I somewhat agree. Sun are very big in Oil and Gas. Certainly at the company I work for (slb.com). Internally and at customer sites, we have literally thousands of Sun systems out there, the majority of which have done an excellent job for many years.
However, they are under threat from Linux, particularly in three areas:
They will need to keep up in the price/performance and innovation stakes to maintain their share of this market. It's funny: twelve months ago I was quite worried about Sun's future (and told them so). I'm now a lot more hopeful, based on some recent stuff I have seen.
Yeah, particularly when you can have Coopers. Fosters: bleaaaaaggghh.
I live in Houston these days and thankfully my favourite Coopers variety is available (Pale). They also have a nice selection of those wonderful Belgian beers: Hoegaarden, Leffe, Jupiler, Chimay etc etc
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...
Not necessarily true. There are many situations (like databases) where having a large multi-way system is much more efficient than a cluster. The thing that kills cluster performance is inter-node communications. The big Sun, SGI, HP and IBM systems as well as the Mainframes have a huge system and I/O bus which is designed to carry very large amounts of data around. The clustering world doesn't have this (yet). So, for those apps that need to lots of message/data passing, the SMP or Mainframe class system is going to do a better job.
There are situations where I would use a cluster, for sure (e.g. web serving). But give me that Big Iron for databases, ERP, Financials Apps etc etc any day. Sometimes they actually work out cheaper too.
As an Aussie living in the States right now (and with a Tech job) it is a little scary. The lawmakers in Washington have just gone crazy with the "Homeland Security" bollocks. I wasn't around when the McCarthy trials were happening, but I'll bet it was similar to the climate here right now. The U.S. is, at the moment, the home of the "illusion of freedom" IMHO. The Patriot Act, DMCA etc etc should be worrying for all U.S. citizens.
I can't wait for the current shennanigans in the Persian Gulf to be sorted out so the American people will start focusing on the real problems the country has domestically. Dubya's days will be numbered then methinks....
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I somewhat agree. Sun are very big in Oil and Gas. Certainly at the company I work for (slb.com). Internally and at customer sites, we have literally thousands of Sun systems out there, the majority of which have done an excellent job for many years.
However, they are under threat from Linux, particularly in three areas:
1, Interpretation Workstations (think GeoFrame and OpenWorks)
2, Seismic Processing (Omega/Promax)
3, Reservoir Engineering/Simulation (Eclipse/VIP)
They will need to keep up in the price/performance and innovation stakes to maintain their share of this market. It's funny: twelve months ago I was quite worried about Sun's future (and told them so). I'm now a lot more hopeful, based on some recent stuff I have seen.
Yeah, particularly when you can have Coopers. Fosters: bleaaaaaggghh. I live in Houston these days and thankfully my favourite Coopers variety is available (Pale). They also have a nice selection of those wonderful Belgian beers: Hoegaarden, Leffe, Jupiler, Chimay etc etc
Heaven: English Music, Belgian Beer and Aussie Girls
:)
Tconnors, I believe you are thinking of Nigella Lawson. Fwoaaaar
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...
Not necessarily true. There are many situations (like databases) where having a large multi-way system is much more efficient than a cluster. The thing that kills cluster performance is inter-node communications. The big Sun, SGI, HP and IBM systems as well as the Mainframes have a huge system and I/O bus which is designed to carry very large amounts of data around. The clustering world doesn't have this (yet). So, for those apps that need to lots of message/data passing, the SMP or Mainframe class system is going to do a better job. There are situations where I would use a cluster, for sure (e.g. web serving). But give me that Big Iron for databases, ERP, Financials Apps etc etc any day. Sometimes they actually work out cheaper too.
As an Aussie living in the States right now (and with a Tech job) it is a little scary. The lawmakers in Washington have just gone crazy with the "Homeland Security" bollocks. I wasn't around when the McCarthy trials were happening, but I'll bet it was similar to the climate here right now. The U.S. is, at the moment, the home of the "illusion of freedom" IMHO. The Patriot Act, DMCA etc etc should be worrying for all U.S. citizens.
I can't wait for the current shennanigans in the Persian Gulf to be sorted out so the American people will start focusing on the real problems the country has domestically. Dubya's days will be numbered then methinks....