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Sun Microsystems AMD Hardware

Sun To Build Opteron Servers 287

Posted by timothy from the getting-in-on-the-new-deal dept.
geekee writes "According to an article at CNET, Sun is planning on creating Opteron-based servers. These are expected to include 2-processor and 4-processor models running either Solaris or Linux. This move isn't surprising, given the performance and cost gaps between the Opteron and UltraSPARC processors. A move to Opteron would allow them to be more competitve in cost and focus more on what they're good at, designing systems, not processors."
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Sun To Build Opteron Servers More

Sun To Build Opteron Servers

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  • another dell/HP (Score:5, Interesting)

    by stonebeat.org ( 562495 ) on Friday November 07, 2003 @09:35PM (#7422203) Homepage
    so Sun will become Dell or HP???
    • so, what's the cost of an Ultrasparc IIe based sytem equivalent to $2,000 AMD 64bit system? Both seem to use a crummy PCI buss, though the UltraSparc system looks like it eats less power. Someone help me understand the price performance gap mentioned please.

      The only gap I see is Sun not being co-operative with free software writers. That's dumb, because they will be comming up with alternate uses of their hardware. I know someone who bought a surpluss Ultrasparc based system and and I'd be jealous if i

      • Re:I dont know, help me out. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by buysse ( 5473 ) on Friday November 07, 2003 @11:22PM (#7422580) Homepage
        A IIe system... equivalent to an Opteron? What kind of drugs are you smoking, and are you willing to share?

        Look, Sun makes great hardware above the low end, but an old K6-2 beats a Blade 100 desktop in perceived performance and compile speeds. The IIe chip is low power -- in more ways than one. If you don't have a CPU-bound process, like say, a web server for mostly static pages, a Netra X1 or V100 works great, but it's not a fast CPU.

        OK. Price/performance. Let's see. SPEC2000 results, Sun Blade 100 (650Mhz US IIe, fastest IIe available in a system) gets 246 integer, 276 floating point. An Opteron 146 (2.0Ghz), on an Asus SK8N board, gets 1262 integer, 1300 floating point.

        Just in case you meant the US IIIi, as used in the new V210, V240, V250, and Blade 1500, the results on a V210 (server chassis, 1002 Mhz) are 555 integer, 841 floating point. If and when Sun can get the IIIi up to 2Ghz, that would not quite match the Opteron for integer ops, and just beat it for floating point. Of course, by that time, the Opteron will probably be up to 3Ghz and smoke any available IIIi.

        Any more bullshit to sling about price/performance?

        Benchmarks from www.spec.org [spec.org], as published by the vendors. Configurations of the boxes are detailed there.

      • They are pretty involved in free software already. OpenOffice.org, the Sun Java Desktop System (the Suse based Linux desktop), you can buy support for Suse and Red Hat's licensed products from Sun, plus there are things like the support for Apache and Tomcat projects, NetBeans, Sun Grid Engine, work on Gnome etc, etc. As for Linux on Sparc, I believe that kit is donated to help the people working on it.
    • so Sun will become Dell or HP???

      I don't think article said anything about Sun dumping sparc-based line on short term. So just like IBM builds all kinds of system (from Power - chip based servers to PCs), perhaps Sun is just expanding their product line, taking advantage of cheapness of commodity x86 processor lines. Dell does not sell non-x86 systems, and HP only sells those systems for legacy purposes (HP-PA, Alpha).

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • so Sun will become Dell or HP???No way. Sun is still doing massive amounts of R&D. Sun still has SPARC going forward c.f. Dell who just ship commodity intel stuff and HP who are abandoning everything for itanic.

      Sun is introducing these Opteron servers to compete at the low end.

      Sun also develops its own OS - Solaris - which it is able to offer cheaper than Linux on the same hardware.

      Because of Dell and HP's close alliance with intel, do not expect to see them shipping any Opteron (or any other AMD for t

  • Sun is simply adapting to survive (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RedHat_Linux_Man ( 692702 ) on Friday November 07, 2003 @09:39PM (#7422226) Journal
    They know that linux is the future-- Sun is simply adapting to survive. Both it and Opteron are more cost-effective than UNIX and SPARC, respectively.

