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IBM takes aim at Sun
Sensei@bonsaipotato.com points us over to the latest move by IBM. IBM is rolling out their RS/6000 S80 and is aiming to beat Sun at all sides in the Unix universe, both with this roll-out, and their pending purchase of Sequent.
Its interesting to me that IBM, at the peak of the Microsoft Era, was considered corporate, stodgy, stuck-up, and backward. Now, they are moving very, very fast, reacting to the industry. They are innovating, even. Perhaps all the "old blood" cashed out and the new kids are running the show; any insights as to why IBM is suddenly seeming hip?
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
They were talking about LVD SCSI drawers, RAID arrays, that sort of thing.
Rather than learn to live with people who are different from us, and learn to tolerae their failings, it's better to just turn on the computer, so that the only people you interact with are the ones that are just like you.
I don't see any problems with that. There are many more people than I could ever hope to interact with. I have to make choices as to which people I choose to interact with. You think that my choice should be guided by some random or semi-random (tenants in an apt building) process -- why? I feel neither need nor obligation to learn to live with a women two doors down who thinks that Jerry Springer show is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
People naturally congregate in groups according to their interests and worldview (Slashdot is an example). I don't see that as bad, or, as a matter of fact, avoidable.
We talk alot here about the evils of censorship, but have you ever stopped to think about the evils of the usenet kill file?
There was a big discussion on that subject some time ago on Slashdot. You might want to consider two observations:
(1) Your right to talk does not imply my obligation to listen
(2) Killfile is a personal choice made by me as to whom I am willing to listen to. Censorship is an external choice made by someone else as to what I should be able to hear.
Do you read all Usenet every day?
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
...they fail to get the point across that you'd be forced to run AIX.
*shiver*
(Sorry, I'm an ex-AIX guy, current Solaris guy, you would not believe my requirements for going back)
--
Gonzo Granzeau
Gonzo Granzeau
"Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty
It may be evil but SMIT kicks ass all over the commercial unix market. Says alot for me since I'm such an HPUX whore.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
Of course, it isn't IBM taking aim at Sun that is silly. It is your bold-faced claim that IBM is demolishing Sun that completely lacks any credibility whatsoever.
Actually, I'm surprised that someone would submit an article with so many incorrect facts under their own ID rather than going AC.
"IBM's been better since day one?" Pass me the crack pipe when you're done.
Where do you get the crazy idea that Linux, in this day and age, is "mainly PC based?" Have you ever run Linux on an Alpha? A PowerPC? Linux runs native, fast, and clean on a variety of architectures, with great device support to match. There's absolutely no reason to fork the Linux kernel to port it to a new architecture; just get GCC working through a supported architecture, create a new directory in linux/arch/, and start plugging away.
--
That stinking SP boxes? That is nothing more than a JBORS6K(Just a bunch of RS6K) worse, it is tied up via some slownet backbone. It works fine as long as your message passing requirements are kept to a minimum. Isn't that why then bought Sequent? Can't write their own Shared resource OS and/or implement their own NUMA architecture.
As far as the OS/390, heh, Unix-like OS? As long has you don't mind submitting your "Unix" command, wait 2 days for it to reach the begining of the batch queue, then going to the datacenter to pick out the print job for your "ls" command.
Wasn't it IBM that practically gave up on the Power chips and waited years for the Power->Power2 update? The Unix group was practically the orphaned group, while the big boss on top pushed the old irons, AS/400 & their 'doze/OS2 boxes. Look at the early 90's, IBM had the hottest Unix boxes period. Then they put it in the back burner while other companies with Unix only solution pushed ahead. It is only now that IBM and HP are saying "Hey, we can't let Sun eat up all the cake, lets dig up our abandoned baby and say 'me too'"
Last I heard, the kernel isn't even capable of running on 24 cpu's.
There is too much specialized hardware in a S80 to ever expect that Linux would run on it. The OS has to be aware of the service processor, memory faults, and really complex connection system to the IO drawers. Not to mention the fact that people expect to be able to plug SSA drives into the system, which aren't even close to being supported.
That's why it will never happen.
and then when someone points out that's a very real possibility, seeing as the second one on that list is a predecessor of this new IBM machine that is purported as being 2.5 times slower.
Then, what do you do? You change lists. Now, it seems, the real proof of greatness is how well you do it non-clustered.
Could it be that Sun doesn't have these good clustered benchmarks because Sun Clusters don't offer scaleable performance as do clusters from IBM and Compaq?
What I think you're really saying is that you're only impressed if it shows up on this comparison.
Probably just some new lower-cost variant of SSA or fiberchannel connection type to the disks or disk array.
The 6X00 from Sun is absolutely no match for an S80. Those 4 512 bit memory paths really make the transactions fly.
Read the fucking Linux Kernel Mailing List FAQ before shooting your mouth off. And if you're going to dispute it, benchmark it in a reasonable context and prove your claim.
