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Sun Unveils 64-bit Server Line
SumDog is one of many to let us know, PC World is reporting that Sun is expected to reveal the first few of their new 64-bit servers at their quarterly product rollout. From the article: "Formerly code-named Galaxy, the Sun Fire X2100, X4100, and X4200 servers represent the company's bid to woo customers, particularly the financial industry sector, away from rival server vendors Hewlett-Packard and Dell."
The UltraSPARC chips have been 64 bit for quite a while now. A more useful article summary would have pointed out the actual newsworthy bit of this story, which is that they're rolling out 64 bit x86 servers (running AMD Opterons).
The marketing talking head will claim that SPARC lives in Niagara and Rock, but note that Intel is now building a new x86-64 implementation that focuses on multicores just like Niagara and Rock. Given a choice between Niagara/Rock and Intel's/AMD's new multicore chips, most customers will prefer the latter.
The only future remaining for the SPARC is in esoteric highend systems built by Fujitsu and destined for simulating weather, nuclear explosions, and overpopulation.
These new servers absolutely rock, and at superb prices.
I once had the pleasure of a 4-way Opteron v40z with a development version of 64-bit Solaris 10. It was a screamer, especially compared to our 4-way Dell P4 Xeon box, and 64-bit.
It was plenty fast enough to host 4 zones and several developers working on KDE, gcc and all manner of other stuff.
At last, Sun looks like it's turning the corner (despite the best efforts of some of its PHBs - no names mentioned).
Good luck Sun.
Stick Men
Anandtech has a quick review of the X2100 up. Fairly standard, but well designed server it looks like. The big news is the entry level one for only $745. True it doesn't come with a HD, but that's still a hell of a deal for a true server (not a dell desktop box lets call it a server).
There are not white boxes, they are in house boxes built from the ground up Andy Bechtolsheim. Supposedly sun is working on a 8 socket box...thus you could have 16 opterons cores running in one box. Very interesting future for Opteron and Sun.
Where bold insert Customer
That's simialr to Digital's downfall. They built some of the best computers in the world, thinking if we build it they will come. But it wasn't what the customers wanted. The same goes for catering to Wall Street. They want short term quick earnings growth; not necessarily long term custoemr growth. That may not be be conducive to achieving a product line that will last and the customers will even want.
Evil people don't think they're evil. - George Lucas, Making of Ep III
Does this mean that Sun will get serious about supporting a good 64 bit java for these systems? Java systems application design could change radically if somebody can provide a 64 bit JVM that can process efficient garbage collection across very large java heap spaces.
Let's hope that they run better than the W2100z workstations. Dual Opteron 250 processors and 16 gigs of RAM (at least the model that my company bought) and all we have had so far is horrendous problems.
4 BIOS updates later and the problems have dwindled a bit but we constantly get BSP error messages on boot up and random DIMM error messages during POST (on both sockets and chips that have been thoroughly tested and known to be good). Daughter processor cards have been bad as well (already replaced 4 in a batch of 40 which, according to Sun is "acceptable rate of failure").
Their latest BIOS update (version R01_B4_S2, released last month) does resolve the frequency of some of these errors but now we have machines that lock up on that BIOS release but not previous ones.
I only post this because the chips are Opteron 250s by AMD (64-bit) and the main board is another AMD.
Based on my experience with these workstations I wouldn't touch anything put out by Sun until they can get a quality control department set up and running anything with AMD chips.
Um, they are opteron servers. They run Windows/Linux fine, and any other OS that works on x86. In fact Sun now has a support contract that provides windows support.
> Do slashdot readers see Sun being relevant 10 years from now?
It depends on whether you think Sun is turning the corner with these new servers. The original opteron line was basically a company on life support getting pretty much reference models out the door. While these machines show Sun's polish all over it. I think these servers compete well with HP and Dell's offering and they have Sun's polish. I am hopeful. But ten years is a long time from now.
> Will they survive by selling 'mostly' software?
Huh? This is a server line that runs Solaris or Linux. They are definitely still selling hardware and giving away the operating system.
> I know they sell hardware, but they no longer control the full stack like IBM with POWER.
Sun has almost never had control over the full stack. They sold you the hardware with a free (as in beer) operating system on it. Then you put on the application/server software. They might help you buy that application/server software. But they have never made it.
Sun also offers full technical support for Microsoft Windows on their hardware. See this for more info.
Suns don't run Windows and they don't run Linux
Actually, these new machines run Solaris, Linux and Windows - they are even on WHQL. They are the second-gen of Sun's AMD based x86-64 machines, and there were some intel x86-32 based systems before that, so arguably they are on their 3d or 4th gen of machines which can run Windows, if you like.
Compare and contrast this with Sun and HP who basically say "service, hey, you bought it, the check cleared and if it stops working then come see us about a service contract (which we will charge you up the wazoo for)".
Sun always quotes multiple service contract prices right there on the web page when you order the hardware (different levels of service).
You would not believe how much sun junk financial companies have lying around. I am talking about I have worked in companies were they have racks and racks of maxed out 4500's (the ram alone can cost 20g) running a single process at low utilization. The advantage of sun is that they are the only company that has a unified industrial grade hardware /software system so financial companies will pay thru the nose for that peace of mind. One admin told me that the only reason they really still use sun is because that it pipes input and output thru the serial port from the second power is turned on. You can give all the TCO arguments in the world no body is going to care if they have to explain to the CEO why a billion dollar (Literally) transaction failed because two vendors blamed each other for a mistake. Until a Linux company REALLY gets it there will always be room for sun.
"A good friend will bail you out of jail. A true friend will be sitting next to you saying, 'damn....that was fun!'"