Slashdot Log In
Sun to Give Niagara Servers to Reviewers
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Thu Feb 23, 2006 10:57 PM
from the can't-give-these-away dept.
from the can't-give-these-away dept.
abdulzis writes "Sun Micro's Jonathan Schwartz says that Sun is giving away free servers to bloggers who do a good job reviewing their servers. From the blog article: 'if you write a blog that fairly assesses the machine's performance (positively or negatively), send us a pointer, we're likely to let you keep the machine'" Mr. Schwartz, if you're reading this, feel free to send us one with "Attn: CowboyNeal" on the label.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
ahhh... dyslexia (Score:5, Funny)
hello my friend! i am a humble nigerian prince with millions of dollars and have selected you to....
Reminds me of Chile... (Score:3, Funny)
We'll send you a free server & we're buying NO (Score:2)
Jonathan Schwartz can't play practical jokes on his blog? [blogwriteforceos.com]
Server vs PC (Score:3, Interesting)
Is it the CPU architecture? That can't be the case because many servers run on plain old x86 motherboards.
Is it the OS? While you can say that we can delineate Windows servers into Windows Server and non-Windows Server versions, many places stick Linux on as the OS which blurs the line completely.
Is it the speed? A decade ago, we were looking at servers which weren't half as fast as our low end PCs today. If it is speed, do we have some magical cutoff which just keeps moving forward?
So I get a server from Sun. Does that just mean I get a fast computer with a shitty audio and video card? Limited expansion slots?
I'd rather get a PC.
Re:Server vs PC (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Server vs PC (Score:3, Informative)
So basically, yes, until very recently, there were very large and substantial bandwidth differences. They've gotten smaller. More important, however, are the "lights-out management" features. If you can't reinstall the OS fro
Re:Server vs PC (Score:2)
Re:Server vs PC (Score:3, Insightful)
I think there's a good reason your name is "BadAnalogyGuy". Can you say "you're not Sun's target market"? There are plenty of bloggers who aren't just some slashdot reader sitting in his parent's basement, but actually use real equipment in real datacenters and they're the ones Jonathan is probably trying to reach out to (can't read his mind after all). By all means, get the tool you need. Server class x86 systems are typically way louder than you'll want to play World of Warcroft o
Obviously no enterprise experience (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference between a server and a PC is:
- A server is designed to serve data, and has nothing I don't need for it. That means that that damn video card that's not even hooked to a monitor can't break and take my website down with it's million dollars a day revenue.
- A server is designed to serve data reliably, and has enterprise class components. That means no cheap-ass western digital hard drives. If you don't think there's a difference, you've never used Enterprise hardware.
- A server is designed to serve data cheaply. This means low TCO, not low purchase price. Which means an OS that pushes the most bits per cpu, while requiring the least system administrator time. Is Solaris that OS? Debatable, since time has ensured that Apache is highly optimized for Linux. But if you can't run Linux on these yet, you will be able to soon. However, the CPU architecture on these is pretty highly parallel, and Solaris may work better than Linux. Sun is presenting some impressive numbers for these. And they're cheap (as servers go).
In other words, this may be a good time to buy SUNW, at least if you can grow a beard.Parent
Re:Obviously no enterprise experience (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, you wouldn't build an "enterprise server" with SATA just yet, but I'd say some form of SATA2 (or who knows, maybe SATA3?) will be the future replacement for SCSI. The hard drive makers are consolidating and IMHO, will soon reach a point where everything is either "budget priced" (EG. junk, suitable for PC resellers to use in low-cost systems for consumers and so-ho settings), or "better quality" which is used for everything from the largest enterprise systems to hobbyist PC's built with performance and quality parts in mind.
Right now, you pay a ridiculous premium for all things SCSI, simply because it's a dying standard, only used and respected by those building large servers for people with deep enough pockets to pay the prices without question. SCSI has disadvantages though, including the difficulty in making the high-density cables and connectors. (Ever try crimping a connector onto a SCA-80 cable, for example?)
The drives themselves tend to be built from pretty much the same parts as their SATA counterparts, lately. They can just stick a different type of controler board on the bottom and call it SATA vs. SCSI. We're no longer in the era where companies like Micropolis and Fujitsu built obviously better-constructed and better warrantied drives intended for server use only.
Parent
Re:Obviously no enterprise experience (Score:2)
Now there is a name I haven't heard in a while. I still remember the 700MB ESDI tank that was my second server's drive. (First one had 3 160 MB WrenIII ESDIs).
ESDI, now that was performance.
-nB
Regular vs. Enterprise storage (Score:3, Informative)
WRONG
The main cost driver for SCSI/Fiber drives is testing.