Remember that what's inside of you doesn't matter because nobody can see it.
The press release is here. I guess this thing will run linux. I would like to see it in action.
There's a review of this sucker up on Infoworld already. Apparently IBM shipped one to their test center. The lucky dogs.
If this box does hadware domain partitioning, then it will be the perfect box for Linux. With dynamic partitioning, we could constantly upgrade the OS with the daily kernel updates without bringing the whole machine down. If your new "pre-alpha preview" Linux experiemental kernel with the latest GTK+/Gnome/32-color-ls crashes your system, it would not take the box down.
If they don't have it, the better integrate Sequent's Numa architecture so that I could have all 24 distributions of Linux on the Same IBM box.
If not, I am just going to have to dig out the other 23 IBM PC-XT and beat IBM in their own game.
Umm... Did I miss something or are you wrong?
Stupid Sayings I've Heard Lately: "I used Netware 3.... something, but then I caught the NT bug and now that's all I kn
IBM and Cisco team up to become more competitive in the networking arena.
IBM releases "Shark" to become more competitive in the enterprise storage arena.
IBM releases another RS6000 to be competitive in the big honkin' server of death arena.
Do I sense a trend here with big blue?
Actually, the next generation Starfire will have a COMA architecture. (might have ccNUMA too though... not sure yet). See Project Serengheti, though products won't be out for at least another year.
The latest word on UltraSPARC III is that it is late, late, late. Don't expect systems to ship until sometime next year, possibly past the middle of the year.
It is in low-rate production at 600 MHz. Full rate production is expected in December. Prototypes of Sun's next generation are running in the labs right now. The first customer shipments should occur in the second quarter of next year, but beta sites will get them before then.
I'll "Come" and get you! Bill
-- Use Microsoft
one could scan enough product announcements and buzzwords and come up with a DaDa engine script to crank 'em out.
Chuck
Slashdot discussion contributor
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
This claim is so heavy on spin that it ignores reality and it ignores the article that this discussion is based on. Here's some counter spin, based on fact: Sun Expands Revenues and Shipments in All Server Categories. Here's a prominent quote:
Sun maintained a prominent position in the UNIX server market, capturing first place worldwide, with a 28% market share in factory revenue and 30% share in shipments. While competitors IBM and HP lost a share of the market in both factory revenues and shipments...
The RS/6000 SP2... dots the `Top 500 Supercomputers` list all over... not a single retail Sun is found on that list.
Ignore the fact that the list is filled with those SP2 killer E10000s.
The rest of your message (os verions and "stability" claims without proof, better "web servers" without proof, and the ultimate in midrange and mainframe technology -- without proof) I'll leave as an exercise for the reader to figure out.
IIRC, Linux can't support 24 processors. Linux has problems running more than two or four processors. SMP support in Linux right now is greatly behind even that of NT's. This is one of the main areas of development in the Linux kernel.
I thought RS/6000 was a 64-bit MIPS architecture.
Lock contention with 4 processors is down to 2% (saw the number somewhere, done with SGI benchmarking for the kernel), and is expected
to go down further.
Never seen an AIX vs. SunOS 4.1.3 religious war before. Go, go, go!
:)
I bought a laser printer last week. It took me over an hour to get NT configured to use it.
I'm suprised you would admit your incompetence with NT in such a forum as this.
Does this comparison make sense? The E10K has 166% more processors, yet only costs 50% more. What a bargain!!. Not to mention the fact that an E10K can run up to 8 instances of an OS at the same time in electrically isolated domains and this is not an apples to apples comparison.
A better comparison would be to the Sun E6X00 series. Currently, the E6500 can have up to 30 400MHz 8MB cache processors, and 30GB of RAM. I guess that wouldn't make a good press release.
This isn't a token mention of Linux. IBM has been supporting Linux for quite some time now. Going back to August 11, Lotus (a subsidiary of IBM) jumped on the Linux bandwagon by making Notes run on Linux, on August 10, IBM joined the effort to make sure that Linux runs on Intel's Merced processor, on July 30 IBM released a new version of its DB2 database software for Linux at the same time as for other operating systems, and on July 23, IBM added Linux technical support for their server line.
Obviously, this is not a new decision on the part of IBM. They committed fairly early in the game to supporting Linux and are doing what they can to promote it on their server line and with their industrial strength solutions.
Some companies actually back up what they're saying with their actions, and IBM doesn't just name drop for the sake of a press release. They've been working to promote the Linux operating system as much as they've been working to promote their sever solutions.
They are of course PowerPC's
From IBM's website:
The advanced copper technology of the S80's 450MHz RS64 III microprocessors allows for speedier data movement while reducing heat generation.
Also:
128 KB data/128 KB instruction Level 1 Cache
8 MB ECC Level 2 cache per processor
However, the big CAD/EDA engineering apps are all migrating to NT.