  • Competition is great (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Zelet ( 515452 ) on Friday November 07, 2003 @09:42PM (#7422245) Journal
    I know this is the wrong thread - but I am so happy to see healthy competition in the market place. Check out what is happening
    - G5 vs. Opteron
    - OS X vs. Windows
    - Linux vs. Windows
    - Mozilla/Firebird/Thunderbird vs. IE/Outlook

    It is a good time for computing. Although, with Longhorn so far out (and no further IE improvements until then) I think the competition is going to be a little bit one sided.
    • - G5 vs. Opteron, ok - OS X vs. Windows, where are the winshit improvements? - Linux vs. Windows, where are the winshit improvements? - Mozilla/Firebird/Thunderbird vs. IE/Outlook, No more IE releases until 2005, no more Outlook Express releases. The competition is one-sided in that Microsoft "ownz0rs" the desktop market. They can hold out for that long without anything new to throw in. In two years, they'll come along with a few new shiny tricks. Their software will still suck, but they won't lose any
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • I don't agree with your comment about Mozilla/Firebird vs IE. Eveyone I know is fed up with pop-up-paradise IE. At work well all use Mozilla. Also the best advertisement in the world is "word of mouth" advertisement and Mozilla has that. Slowly but surely people will move away from IE because of its problems with privacy. MS doesn't care now but I guarantee you sooner or later they will.
      • The 970 (G5) is largely confined to Apple at the moment. IBM will produce some workstations based around it, but that's really it.
        Don't forget Microsoft's announcement to use one of IBM's Power CPUs in the next generation Xbox. Not that this really matters, since this is really an embedded use. Most people don't even realize the current Xbox is just a low-end PC in a different form factor.

  • You couldn't PAY me to use Sun! (Score:5, Funny)

    by RLiegh ( 247921 ) on Friday November 07, 2003 @09:43PM (#7422254) Homepage Journal
    However, I AM currently accepting donations to NOT use Linux!
  • So it's not exactly related to the story but: http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/Down l oadableAssets/AMD_Trailer_Ver2.wmv ...I need a higher framerate... ...I got fragged.. from the producers who brought you such collosal hits as AMD Athlon XP and AMD Opteron ..image a world where desktop and mobile pcs had all the computing power they needed...and more. Prepare yourself for AMD Athlon 64..now playing in desktop and mobile pcs everywhere. This processor has been rated FX

  • OP is Flamebait (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kindbud ( 90044 ) on Friday November 07, 2003 @09:52PM (#7422296) Homepage
    A move to Opteron would allow them to be more competitve in cost and focus more on what they're good at, designing systems, not processors.

    So what does the 20+ years' lineage of the SPARC architecture represent, if not Sun's ability to successfully design, implement, market and deploy processors? Hello? McFly?

    • Re:OP is Flamebait (Score:4, Insightful)

      by geekee ( 591277 ) on Friday November 07, 2003 @10:04PM (#7422337)
      "So what does the 20+ years' lineage of the SPARC architecture represent, if not Sun's ability to successfully design, implement, market and deploy processors? Hello? McFly?"

      If they're so successful, why does a $2000 Opteron system outperform a $10000 Sun system? SPARC has fallen behind on the performance curve, and yet they still charge a fortune for their machines. They are surviving only because people still need legacy apps, but as more stuff is ported to Linux, they're losing that market too. They have no choice but to compete in the x86 market since they have no better solution currently, either in performance or cost.

      • Re:OP is Flamebait (Score:5, Insightful)

        by TheCrazyFinn ( 539383 ) on Friday November 07, 2003 @10:20PM (#7422399) Homepage
        Who cares?

        That $10,000 will still be running, with full hardware support 5 years from now.

        You'll be lucky to be able to buy ram with a warantee for that Opteron. Which will probably ahve bit the dust from component failures anyways.

        Now a $5,000 Opteron or G5 on the other hand...

        Just remember your cheap-ass desktop components may stand up to 3-4 years of mild desktop use, but the same components will die much quicker in a server.
        • If Sun puts their systems-level experience and design behind an Opteron, it will be very impressive, indeed.

          The CPU is a minor part of the issue. As you say, desktop components will die quickly in a server. But put an Opteron in a server with server-quality fans, cooling design, power supply, and all the rest, and you've got a decent server.

          Sparc would still likely be more reliable, because there are things you do can inside the CPU, but a well-designed box around an Opteron would still be very good.
          • Agreed 100%.

            The real question is how close to the standard x86 PC these things are going to be. The x86 platform isn't terribly well designed for Servers, although it's much better than it used to be. Especially the craptacular firmware restrictions that we're stuck with for compatibilities sake.