WRONG
Before leaving the factory, the platters on every single enterprise class drive receive extensive testing. That is why SCSIs still have a 5 year war
Re:Regular vs. Enterprise storage (Score:5, Informative)
In case you weren't aware, Seagate's SATA drives also come with 5 year replacement warranties.
Parent
Re:Regular vs. Enterprise storage (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not aware of any manufacturer outside the milspec arena that guarantees to test every component individually.
Modern manufacturing is statistical. You test n components out of each lot of 1000. If more than m fail, the lot is "rejected". In the case of high-cost manufacturing, the "rejected" lot will be individually tested so any good pieces can be salvaged.
If you want tested components, the "grey" refurb/retest units are the ones that have actually been tested. Those which "passed" the lot sampling were not individually tested.
Warranties are also purely statistical. They don't guarantee the drive will actually last that long, they just provide MTBF numbers, figure 24x7 server operation, and that provides the number of years the drive is expected to survive. You still get occasional failures, hence RAID-5/6 storage servers.
Parent
Enterprise Class Drives (Score:3, Informative)
IO controller cache with error correcting checksum in memory and redundant power supply to ensure zero loss of data short of taking a sledgehammer to the thing.
Mainframe CPU - parity checking with automatic transaction rollback on e
Re:Obviously no enterprise experience (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Obviously no enterprise experience (Score:2)
I couldn't read beyond the parent's first paragraph without being reminded of this video [gamekillers.com].
Re:Obviously no enterprise experience (Score:3, Insightful)
I think Google would argue with you there. They designed their business around not using expensive hardware, but instead the principals of RAID applied across all of their hardware (they believe it's cheaper to have a LOT of less reliable, cheaper systems than a few, super reliable systems).
Re:Obviously no enterprise experience (Score:2)
Re:Server vs PC (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't know anything about these Niagara servers, but if they're anything like other Sun servers, here's what you'll get: a power supply that will last longer than two years; a motherboard with a chipset and layout designed for high high data throughput; harddrives that are hot-swappable and will handle years of heavy use without crapping out; etc. In short, they're designed for
Re:Server vs PC (Score:2)
Most of the time: The case.
Re:Server vs PC (Score:2, Informative)
it may not be fast in mhz, but it can output data like nothing else. Imagine a smp system with that. quad processors running 128 threads at once. talk about a awesome webserver or database server.
Niagara Throughput (Score:2)
What this means in practice is that Niagara has blistering performance for stuff which is basically integer intensive, but ain't so exciting for anything which is floating point intensive. But for the right workloads, a single
Re:Server vs PC (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Server vs PC (Score:5, Informative)
Since this particular server is a Niagara Server, it has the Ultrasparc T1 chip [wikipedia.org]. That's the big difference. This chip has 8 cores and each core can run 4 threads at the same time for a total of 32 threads of execution. So, IF you're running a web or application server, you will be able to support a LOT more users than a single core or even dual core processor for about the same price of a high end Wintel or Lintel box. Also, this chip uses a fraction of the power that a PC uses. Since servers are always on, this is a big deal for saving money in a data center. The total power consumption is about 70 watts. The Intel Chips use more than 100 watts. I don't know about expansion slots or video card actually, but if you care about that on this box, you're missing the point.
Parent
Expansion Slots... (Score:2)
Re:Server vs PC (Score:2)
Bold Move (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Bold Move (Score:2)
Re:Bold Move (Score:2)
I'm sure we'll know once the numbers come out. If they really have done something powerful, their profits will return.
ulterior motive? (Score:2)
Dell was slower, who would have thought? (Score:3, Funny)
public class Benchmark
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
Date start, end;
start = new Date();
try
{
for (int x = 0; x 5000000; x++)
{
if (args[0].equals("DELL")) Thread.sleep(x * 2);
else continue;
}
} catch (Exception e) {}
end = new Date();
System.out.println(end.getTime() - start.getTime());
}
}
So where's my free hardware? (Tabs were killed by the compression filter)
Also need an "& l t ;" [no spaces] (Score:2)
Tabs were killed by the compression filter
From mucho experience posting code to the Slashdot filter, you also need to use an " & l t ; " ["left tag escape character" or whatever - oh, and lose the spaces] so that your less-than sign " < " doesn't get mis-interpreted as the beginning of an HTML tag and thereby deleted:
Won't run WoW, CBN. (Score:4, Funny)
But you wouldn't be able to run World of Warcraft on it...
Re:Won't run WoW, CBN. (Score:2)
http://slashdot.org/faq/tech.shtml#te050 [slashdot.org]
What kind of hardware does Slashdot run on?