Which shows that Unix is a fine OS as long as it's shoved away in a server closet and nobody has to see it.
No they are PowerPC across the RS/6000 line.
--
Don't lead me into temptation... I can find it myself.
They're claiming their 24xPower3 box is faster than Sun's 64xUltraSparc. I don't know if it's true or not, but it is possible. It's also only costs 1/2 as much.
Size!=Speed
--"In dreams begin responsibilities" - Delmore Schwartz
I'm an engineer at Linuxcare, which is going to do support for Linux on the RS/6000. We've got Linux running on an RS/6000 here right now. It's a lot like a PowerMac, only faster. :-)
Yeah, but try getting those virtual neighbors to babysit for you! Do yourself a favor - think long term and invite those whiny neighbors over the next time you barbecue.
Davo -- Free speech, free software, AND free beer.
What is the "red suspenders brigade?"
Properly configured Solaris servers are perfectly capable of staying up 600+ days. Try spending more time in the office after 17:00. :)
"The B50 is a space-saving server with the performance, capacity, reliability, and flexibility to run your most demanding Web-based applications. Featuring the PowerPC 604e 375MHz processor with with 1MB of L2 cache and up to 1GB of memory capacity, the B50 also has an internal storage capacity of up to 36.4GB, an integrated Ethernet 10/100 port, two PCI expansion slots, and standard 32X SCSI CD-ROM and diskette drives."
Sounds like it would make a good final death gasp in the Apple 9500 line. But it's probably based on a better motherboard so who knows? Somebody please tell me I'm wrong and explain why because otherwise this is pretty drab.
Davo -- Free speech, free software, AND free beer.
OK, time for Buzz Word City
For the type of applications Sun and IBM are targetting, raw processor speed becomes a marginal parameter in the design space. Instead, the smart cookies focus on the I/O-memory subsystems which becomes the performance bottleneck and cooling system which determines the overall reliability.
The StartFire is based on cross-bar switch technology spun off from Cray when it was purchased by SGI. As such it is analogous to a shared bus where processors (ie passengers) find it relatively easy to communicate between each other inside but the maximum capacity is somewhat fixed in that it costs the same whether a few passengers or fully populated. However, it has the advantage of being easy to migrate.
The original IBM SP series from which their current distributed memory design is derived can be compared with a truck convoy using CB radio (switched memory backplane). More flexibility in adding capacity means better efficiencies in matching load to task and thus better pricing (though at these lofty levels, the profit margins are MUCH heftier than PCs so there is a lot of gap for undercutting the competition).
The SGI ccNUMA (cache-coherent non-uniform memory access) can be compared with an articulated truck with multi-channel CDMA wireless giving a hypercube topology for fast node-node communications. Specifically designed for scalability and balanced I/O throughput, it commands a premium for its complexity and sophistication.
On a sliding spectrum of shared-distributed, the order would be Sun-SGI-IBM, but as processors speeds increase, both Sun and IBM are adopting ccNUMA techniques. Now a diversified transport system would require a judicious blend of each computer, matching the capabilities to each machine's strengths. Any claims of superiority are marketing delusions as you would not use a bus where a truck is needed. That is what supposedly CIOs get paid 6 figure incomes for deciding and service arms like IBM get fat consulting fees (any reader comments on their effectiveness?).
Note that raw technical considerations can be distorted to some extent by legacy concerns and availability of drivers (sys-admins). Personally I see the high-end server space get more competitive and cut-throat as souped up cars attempt to claim a slice of the action. However, some companies will need to hit with a clue-bat as the planned technological obsolescence of consumer items do not sit well with business (there are good reasons why you'd stick with old-style mainframes based on the principle if it ain't broke, don't meddle with it as more fixes are likely to add more bugs).
LL
heh, heh. The real reason, IMO, is AIX boxes are just so dang expensive, comparatively speaking. Of course, 1-3 hour support for the rs6k line is standard (a guy'll come & fix stuff), but still. Actually, AIX is useful for at least one feature: the logical volume manager is in the base operating system. FYI, it allows volumes to span physical drives, grow filesystems on the fly, etc. No more repartitioning when you run outta space.
Sure, no problem, always happy to correct. SunOS is up to 5.7, that being the OS component of The Operating Environment Almost Known As Solaris 2.7 (the marketoons apparently decided that, as they were probably not going to rev the major version number any time soon, to turn the minor version number into a major version number); the highest version that the 4.x releases went up to was 4.1.4 (not 4.1.14, or 4.1.13).
...and probably still has bugs, although it may well have fewer than Solaris.
What exactly does a comparison of version numbers prove, especially given that OS/3xx has had more than 2 versions - remember, it dates back to the early '60's, although, by now, it may be like the old axe that's had its head replaced three times, and its handle replaced twice, but it's still "the same axe", i.e. I don't know how much code from the first release of OS/360 remains in OS/390 Version 2, Release 8 (probably only a small portion, if any)? (Note that there's probably been a lot of code replaced in SunOS, too - the step from 4.x to 5.x involved tossing out the old code base and switching to SVR4.0, and then changing a lot of stuff in the SVR4.0 code base; I don't know how much SunOS 5.0 code remains.)
