Slashdot Mirror
The Return of the Sun Workstation, With AMD's Help
Hack Jandy writes "Would you be surprised to hear Sun is the lowest cost Tier 1 dual-Opteron provider? AnandTech benchmarks Sun's newest w2100z and includes some sneak peaks at Solaris 10 and Java Desktop System 2. The biggest surprise at the end - it costs less than IBM and HP's configurations. Has Sun learned from the demise of SGI workstations that relying on one processor architecture is harmful?" CrzyP adds "They perform various benchmarks including 2D/3D rendering, compiling, encryption, and thermal and noise performance, and compare the 64-bit Sun box with various other configurations, including varying operating systems."
Since the article doesn't link it
http://wwws.sun.com/software/javadesktopsystem/
The lesson I'd learn from SGI is that jumping into the WinTel server market is harmful.
The results of the SPEC benchmarks (Page 8) look quite impressive, from a cursory look at the graphs (more=better). It seemed to outperform RH9 and SuSE9.1 on most of them.
Quite an extensive review IMHO.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Are we talking about SUN the hardware company or SUN the Solaris folks? Hey, aren't they the ones that bought out the folks that eventually led to Star Office? Wait, I think they mentioned Java Desktop so is the compile-once-run-anywhere SUN?
Oh, Java Desktop is Linux with some java-related enhancements? Boy, these guys must really like Linux to be using it. Didn't they buy Cobalt before...and those things used Linux? I'm glad a large company is getting behind Linux in such a big way.
Wait, now I'm confused...they don't LIKE Linux?
Anyone know what SUN does for a living? Reminds me of a slacker surfer dude with all these different "money-making" schemes they keep pitching. Diversifying sounds more and more like treading water.
Actually the best way to buy a w2100z, if you don't need it -today- but do want it cheap, is to buy off of Ebay. They are regularly going for about 1/2 the retail price.
And AMD isn't subsidizing this at all, at least not actively. Sun just happens to be willing to sell for much lower than their traditional margins on these products to get back some of the workstation market. They have realized that workstations were a wedge into the hearts and minds of the admins who later (sometimes years later) made decisions on servers. And Sun has some very well priced Opteron servers now, too.
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
Why not get even cheaper!
Must have been awhile back ...
... the trade-in programs are generally to encourage people to give up their Xeons from other sources :)
Sun's Xeon servers (V60x and V65x) came out about 15 months ago. The LX50 (a P3 Xeon based server) came out about a year before that.
Sun's Opteron servers (V20z and V40z) started showing up about 6 months ago.
Sun doesn't have any Intel based workstations
Sun's Opteron workstations (w1100z and w2100z) started showing up a couple months ago.
Sun also has a low voltage Xeon Blade and an Athlon XP Blade. Based on trends I wouldn't be surprised to see an Opteron Blade if power requirements allow.
It is pretty obvious that it was so much x86 that Sun was against as it was Intel. When I was in Sun's entry-level server group the decision to use Xeon's was only grudgingly done because the Opterons kept getting pushed out. With a 64-bit CPU from an Intel competitor it looks like Sun is alot more comfortable with the relationship on the low-end. Opterons currently max out at 8 CPUs (I think) which is about the point where Sun's SPARC starts to really shine, so it has a lot of synergy.
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
Nope, no custom firmware. From: http://www.sun.com/desktop/workstation/w2100z/
"Genius may shine aloof and alone, like a star, but goodness is social, and it takes two men and God to make a Brother."
It runs linux apps side by side with solaris apps BETTER than they run on Linux natively. Using janus for the first time was great since I didn't have to fuck around with the mess/joke that is Linux in 2004.
You should try it. It is in the latest Solaris 10 beta.
A good place to start your liberation
Anyone remember Cray?
Why, yes, I do. They learned that lesson too, and are now using Opterons...
Well, the tip top of the line is $8700.00, but they start out much cheaper than that.
w1100zOpteron Model 144 (Single)
1 MB L2 Cache
Quadro NVS280 Graphics
512 MB RAM
80 GB HDD
GigE
5 USB, 2 1394, 2 Serial, 1 AGP 8x, 5 PCI-X
DVD-ROM/CD-RW
$1,495.00
Opteron Model 150 (Single)
1 MB L2 Cache
Quadro FX500 Graphics
1 GB RAM
80 GB HDD
GigE
5 USB, 2 1394, 2 Serial, 1 AGP 8x, 5 PCI-X
DVD-ROM/CD-RW
$2,095.00
w2100z
Opteron Model 246 (Dual)
1 MB L2 Cache
Quadro NVS280 Graphics
2 GB RAM
73 GB HDD (SCSI)
GigE
5 USB, 2 1394, 2 Serial, 1 AGP 8x, 5 PCI-X
DVD-ROM/CD-RW
$4,695.00
Opteron Model 250 (Dual)
1 MB L2 Cache
Quadro FX3000 Graphics
4 GB RAM
73 GB HDD (SCSI)
GigE
5 USB, 2 1394, 2 Serial, 1 AGP 8x, 5 PCI-X
DVD-ROM/CD-RW
$8,695.00
"Genius may shine aloof and alone, like a star, but goodness is social, and it takes two men and God to make a Brother."
This is what I used to install Solaris from a Slackware system. The instructions are for Solaris 8 and if I remember there was a little problem, but between this and the script that is on the install CD to setup a Solaris Netboot server, you should have enough documentation to get it running.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
Gentoo Portage lists both Blackdown (1.3.1-r9) and IBM (1.4.1-r1 and 1.4.2) Java Runtime Environments as being available for PowerPC.
http://packages.gentoo.org/search/?sstring=jre
End of Line.
Show me an Open Source hardware platform that can be aquired for equal to or less than the cost of a commodity hardware platform with even 1/2 the performance.
The reason open source software succeeds so well is because of the low cost of entry as developer and the fact that the quality of open source software can match the quality of proprietary software. The case is not the same for hardware. You don't need a manufacturing facility or a the equivalent of an EE degree to get into engineering software, you only need a low cost PC or even access to a university lab.
A large part of the idea behind open source software is to commoditize the market so that everyone can afford to run high quality software. That goal has already been achieved in the hardware market (not saying that a $5,000 workstation counts there, but the fact that I can buy a -very- capable PC for $400 and the kind of performance that used to cost $50,000 maybe 5 years ago is now in the $5,000 range).
Another big factor in open source software is annoyance at companies like Microsoft and Bell that had traditionally kept people from knowing how to manipulate the proprietary software. CPU manufacturers like AMD and Intel have gone to great pains to make sure that the open source community had full access to the CPU architectures on the Opteron and the Itanium before it so that they ran Linux well.
Sure, there are things like 3D cards that are a big thorn in the side of open source coding, but you don't seem to be talking about them so much as CPU and chipset as a platform.
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.