the Red Hat deal, this is actually an attempt by Sun to compete Solaris against Linux at the low end. Sun is basically admitting and re-acting to what people have been saying for months (if not years) - Linux has been eating at Solaris by replacing high-cost sparcs with low cost x86.

The Red Hat deal is an obfuscation. The real aim here is to co-opt Linux by having current Solaris shops stay with Solaris. Lots of these shops that would have replaced the Sparc/Solaris platform with Linux are now going to be induced to stay with Solaris on x86. Sun figures that it is better to sell Solaris services without Sparc than to sell nothing at all.

Up until now, Solaris on x86 was always a "redheaded stepchild" at Sun. The hardware support was terrible and limited (very few video cards, for example). Hopefully, Sun will now give x86 good hardware support.

Re:Competing Solaris against Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Up until now, Solaris on x86 was always a "redheaded stepchild" at Sun.

It's very unfortunate that Sun spent the late 90s selling E10Ks to dotcoms instead of noticing the Linux threat.

Had Solaris x86 been taken more seriously in 1998-2000, there probably wouldn't be a RedHat right now. Or at least RedHat's salesmen wouldn't be in the boardroom. Hell, even Sun's fanboys diss Solaris x86.

Sun made the same mistake that SCO did. People wanted a cheap Unix to run basic network services like web and mail. None of the System V club would deliver, but Linux did. Now Linux is eating into the Oracle and ERP markets and Sun&SCO are scared shitless.

Re:Competing Solaris against Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Up until now, Solaris on x86 was always a "redheaded stepchild" at Sun. The hardware support was terrible and limited (very few video cards, for example). Hopefully, Sun will now give x86 good hardware support.

I don't think they will. That's what the RedHat deal is for. Sun's story is pretty simple: If you want the latest/greatest/cheapest hardware, run Linux. If you want high reliability/cost, run Solaris86 on "approved" x86 hardware (Sun's or HP or Dell). If you want maximum reliability, run Solaris on SPARC.

Re:Competing Solaris against Linux

[LordBodak]

Or if you listen to SCO, Solaris for x86 doesn't exist!

Re:Competing Solaris against Linux

[akuma(x86)]

I agree that this is a good way for Sun to make money in the computer business. Solaris is better than Linux at certain things and that will differentiate Sun enough for customers to go with them.

Beware the Linux distributions that come out of Sun. It is in their interests to make it look bad compared with Solaris. They tried the same thing with x86 Solaris. They made it so crappy to try to convince customers to switch their hardware from x86 to Sparc.

Hardware (servers in particular) are becoming more and more commodity-like as standard components work their way up the enterprise stack. Sun can't play there, they're too inefficient compared with a company like Dell that has much lower overhead - Dell has minimal inventory and just about 0 R&D cost. In a commodity market the leanest players win and Sun is a big fat pig.

Go with software and services. It works for IBM.

Re:Competing Solaris against Linux

[GunFodder]

FYI Sun came from BSD, not System V.

Re:Competing Solaris against Linux

[cfl]

Yes - Sun came from BSD, but Solaris is a mostly
System V OS.

Re:Competing Solaris against Linux

[guacamole]

What do you mean by "Sun came from BSD". Sun is a company, not some software. Now, the old SunOS (before SunOS 5) was indeed based on BSD but starting with SunOS 5 it's based of SysVR4 with BSD compatibility bits thrown in.

I'm looking at buying one of thse v65x boxes...

[smkndrkn]

...in order to move a small production machine off aging hardware. The price is in-line with other 2U rackmount servers from Dell and IBM and probably a better deal than sparc hardware with the same specifications. The fact that we'd be running Intel + Linux on this machine as opposed to sparc + solaris is a huge benefit. That coupled with the Sun support services (which I think are prett good. Just like all support programs there are problems but as a whole its worth having) makes these new servers VERY attractive.

Now I have to convince my department to try this out...shouldn't be much trouble considering its $8,000.00

Its about Software Services not Hardware

[HighOrbit]

Sun has admitted that they will lose if they keep pushing Sparc. The alternative x86 hardware is a commodity and there is not much profit there. So instead, they are switching gears to sell the software and services. In the long run, they probably don't care where you buy your cheap commodity x86 hardware, as long as you install Solaris/SunOne on it and sign up for the multi-10s of thousands of dollars integration and support contracts. So they are not so much competing with Dell on the hardware side as they are competing with IBM & Linux on the software/services side.

Re:Why Oracle?

[NineNine]

And people don't need Oracle databases. Most of the free SQL flavors work just fine, thank you.

Give me PostgreSQL or MySQL any day over Oracle crap

Let me guess... you're 18 and haven't had your "introduction to Relation Databases" class yet, right? Kid, go away, you're bothering me.