And, in any case, OS/390 isn't AIX and doesn't run on an RS/6000, and OS/400 isn't AIX, either, and also doesn't run on an RS/6000, so the merits of those OSes only indirectly reflects on the merits of IBM (which may well be large enough that the fact that product A might be Really Nifty doesn't necessarily imply that product B is also Really Nifty).
Define "mainframe". Are you asserting that IBM sold computers before, say, Univac did (if so, could I see references, please?), or that the first computer worthy of the name "mainframe" was an IBM?
OS/390 got its UNIX 95 certification before Solaris 2.6/SPARC got its UNIX 95 certification.
This may or may not actually mean anything more than "few people didn't think Solaris was UNIX, but people tended not to think of OS/3xx as UNIX, given that using its Time Sharing Option was, once upon a time, likened by one UNIXer to 'kicking a dead whale down the beach', so IBM had more incentive to get OS/390 through certification."
But, yes, it does have a UNIX-compatible environment, although it's not compatible at the character-set level (i.e., it uses EBCDIC, not ASCII...).
Of course, there are options being contemplated that would presumably use ASCII ("Well, the radio's exploded, what's on the mainframe then?" "Looks like a penguin...." The kernel "usually boots to the point of mounting the boot ramdisk, and trying to start /bin/sh", but "bombs because umm, diferent reason every time"; a glibc port has also been started. I wonder what hardware they're using....).
I'm actually getting a bit frustrated with Solaris compared with AIX.
>Sun - UFS (have to buy VxFS)
>AIX - JFS
>Sun - Disk Suite (or pay for VxVM)
>AIX - LVM included
>Sun - Sun Enterprise Cluster where Sun wants to have you pay for an engineer to come out and set everything up for you.
>IBM - HA/CMP. You can do it yourself or have IBM do it.
That's not even touching on the fact that Sun's technical support isn't always the greatest not to mention the fact that our IBM marketing rep kicks ass. We have a problem with IBM, it doesn't stay a problem for long.
PLUS our IBM CE's that normally work on our account are some pretty bright guys. So rather than saying why WOULD you go with IBM, I sometimes wonder, why wouldn't you?
No doubt about it, IBM's version is tops, secure, and reliable, - and overengineered - but its not sexy. An nobody's stampeeding them. Same reason as I have seen 2 sun boxes wheeled out, to be replaced with 10-20 NT boxes - management had sound 'standardisation' reasons. Managers still want 100. to 500 NT boxes. Thats right- multiply the number of things that can break or get hacked. We can use Linux - ooo ahhh - its not supported they say - and I nearly fell off my chair when they (tried)to suggest the same about MVS, aka Open Edition Server!!! But the killer app is that you can now run NT services on MVS - Samba - whatever. And the NT camp said 'we dont have the experience'. I think the unconfortable truth is the NT admins know the gravy train will end - 2 boxes instead of 500. MVS, Linux, AIX, whatever, the SWITCH is not happening. IT costs are being hidden and invisible. The amount of overtime is unbelievable in support (not apps) for NT. Favorite OS - I bet it is - empire building - upgrades- rollouts and roadshows. I think M$ will be shown the door if there is another security 'issue', or that if MS creates a system that spits out total cost and total downtime. I think this a whenner and not an iffer.
Mainframe : Wont move, Can't push or budge it Midrange : Pushable and budgable PC : Stealable credit to Phil P.
It's not for playing quake.
I work at Bull and we sell the same machine basically only relabled (with additional software). Specs on the older (IBM S70) machine called Escala RL are at http://www-frec.bull.com/docs/escalar l470.htm
Linux missionaries saying "I can build a beowulf cluster using celerons that is ceaper and faster" will be solidly *clonked* in the head !
From the article:
"The RS/6000 B50 and a companion Intel chip-based Netfinity server are compact and designed for managing tasks like Web hosting, messaging, Internet security, directory services and electronic commerce. It runs on IBM's UNIX system, called AIX, or a low-cost, open source alternative that is popular with Web site managers, the Linux operating system.
``We expect these to be a favorite among those who demand Linux as their server operating system,'' said Kai Staats, chief executive of Terra Soft Solutions, an IBM partner."
It's nice to see that no-one is skimping on dropping the Linux name into this sort of press release - and they haven't even messed up the context!
An argument that has been rolling around in my circle recently has been the future of computers and the extent that they will affect our lives. I, being the optimist that i am, am hoping that they will continue to become more and more part of our everyday lives. Infiltrating our appliances, homes, and everything in between.
Now, i also am of the mindset that it would be beneficial in the end effect to have large supercomputers running each and every apartment building, and in each home having dummy terminals. Now, is this a viable alternative to the PC, or is noone willing to take the chance that some privacy will be comprimised.