            Image an Open-Firmware based Opteron. Oh, just imagine the possibilities.
        • i have a buddy who wordked in a shop that had a mail server running redhat 5.2 or 6.0,and it was a pentium 100 with 128 mb ram. it was locked in some dusty closet without a mouse, keyboard, moniror, or anything attached. it had a power cord and network cable. it had run no-stop for over 5 years strait. it had only two reboots, both due to power outages. they had over 300 employees, and sure, running a mail server is not huge, per se, but it was running for over 5 years, and still going fine. intel har
        • Yup just like my cheap ass 386 server that is STILL running about 70 miles away from here. It's outside, in a nema4 electrical box mounted to a telephone pole ran by solar+battery and still transmitting data. in fact the Scientific Atlanta "professional" data collection/relay machines have all failed.

          This has been 10 years now. it's still running and relaying the data back as well as acting as a ham radio Packet radio relay/bbs station. batteries get changed every 2 years by the local ham radio club.

          Yeah
          • So you got lucky. it happens.

            I'm not betting the business on luck.

            And there's a huge difference in quality between pc104 boards and your generic clone (Or even your Asus clone). pc104 boards aren't consumer.

            It all comes down to QC and engineering.

            Remember, that critical apps are generally heavily engineered and tested, so that they can handle failure safely.

      • Re:OP is Flamebait (Score:3, Informative)

        by Jeff DeMaagd ( 2015 )
        They have no choice but to compete in the x86 market since they have no better solution currently, either in performance or cost.

        Not best on performance but it is best on price/performance. According to that Sandia paper, an Alpha EV7 at 1.25GHz is about 50% faster than Opteron at 2.5GHz. Obviously, using Alpha likely costs more than 50% more than an equivalent Opteron implementation.
      • If they're so successful, why does a $2000 Opteron system outperform a $10000 Sun system?

        For what it's worth, I use both a Sun Blade 1000 (2x950MHz) and a dual processor (146) white box Opteron. Both of 'em have 8 GB of RAM and fast wide SCSI drives. The Blade 1000 churns through a SpecctraQuest transmission line simulation about 40% faster than the AMD system.

        The Sun system cost a lot more than the AMD system, but the payoff is that the time that I have to spend waiting for a simulation to complete

    • So what does the 20+ years' lineage of the SPARC architecture represent, if not Sun's ability to successfully design, implement, market and deploy processors? Hello? McFly?

      In the long run, zip. Sun didn't start with SPARC, and it looks likely they won't end with them. Sun Microelectronics may be wedded to the Sparc, but Sun Microsystems appears ready to cast them off if they can sell storage -- their most profitable line. It's not an easy choice, but if the choice becomes "SPARC or Sun", there's no dou

  • 64-bit question... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by (H)elix1 ( 231155 ) <slashdot.helix@nOSPaM.gmail.com> on Friday November 07, 2003 @09:57PM (#7422317) Homepage Journal
    The question in my mind is are they going to use the full x86-64 extensions, or keep the sparc as the 'real' 64-bit processor and let Solaris x86 remain 32 bit...

    • Re:64-bit question... (Score:3, Informative)

      by kinema ( 630983 )
      Sun has said that a x86-64 version of Solaris will be availible in the first quarter of 2004 and that a preview will here before the end of the year.
    • The question in my mind is are they going to use the full x86-64 extensions, or keep the sparc as the 'real' 64-bit processor and let Solaris x86 remain 32 bit...

      I see no need, strategically, Opterons are only scaleable 8-way so far (the 800 series chips), and the article says Sun only plans on making 2 and 4-way boxes.

      I think this allows them to "upsell" anyone who wants to keep their Solaris/Linux investment and move into the 16 or higher processor boxes that only the big iron platoforms (not x86) can p

      • I'm thinking workstation rather than server.... Granted, its been a few years since I've done anything (math or otherwise) that took advantage of an extra 32 bits. I'm thinking 2 way, not even a quad setup. SuSE x86-64 can, but Solaris x86 is still unknown from what I've seen.

  • Sun's missed move (Score:5, Interesting)

    by downix ( 84795 ) on Friday November 07, 2003 @10:01PM (#7422328) Homepage
    Moving to Operton is a good move, but only after a serious of mistakes.

    First mistake was in not encouraging 3rd party vendors to adopt the higher-end SPARC's, and ignoring the low-end SPARCs that used to dominate the embedded space. They had a strong position when they moved the SPARC architecture into the open, but lost it when they failed to support that initiative with bare-bones development machines.

    Next mistake was creating Solaris for x86. Sun's logic was to hook folk on Solaris in order to get them to move over to their profit-making SPARC's. BIG MISTAKE. Instead, those SPARC vendors decide that they can instead move off of SPARC and keep using Solaris on the lower-cost x86 machines.

    Final Mistake was Sun ignoring the low-to-mid range workstation market that they dominated during the 80's. Sun's focus on extreme-high-end servers cost them the middleware support that made Sun boxes worth purchasing in the first place.