Because they will sell software and services

[HighOrbit]

Its not the hardware that they care about. Its selling you Solaris and software integration services. Kind of like when MS sells the X-box at a loss to get you to buy the games.

Re:1 word

[jedidiah]

Quite right.

I'd love to have a rack full of these to bury my 4800 with.

Loosing???

[twoslice]

This is where Sun is loosing the grip.

Sun is setting loose "the grip"? better look out "the grip" will bite your ass...

Sun 386i

[dprice]

Back in 1988, I remember seeing x86 based Suns running SunOS. It wasn't called Solaris back then. SPARC RISC based workstations weren't available then. The bulk of the Sun workstations were Motorola 68xxx based. Sun came out with an 80386 workstation called the 386i.

I had the opportunity to touch one when they first came out. A coworker was all excited that they were moving all their CAD software to the 386i, and he took me to their lab to show me the new machines. I wiggled the mouse, and it immediately crashed. That was the extent of my exposure.

As far as I can tell, the Sun 386i flopped. Linux was not around yet. SPARC came along a couple years later, and Sun migrated totally to SPARC. Perhaps their first attempt at x86 was a good idea, but poorly executed.

Re:Sun 386i

[Waldmeister]

From my point of view, the Sun 386i has never been anything else than a toy.

The first SPARC box has been presented 1987 or 1988, the 386i some month later. There have been two models of the 386i, comapred to a complete line of workstations and servers with the new SPARC processors. Including great new technology (RISC was new an kewl), much better performance and a fancy new case design from frog design.

So it was pretty clear, that Sun would bet their future on Sparc. And not on Intel processors.

I'm not sure, which one of the four founders compared workstations and servers to sports cars and trucks. And especially constructing sports cards would be much more fun. Even if the servers earned the money, Sun has been young enough that times to spend that money (and more) on a fun workstation with the 80386, the first Intel chip, compareable to Motorolas 68k line of processors.

JDK or JRE on Red Hat?

[nedron]

Hopefully, Red Hat will be shipping the JDK, not just the JRE. Generally, the only thing I have to do to a system after installation (aside from system updates) is installing Sun's JDK.

It's too bad Red Hat didn't do this previously as it would have saved people a lot of trouble (particularly when they didn't realize they were using kaffe rather than Sun for java).

-David

Re:Doesn't this go against redhat's mantra?

[Karn]

Redhat has never had this mantra. X11, OpenSSH, Postgresql, and other packages which come with Redhat use non-GPL licenses (although these are considered to be GPL-compatible.)

Redhat's reasoning for not including things like Nvidia drivers is that since they do not have the source and cannot modify and redistribute the drivers, they cannot effectively support their customers. From what I understand, the Sun license permits redistribution, but doesn't allow modifications, which makes it difficult for Redhat to truly support it.

Perhaps this partership means Sun will support the Java items for Redhat, eliminating the concern Redhat has for supporting their customers.

Java optimizations?

[nsushkin]

Does anyone know if Java for solaris/x86 is better optimized than Java for linux/x86?

I know that Java for solaris/sparc has some specific garbage collection options.

Re:wow

[mark_lybarger]

which makes purchasing and maintenance easier

as long as the company you're purchasing it from is still around and supports the products you have. after that it's your headache just like everything else. yes sun has typically had solid hardware (if that's entirely true, then why do datacenters need redundancy at the hardware level, and why do they need such expensive contracts that say that sun will be there in 45 minutes and have any problem resolved within 2 hrs.

how about putting those eggs in a few separate baskets?

Big difference

[Baki]

There is a big difference between SUN and SGI (apart from what others have said here):

The E15K is used by big companies such as banks as mainframe like or mainframe replacement computers.

The fast SGI machines were mainly used as scientific supercomputers, which is a small niche market.

The mainframe market for superservers and UNIX consolidation however is huge and no niche market at all!

Where I work (2nd bank of Switzerland) it is E15K's all the way. All software written in house (by thousands of developers) runs either on MVS or on E15K, partitioned to serparate and guarantee applications the capacity they need.

This is only for RedHat Enterprise Linux

[miniver]

If you look at Sun's press release about Red Hat you'll see that Red Hat will be including the JVM with their RH Enterprise Linux distributions ... not with Red Hat Linux, and that Sun will only be supporting RH Enterprise Linux. Why? Because Sun still won't license the JVM for redistribution. I'm not saying that Sun is wrong here (it's their toy, they get to choose the license), but this is what has been slowing the acceptance of Java on Linux with many developers. (Except for corporate Java developers -- they love it, and thus, so do I.)