I like the idea. I'm sure that there are others out there that have the same view. Thoughts? Comments?
(This is not really THAT off-topic, IBM.. SUN, they build mainframes that would most likely be used as the servers for the dummy terminals. see?)
rJames.org - illustration
The UNIX software operating system is used to run computers that control a variety of key business operations, like telephone networks, stock exchanges and office data centers. It is the main alternative to Microsoft's Windows NT.
Right! And my Ferrari is the main alternative to a Nissan Micra! When you reach the 16 or more processors, M$ Windows NT is not an alternative. I doubt it is ever one, in fact.
M$Windows users have RSI, Unix users have AWK
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
Linux, AIX, FreeBSD and Solaris continue to see good growth, and satisfied users. Vive le difference!
Pizzazz, or the B50,
will be sold with related new data storage systems.
does anyone know what they mean by that? a new kind of harddrive, or something completely different from hard drives...
hmm...
I post links to stuff here
IBM is trying to pull four fast ones. o) that they have perfect scalability for machins o) that Sun is not a moving target o) that AIX or Linux is suitable for this usage o) that anyone would want to switch from Solaris Solaris and Sun hardware scales so goddamn well that I can't see why *anyone* would want to have IBM systems right now. Just don't see it. And UltraSPARC III will be out any day now.
The RS/6000 B50 and a companion Intel chip-based Netfinity server are compact and designed for managing tasks like Web hosting, messaging, Internet security, directory services and electronic commerce. It runs on IBM's UNIX system, called AIX, or a low-cost, open source alternative that is popular with Web site managers, the Linux operating system.
Apparently these new servers run on AIX or linux - emulating high-end hardware can't be the most efficient approach, surely?
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
A few weeks ago there was a comment about the new playstation beating all pc-hardware in calculating triangles per second. Everybody was talking about how playstation would take over the market. Someone mentioned that by the time the playstation II will be released, PC hardware will be at least as fast. This article looks a lot like that; it's comparing IBM's latest product to a Sun product that is a lot older. When Sun comes up with a new system the press will be telling us it is going to take over IBM's position, and so on...
0x or or snor perron?!
...in Germany: Today, there was a 10-page 4-color A3-size flyer in "DIE WELT", one of Germany's biggest newspapers, advertising the RS 6000. That must have been insanely expensive.
That recent red hat interview here made it clear that if 90% of people have MS OS's and 10% have UNIXes, then it makes sense to compete with the 90 rather than people in your smaller 10%. Which was the reason for red hat not competing aggressively with other distributions.
Following the red hat strategy, they should stop trying to compete with sun, and they'll have a larger market to compete for.
Anyone have any info on the processors they are using? I know they are copper, but the model eludes me. Perhaps the POWER3? It's the most likely candidate. That is a kick ass processor with Awesome FPU power.
--
Don't lead me into temptation... I can find it myself.
Anybody know if the 24 CPU box was going to support Linux?
IBM would have to throw some kernel hackers at the RS/6000 kernel in order to get it to tick. But nowadays that wouldn't be unheard of.
I'll believe it when it shows up on the top of this list, for example. It's cheap to claim you have the fastest computer -- much more impressive to prove it in an open forum.
Does anyone know what they are basing their claims on?
Geeky modern art T-shirts
Reportedly there was a time unlike now when a reporter would set down the facts, that is report, without adding his/her own uninformed 2-bit comment. Such as, "The UNIX software operating system is ... the main alternative to Microsoft's Windows NT." See it everywhere nowadays, mediocre journalism. Of course on /., knee-jerking libertarianism compounded with smug reporting makes it even more interesting.
Essentially, it's reporting/FUD for PHBs which finds its way into a techie forum.
Now let's get nice and dirty. Solaris is up to what, 2.7? After being SunOS 4.1.13. (Not sure on version number here, feel free to correct.) And still has bugs. Just recently IBM released OS/390 Version 2, Release 8. A followup to Version 2, Release 7
First off, Solaris 8 is approaching (or in) early access (it rocks, btw). Second off, surely you're not claiming that just because AIX (ugh... it hurts just to type those letters) has a higher version number that it's better?
"This one goes all the way to 11, it's one louder".
I really don't know what you've been smoking, but the concept that AIX has been "whipping Sun's ass" is ludicrous. Sun has the number one position in Unix server market share, is the platform of choice for scalability, and is FAR more palatable to just about every sysadmin I know than that evil bastardization AIX.
You're also forgetting that E-Business is where it's at right now. Sun is dominating the E business scene and the Netscape/AOL/Sun alliance just makes it that much more deadly. Why do you think Sun's a target? Because they're at the top, you yoyo.
IBM may have "invented" the mainframe, but they got their clocks cleaned by people willing to move faster, work harder, and play smarter. They lost the burgeoning PC market to Microsoft, and the high-end server market to Sun and HP.