Type I (web server)
PIII/600 MHz 512K cache
1 GB RAM
9.1GB LVD SCSI with hot swap backplane
Intel EtherExpress Pro (built-in on moboard)
Intel EtherExpress 100 adapter
Type II (kernel NFS with kernel locking)
Dual PIII/600 MHz
2 GB RAM
(2) 9.1GB LVD SCSI with hot swap backplane
Intel EtherExpress Pro (built-in on motherboard)
Intel EtherExpress 100 adapter
Type III (SQL)
Quad Xeon 550 MHz,
I'll pass a pointer... (Score:2)
ok
SERVER *SUN;
char HappyNerd[1337];
HappyNerd = sendToBlog(*SUN);
.... :)
Don't forget the & on the other side
IBM has had tryout program for years (Score:3, Interesting)
Niagara is a very interesting tech. (Score:4, Interesting)
So for scientific work, or other stuff that's seriously hammering the FPU, it's going to be a dog. Sun has never denied this. You're not going to take weather simulations and throw them on this thing; it'd be a waste of money. But for other applications -- database; web server; maybe financial simulations -- there's a hell of a lot of grunt, for very little power consumption.
Sun has effectively opened up a new niche. Anything you have written for Sparc before will still run on this thing, but if you can manage to get a good degree of parallelism in your workload, it will positively fly.
In my opinion (not having seen one of these in action), it's going to be either a massive flop, or a massive win for Sun. My money's on a massive win. They've thought long and hard about common workloads, and have come up with a CPU optimised for those workloads, without too much overhead from making a "general purpose" CPU that can handle anything you throw at it reasonably well. I can't help but wonder how long it will be before we see similar designs out of IBM and Intel.
The other question I have is: what's the IO on these systems like? Poor IO would cripple it, but again, it depends on your workload. The T1000 has a single expansion slot (PCI-E), but four gigabit ethernet ports; the T2000 has three PCI-E and two PCI-X with four gigabit ethernet. On paper, it looks good; time will tell, though, if the systems live up to the expectations.
Re:Niagara is a very interesting tech. (Score:2, Interesting)
Niagara version 2 has taped out and will have 8 floating point units (or so I hear). It should arrive in early 2007,
The later "Rock" processor offers true SMP capabilities, as a Sparc IV+ replacement for the really big boxes. (But expect a Fujitsu Sparc processor to fill in the gap while we wait for this).
PS I hold a few SUNW shares
Re:Niagara is a very interesting tech. (Score:3, Interesting)
In order for this chip to take over the world, it needs to push developers to parallelize their applications more. That's a good possibility, since every chipmaker is moving toward multiple cores, etc., and so developers need to change their ways eventually. If this chip is what Sun says it is, it may give developers that real push into parallel applications.
In 5 years, it's possible that making ev
Parallel Workloads (Score:2)
"Try & Buy" program (Score:2)
If they decide not to let you keep it, which the agreement apparently doesn't say they will, you have 5 days to get the unit back to Sun at your own expense.
It's not unlike the trial magazine subscription where you get the first six months free, but can cancel just by sending the seventh issue back. They say they never got it, and stick you with a year's bill.
Here you'd have to pay through the nose to get insured, confirmation of delivery shipping back to Sun.
Sun's customer "service" is piss-poor (Score:2)
We ordered one of Sun's new Galaxy servers and after nearly 4 months, it still hadn't shown up, with nothing resembling an adequate explanation, coming from from Sun. I had to chase them to get them to promise new delivery dates that they then failed to follow through on. So we cancelled our order and we went and ordered a couple of boxes from a competitor! We wanted a hardware support contract to go along with it, but if they can't
Sun to Give Viagra Servers to Reviewers (Score:2)
The advertising campaign. (Score:2, Funny)
Inaccurate headline. no free servers (Score:4, Informative)
You get a LOANER server. At the end of 30 days, you have the option of buying it, or mailing it back, insured, at your expense, or taking the chance they like your bribed-for review. For 99% of the people that read Slashdot, that means you're out $60 bucks. That's a *long* way from getting a free server.
Re:Oh good. (Score:2)
Re:Oh good. (Score:2)
Re:Install slashdot on one? (Score:2)
Maybe. All CowboyNeal really needs to do is order a free machine for a test drive and write his review. If the marketeers like it, he gets to keep it at no charge. If he doesn't want it, he can return it with postage paid. If he still wants it anyway, he can fork over the cashola and enjoy his new server upgrades. From where I'm sitting, it sounds like a win/win situation.
Re:On the Application.... (Score:3, Informative)
But then, why add blogs to the equation? I don't know many companies who have a blog and would be ready to post this totally random review of a server on it.
Perhaps they're trying to get big blogging sites who own their own server racks to post a review. I bet you that Ars Technica is up for this
Never the less, I like the Ars reviews. These guys are ammazing, it would be