Sun's trying to balance control of Java against market acceptance, and Solaris against Linux. Sun obviously thinks that anyone who wants Java for Linux will go to the effort of downloading it from Sun, while at the same time they get to differentiate Solaris from Linux by including Java. On the other hand, Sun could hardly sell & support Linux on Sun servers without also including Java; this agreement gives them what they want without letting go of their (perceived) control of Java.

versatility or desperation, maybe a little of both

[flaming-opus]

Everyone and their mother seems to be hollering about how desperate sun is, and how they're going to go the way of the dodo bird. While there is probably a kernel of truth to this, the same desperation is wide-spread throughout the IT industry. Times of economic hardship provide a bit of capitalist natural selection. They force companies to creatively adapt and struggle to survive. Some don't.
However, Sun is a very large beast, and one that has survived previous hardship, and created really compelling technology over the years. Sun long held to the single system mantra of sparc everywhere, and was often criticized for doing so. Now those same critics, for love of hearing their own voices, are ballyhooing the move toward intel chips and linux.
Lets face it, sun would be happy to take your money no matter what you're looking to run, and if they can offer a product line and make money selling it, they will do so. Go to IBM's page and see how many server platforms they offer: x86, AS/400, Z-series, RS/6000, windows, linux, aix, Z/OS, OS/400, they can sell you products across the entire span of server systems, and Sun can do that too. Sun sells 2 hardware platforms, and 2 operating systems, both of which run on both processor types. Sun doesn't win or lose because their x86 sled is 3% cheaper of 2% faster than dell's models. They win or lose because the servers are down 4 hours a year instead of 8 days. They win or lose because they sell edge servers and database servers and storage systems, with tape archives, network connectivity, SANs, middle-ware, applications, and peace-of-mind.
While I'm not willing to predict Sun's return to dominance in the event of an IT spending reprive, I think those sounding the death knell might have to wait a while. Making the argument that x86+linux is cheaper than sparc+solaris just isn't the right argument to make. cheap + fast are NOT the only elements of computer using/buying/selling that Sun needs to consider.

Uh-Oh...Sun is going down the SGI path....

[zerofoo]

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

Re:Uh-Oh...Sun is going down the SGI path....

[TW Burger]

Agreed...

The IT money-makers are specialists that provide unique or rare services. Commodity boxes that you or I can produce will not earn a living for Sun.

It seems executives are always aspiring (conspiring?) to attempt to create the new Microsoft without understanding the dynamics of the market.

Re:wow

[deaddrunk]

Same reason the ultra-bulletproof zSeries are set up the same way. Shit happens, and when it hits the fan, you want a spare fan.

Re:Why Oracle?

[CrypticOutsider]

Uh, what's a relation database class? Apparently it's where they'll teach you about LifeLog.

It's not about the low end.

[fleabag]

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.

Re:wow

[willtsmith]

Can you so SoLinux? How about SolarNux?????

Sun, more than ANY OTHER company is getting their ass kicked by Linux. It's simply no longer necessary to have a SunStation to drive a web server. Standardized PC hardware running Linux is MUCH, MUCH CHEAPER!!!!!

Sun's largest liability may be it's persistance in producing it's own CPU architecture. It may be VERY, VERY fast, but the marketplace for such a specialized platform is quickly evaporating.

Sun has created a sizable market for workstations in higher education environments. However, that could VERY EASILY ERODE with next generation purchasing. The push to standardize on hardware that can run EVERYTHING could very well doom Sun.

Sun needs to create an environment that their legacy scripts/software can run on PCs running Linux. Call it Solarnux if you will. That way they can sell Sun boxes that will fit easily into their traditional environments. At the same time these workstations could plausibly run Lindows to host Windows applications.

Similarly, their are lots of data centers out their that run on Sun hardware. Sheer cost decisions might force a platform switch. Linux keeps Sun in the game. The alternative is Windows2003 which puts Sun out of the ballgame. Why by a Sun box to run Windows2003?

At the higher end, Sun needs to seriously consider whether to keep making SPARC processors. A switch from SPARC to say ... the new IBM PowerPC 970 may seem painful. But losing their high end business is probably EVEN MORE painful. Doing so would free up a lot of $$$ and perhaps make Sun more of an ally with IBM and perhaps even Apple.

A switch of processing platform could bring a license to allow SunPPC workstations to run OSX apps. It could also bring an alliance to provide core services to creative shops that run OSX instead of Windows. In a way their fate is kinda linked.

Regarding SGI:
SGI better become a PURE SERVICES company or face certain extinction. LucasArts decision to buy Dell instead of SGI sounded the death bell for SGI. Their hardware business has been commoditized and they can no longer justify selling $25,000 workstations when a $3000 workstation with an nVidia Quadro card will do the same job.

unproven

[GunFodder]

Why don't IBM or HP sell Opteron systems? They have actually done business with AMD before whereas Sun has not. The reason is that the businesses that buy servers from huge companies like IBM, HP or Sun want a rock solid system with good support. They don't want an unproven processor running an OS with first-generation modifications.