Personally, I'd be much more afraid of HP than of IBM, if I were in charge of Sun.
Because "the entire OS market is being replaced by Linux next week."
Don't you hang out on Slashdot.org much?
IBM's PPC hardware has always been superior to anyones elses hardware. What they are doing now is entering into a specific server market with a (more than) competitive product.
What is interesting about this is Big Blue marketing Linux. In the fullness of time (it takes time to optimize gcc to the ppc line like it was optimized for pentiums) there will be a cutting edge Linux PPC. Who is it aimed at? Not Sun (who is the target of the high end server announced here) but at Microsoft: Linux's role in Big Blue's plans are to keep NT from growing from low to mid-range in (alleged) capabilities. There are people out there who know nothing bu Microsoft who would buy it, but if you contract the market share available for MS to compete for, then MS cannot recover the development costs, etc., etc. IBM is using Linux to protect IBM's mid-range and high range servers from Microsoft competition!!!!
This means it will be in IBM's corporate interests for the indefinite future for them to support Linux. (Apple is going to what is apparently a variant of FreeBSD as well.) Hence, the emergence in the past year of alpha and beta products for Linux and some open sourcing of IBM products for Linux. Enjoy the ride!
> Sun's already getting their asses beat by IBM in the unix arena so badly...
Where have you been for the past five years? It is just the reverse. Perhaps you are left wondering why "IBM takes aim at Sun", which, by the way, is the topic of this discussion.
> The RS/6000 SP2... 16 node configuration... dots the `Top 5000 Supercomputers` list...
As does the singular (not 16 nodes put together) Sun Starfire. Are you reading the same list I am?
> They'll gleefully outserve any Sun you put them up against?
Let me guess, you don't have any specs to back up that claim, right? IBM is the ultimate web server? Pllleeassee....
Your reality check needs to have it's reality checked.
Nobody I can think of uses a RS/6000 box with multiple processors as a print server.
Do you?
The cost savings in firing the old Red Suspenders brigade should be enormous.
Why has the time come for them to load Linux onto their systems?
You didn't give a reason, it seems like you just implied it was inevitable. Then you listed reasons why they wouldn't want to.
Your logic eludes me. I suspect it eludes a bunch of us.
I agree with the necessity of filtering out the number of people you interact with. But I think one group of people that you should not filter out are your physical neighbors. Join all the tightly focused communities you want but not at the exclusion of the humans living 50 feet away from you. Beyond any feel good intangibles, it really is good practical sense to _not_ live with a bunch of strangers if at all possible. I moved out of an apt. complex and into a urban neighborhood for primarily this reason. You would be amazed at how much nicer it is to come home and hang out with people who just happen to live on the same block I do. Mind you, I'm still a part of 4-5 newsgroups and I don't plan on quiting the net anytime soon ;) There, that was about two cents worth.
Most people, I was one once too, are scared of IBM and think about regemented blue suits and white socks and mainframe operating systems.
I took a chance on IBM just after AIX 3.2.5. Now I will take AIX over any commercial unix.
This is not your father's IBM. Technical support, aside from being available anywhere on the planet, is very good. The hardware is rock solid. AIX is a breeze to manage and comes with killer apps: JFS, LVM, SMIT.
No other provider gives you those options.
Yes, they have trailed in performace. But the bullet proof systems make up for that.
> The RS/6000 SP2 in it's many retail versions,
> including basic 16 node configurations, dots the
> 'Top 500 Supercomputers' list all over,probably
> comprising somewhere around 20% of it. Not a
> single retail Sun is found on that list.
There are 93 Sun machines on the list, comprising about 18% of it... www.top500.org
IBM shows up 118 times. Advantage IBM, although I'm not quite ready to describe 'ASCI Blue' as a retail machine.
> Just recently IBM released OS/390 Version 2,
> Release 8. A followup to Version 2, Release 7.
> The S/390 is reguarded as one of the most
> powerful parallel computing systems available
> today, and OS/390 is without a doubt the most
> robust, reliable, and flexible unix-like
> operating system on the market.
Of course. I really respect MVS, and its children. It's really too bad that you get S/390 confused with RS/6000...
If it's "better" that Sun is a matter of personal preferences, and I'll refrain from quoting any anecdotal stories about my experiences with Sun-machines as this would get me (and rightly so) labeled as a Troll.
Oooh! Oooh! Me too!
Really, that nails one of my aggravations with RS6000s right on the head: there is no upgrade path without getting a new box. Especially the memory issue. We will have 1GB DIMMs soon (Samsung is talking about 4GB DIMMs within the next year), so will I be able to put them in my nice, shiny, and still new F50? Probably not. And that annoys me. Same with CPU upgrades.
I know that IBM can do it all from scratch each and every time and that they can make up standards as they go along and that IBM is full of people with brains so large that they have to wear neck braces, but if I have just spent $80,000 for a nice quad CPU AIX box with 2 GB of RAM, I would rather keep the box and add 4 new chips and 16 new DIMMs that buy a new box.
I will still keep buying RS6000s for AIX (unlike the kiddies in this forum, I have uptime needs that are really non-negotiable) and while I would love to see Linux get some of the AIX goodies (it already has similar stability, just not the load handling)(yet), in the meantime I would like to stay up and running 24/7.
Furthermore (yes, I just got some nice coffee, can you tell?!?!?), you made a good point about the 'frames. I no longer work on them (I have my own company now and we are nowhere near that size), but damn but they worked well. I know several people at Exxon here who work on the s/390s and they are apparently getting better all the time. I have to wonder why CIOs that are allegely being paid to thing cannot do the i/o equasions and say "Well, I guess we need a mainframe." Sometime, AIX and the rs6000s (as much as I like them) just won't cut it. SAP and DB2 (a nice combination on SP clusters, too) work really well on 'frames, and I find it hard to think that 500 quad PIII Compags would be cheaper (200 x $120,000 =$24,000,000, which would buy you four decent s/390s that you could cluster, allowing you 100% uptime forever, really).
Sure Sun will probably be faster again when they get a sparkling new machine out. Then IBM will be faster again and so on. It's the nature of development in this business. It's all moving targets, but IBM has the upper hand for the moment.
This is ONE machine. This is an SMP machine with 24 power RS64 chips. Be impressed or not, but check your facts first.
Sure we do. We hang about 300 printers off of it (4 CPU, 166MHz, 1.2GB RAM), in four countries and seven states. It does just fine, and late at night we have been using it as a Doom server. It is also the internal ssh/vpn machine, our little news box (asr is a must), and in general use as a documentation server (with the 7133 off of the side of it). Uptime of 310 days so far, but we will have a few last minute patches for the box and we will be going to 4.3 before Y2K, sadly. As I said, it makes a damned fine print server, loads steadily at 6 or so. Also run a small DB2 database for out internal bug tracking/trouble call system to bill to the departments for the trouble that the less clueful users cause us.
OK, from a less resident RS6000 guru than the one above -- the AS/400s are all RS6000s inside now. Every one, with only the microcode different. So, yes, OS/400 does run on RS6000s.
Heh. Love being pedantic.
The PowerPC AS/400s do, indeed, have POWER-family architecture processors, just as RS/6000's do - but if having a POWER-family architecture processor is sufficient to make an AS/400 "an RS/6000 inside now", it's also sufficient to make an AS/400 a Power Macintosh inside now....
However, the PowerPC processors in those AS/400s have, according to Frank Soltis' Inside the AS/400, some stuff not in all PowerPC processors, e.g. a tagged mode wherein pointers and non-pointers are tagged differently. I think I've heard a claim that the RS64 PowerPC processor is the same processor as one of the AS/400 processors, but run with tagged mode turned off; however.
Is all the other stuff in the AS/400's, e.g. support chips, I/O subsystem, etc. the same as on the RS/6000's?
And you think that's good?
:-(
Rather than learn to live with people who are different from us, and learn to tolerae their failings, it's better to just turn on the computer, so that the only people you interact with are the ones that are just like you.
What a fun society _that_ will lead to
This is the problem with the internet. It results in groups of people who can only talk to those that agree with them. Note the way any kind of discussion bewteen people who disagree on an important matter disintegrates into flames.
We talk alot here about the evils of censorship, but have you ever stopped to think about the evils of the usenet kill file?
'Hmmm - this guy said something I disagree with, and he said it in a kind of annoying way, and I've got a sore head this morning, so I'll press this one little button and make sure I never listen to anything he has to say again.'
Sure, you can un-kill them - but if you never hear from them, chances are you won't know if they've anything good to say.
Nasty stuff...
-----
I don't know how IBM are comparing their performance to Sun's Starfire. Pretty meaningless without giving any details. btw the Starfire is over 2 years old now. I don't think Sun are yet officially supporting their 450Mhz UltraSparc-II in volume on Starfire yet, even though it's been out for a while. (btw, you can get US-II 450's with 8MByte of 2nd level cache - clocked at 450Mhz!) Also, Sun's UltraSparc-III will be shipping in volume this December, starting at 600Mhz, and from early SPEC 95 benchmarks I've heard of it's about 10% faster (in fp) than an 600Mhz EV67 (Alpha 21264A) and they haven't even finished optimising it yet. SPEC int should be very good too.
Latest SPEC results here - 600Mhz Athlon has SPEC int/fp of 27.2/21.6. 667Mhz EV67 (Alpha 21264A) has SPEC int/fp of 37.5/65.5. The more competition, the better! (that includes competition between OS's) .
From your resident RS/6000 guru...
Reality check time once again! Woohoo!