My guess is that Opteron will appear first in the educational and scientific sectors. Schools are always short on cash and long on knowledgable users with huge computational needs. Once Opteron has proven itself as a reliable solution there it will be adopted by the top tier enterprise server companies.

My bad... PC2100 it is.

[moogla]

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.

Uhhh...

[moogla]

It's too slow for doing mathmatical simulations. MATLAB runs lethargically.
Did I forget to mention the meager memory bandwidth? 75-MHz SDRAM? It's not so bad when you have upwards of 3 layers of cache, but christ.

Re: 72GB of space... local storage is important if you create lots of temporary files, for various reasons. I'm not advocating spreading your storage out across the network. It's also useful for the purpose of comparison (what do I get for my money). They couldn't spare two 72GB disks?

I think a few large companies (incl. ours) have already trusted some of their data and processing to penguin computing. I wouldn't put them at the same level as Dell, but their technical support is about 10 times more helpful.

You're right, I said Enterprise when I meant Fire. SPARCstation, Ultra, Enterprise, Fire, it's all bullshit marketing tripe. give me a break. And they do still configure and sell enterprise 4xx lines with big e.o.l. support notices.

Dell and Sun do come out about even on their servers. That said, I also don't like Dell's midrange offerings either. Their Poweredge servers are only worth getting in the 4 and 8-way configs.

There are cases when the midrange Sun and Dell equipment are neccessary, in which case the question becomes, what OE do you need.

Re:Uhhh...

[moogla]

Let's say the OS takes 3 gigs, your home directory is 1. Do you REALLY think something is going to create 68 gigs of temporary files. Use your brain.
I've been around engineers for too long. They tend to assume there'll be 40+GB of space to untar a AIT3 tape or whatever before they start chewing on it.

Go see what a 72 gig SCSI disk costs and you'll see why they can "spare" you one hippie.

A 73GB 10K RPM low-profile SCSI drive costs $175 in bulk, $350 retail (Fujitsu, Seagate, Maxtor, take your pick). If you get a 36 gig 10K RPM from Sun it's $480. The manufacturer varies, depending on market prices. How can they justify that?
And I'm not a hippie, faggot. ;P Let's not degrade to name calling.

More Slashdot speculation. I think, maybe, perhaps or things stated as fact when they are, in fact, not.
The only large company that I know for sure is VeriSign. They've also got contracts with more than 80 of the Fortune 100. There is a large presence in the FBI and the Pentagon, and it is popular with the DoD in general (that's how I found out about them). Also, I understand something like 30-40% of the US internet backbone uses their servers (for what specific purposes I know not, as they don't make for cost-effective routers).

Hah, great choice. Shitty hardware and good support or good hardware and shitty support. You know with Sun you get both good hardware and good support, but I'm sure you would rather choose the half assed solution.

I agree. Sun's hardware is rock solid (but arguably too conservative), and the support is decent.
That being said, I haven't had any issues with any of the penguin boxes either. My only hardware-related snafu was when some memory went bad, but they shipped the replacement that same day. I don't think I've even had a faulty Dell. Out of the 30-someodd I've owned or been responsible for, I've never had to RMA or call the help line. In fact, we had an issue with Sun trying to add a DVD-ROM which turned out to be due to a bad cable issue. That was the most difficult-to-resolve problem that I faced with all THREE vendors. So by what evidence do you claim that ANY of the aforementioned hardware is shitty?
If you buy a "server-class" x86 box and don't fuck with it, keep it air-conditioned, etc., you should have zero problems no matter which of the 3 you buy it from.

You get Linux either way

I thought you were comparing a V2x0 (SPARC) to the similarly equipped Dell, in which case its Solaris vs. Linux/NT... after reviewing details appears the V6x0 (topic of the article) line is also competatively priced with Dell (hence the confusion); in that case I would choose Sun in that case unless I wanted some other specialty hardware on the same P.O. Dell does a good job of letting you buy everything you ultimately want at the same time, and making sure it all works. But I would get the Sun just for the support otherwise.

Unless you want Solaris x86 in which case both you and I would agree the person is insane.

Heh... hehe... muwahahahaa. Made the mistake of letting a friend waste a partition to play with that once. Never again.

Yeah brother, you are right!

[jotaeleemeese]

That version of SolarisNT in those machines comoditizes the whole thing.

S-u-p-p-o-r-t.

[jotaeleemeese]

No please, do not thank me for enligthening you.

Don't..

[jotaeleemeese]

But you are not the world.

Many of us are very happy to have the machine separated from the storage. ANd software RAID is perfectly adequate for many applications.