Sun's already getting their asses beat by IBM in the unix arena so badly, it's almost sad to watch Sun's faltering and pathetic attempts to so much as *touch* IBM.
For those of you who remain clueless, let me issue you the official reality check of RS/6000 supporters the world over.
The RS/6000 SP2 in it's many retail versions, including basic 16 node configurations, dots the 'Top 500 Supercomputers' list all over, probably comprising somewhere around 20% of it. Not a single retail Sun is found on that list. The SP2, even with nodes, is cheaper than a Sun 'HPC' setup that would come anywhere near it's performance.
Now let's get nice and dirty. Solaris is up to what, 2.7? After being SunOS 4.1.13. (Not sure on version number here, feel free to correct.) And still has bugs. Just recently IBM released OS/390 Version 2, Release 8. A followup to Version 2, Release 7. The S/390 is reguarded as one of the most powerful parallel computing systems available today, and OS/390 is without a doubt the most robust, reliable, and flexible unix-like operating system on the market.
Now we can get into what Sun wants to do, websites and such. Sorry, IBM's got it plenty under control with the RS/6000 C20, F40, F50, H50, R50, H70, and S70. They'll gleefully outserve any Sun you put them up against. And they run Apache, too. Then there's the ultimate in complete connectivity, the AS/400 series, which can handle more networking than Sun, comes with Domino, which while being commercial, follows standards and handles your webserving, email, LDAP, ad infinitum. And will smoke Netscape Suite-Spot. Domino gleefully handles slashdot effect! Whereas www.sun.com is almost as slow as www.cisco.com. I've never had a problem with www.austin.ibm.com, www.direct.ibm.com, or any of IBM's websites.
Face it; IBM's *BEEN* better since day ONE. IBM *invented* the mainframe and the midrange. They have YEARS of experience on Sun. And they know how to use it. So, take this reality check, cash it, trade in your Suns, and get some RS/6000's to do the job better.
-RISCy Business | Rabid unix guy, networking guru
your company here.
shelby != ford
While i must agree that the internet has lead to some disagreeable behavior, as a whole it has also allowed many people that would otherwise be lonely and outcast to put in their lot with everyone else and learn what it is to become part of a community. What you are talking about is the immature behavior of the minority (flaming, et al).
rJames.org - illustration
the logical volume manager built into AIX is very slick!! it has supported native striping and mirroring since AIX 4.1 without buying costly OS add-ons. Veritas, while not free, is also very slick (seems to borrow a lot of terminology and concepts from AIX lvm) and is also fairly easy to use--even has a nice GUI with colors for all the braindead NT admin-types.
ironically enough, however, the CLI for AIX lvm is much more intuitive than the GUI for Veritas (IMHO)
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
"Why has the time come for them to load Linux onto their systems? "
Because linux was viewed as an experimental low end platform until recently. media attention and industry momentum have cast it into the big league. And now it's viewed as stable and mature enough for high-end boxes.
"Then you listed reasons why they wouldn't want to. "
I didn't say that. I said if a high-end vendor starts loading linux, they may be tempted to modify it for their own purposes, and thus fork from everyone else.
L.
I mean, Sun and especially SGI have been making SMP and/or ccNUMA machines much larger than that for years.
IBM: S80 = 24xPowerPC (or Power3?)
Sun: UE10k = 64xUltraSPARC
SGI: Origin = 128xMIPS R12k
The IBM SP is nothing to write home about, either. It's basically just a workstation cluster with a moderately fast interconnect. You can build your own Beowulf cluster using quad Xeons and Myrinet that'll be about as fast and a lot cheaper.
Any speculation on how IBM is going to position Sequent's (once the merger is completed.) against their RS/6000 line ?? Seams like the same market ?
Their Sun Community License is but a sham designed to draw well-intentioned developers to improve their product and fix bugs, then suddenly withdraw it and turn the source propietary again.
In my experience, the choice between IBM and Sun has never come down to power scalability or price. It usually comes down to the UNIX admins flatly refusing to work with something as evil as AIX.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
I suggest you go take a browse through the local microfilm archives; you'll see mediocre journalism all the way back to the very beginnings of journalism.
Frankly, I'm getting tired of all this nostalgia for "better times" WHEN THOSE TIMES NEVER EXISTED!
Argh! Get a grip!
It seems the time has come for high-end vendors to start loading linux on their boxes. The question is -
Since Linux is mainly PC based, won't a vendor or two be tempted to throw their own engineers to fork the kernel to make a dedicated OS for their particular machine/architecture? This way, they can claim it runs 25% faster or whatever.
The present 28 or so Linux distros all have the same linux inside, since they mainly target the same market. But if a big vendor steps in for a specialized niche market (say, mega servers, or GFX rendering), they might very well be tempted to diverge from the rest, since:
a) their market is different
b) they don't care about a backlash since they are so powerful
How likely is this? And is history going to repeat itself? Is there any incentive to prevent splintering?
L.