    This move to Operton might be the only step left for them if they are going to survive outside of a vertical market.

  • not entirely related (Score:5, Funny)

    by iamdrscience ( 541136 ) on Friday November 07, 2003 @10:02PM (#7422332) Homepage
    but the reason I'm more interested in AMD's 64 bit chips instead of Intel's is the names. Intel's is the "Itanium" which sounds like a financial company's plan to expand their commodities market. Boring. AMD's on the other hand is "Opteron" which sounds like a massive and powerful, but benevolent robot who doles out justice all across the land with his fists of iron fury, protecting the interests of all well intentioned people.
  • This has been a very busy [nasa.gov] week for the Sun!
  • Sun Flares?

    • No, we tried that here at Sun and the sun hired a lawyer and sent us a cease & desist order for using their Sun Flares(tm) trademark.

      The sun also sent us a lengthy list of other trademarks we can't use. One trademark, Sun Go Nova(tm), makes us a little nervous.

  • Bravo, Sun. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by IGnatius T Foobar ( 4328 ) on Friday November 07, 2003 @10:48PM (#7422479) Homepage Journal
    I, for one, think this is a smart move on Sun's part -- and hopefully a key move as part of a strategy to make Sun successful in the Unix market of the 21st century (you know, the one where people want and use Linux on commodity processors).

    Opteron is a great choice. Not only is it technologically superior to Itanic, but it allows Sun and AMD to work together to keep Intel at bay. What's good for Intel usually ends up being good for Dell and Microsoft -- not Sun. Plus, Sun gets to save face by not having to turn around and say "uhhh... ok, maybe Intel isn't so bad after all."

    All Sun has to do now is execute this properly, sell the products at a reasonable price, and stand behind a solid dual Linux/Unix strategy the way IBM and HP are doing. The toughest part will, of course, be keeping McNealy's big mouth closed.
    • I disagree completly with "Not only is it technologically superior to Itanic, ...".
      I'm not processor architecture expert, but it would seem to me that exteneding a 20+ year old design would be technologically inferiour to a design developed in the last 10.
      From a business perspective I think 64bit x86 is a better bet, a more gradual progression, but not technologically superiour.

  • signs of Intelligent life found in the SUNW! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 07, 2003 @11:02PM (#7422527)
    The first serious sign that McNealy & Co. are actually thinking. This could be positive for Sun if they execute it right...something I have my doubts about though.

    Sun reminds me of Atari or Amiga from days past...great company with lots of innovative ideas, piss poor execution.

    They really need to spell out the future for their customers, will they adopteron the Operon for all servers eventually or is this just a little hack to keep the analysts off their back.

    If they treat this like their x86 servers with annoucements like:

    "We'll sell you this x86 junk if you really want it, but if you want to do anything serious give us a call about our UltraSPARC servers running Solaris!"

    Comments like that don't incite confidence that as a customer I'm going to get support. Or long term roadmaps.

  • This was started last year (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Groo Wanderer ( 180806 ) <charlie@@@semiaccurate...com> on Friday November 07, 2003 @11:09PM (#7422550) Homepage
    Last October (2002) I was talking to some AMD folk, and they indicated Sun was on board. Over the past year, those ties have gotten stronger, and the two companies have been getting closer and closer.

    There are a bunch of boxes on the drawing board, the ones they announced are just the first of many. The delay is that there is no real support for Opterons until they ship Solaris 10, which is due in the not to distant future. Until that OS hits, the Opteron support will be pretty half baked, just Xeon code, and no real use of AMD64 extensions.

    That said, without trying to sound to much like a whiny martyr, I have been writing this stuff up for the last year on the Inquirer, just no one believed me :). The first box that should hit is a dual CPU 1U opteron box, with a 4 way to follow shortly after that. The interesting stuff follows those vanilla boxes.

    -Charlie
    • Anyone else seeing a potential strategic move by either Sun or AMD to merge/acquire/joint venture together?

      Seems like it might actually be something that would at the least be good for Sun, especially if they're intent on moving into a little more of the x86 space.
      • I see this as a real possibility, if Sun's management at least will wake up to the possibility. In recent history, they seem to be showing no ability to execute well on many different fronts.

        They need to abandon the SPARC ship, but they still have a lot of good engineering talent in that division so it would be a waste to just let them all go. They need to move that talent to working on AMD's chips, and compete with Intel not on pure price, but new features as well. Intel is a slow moving giant, if they c
    • I've seen many of the articles on the Inq about Sun and the Opteron - kind of brain dead of /. to point to the CNET article...

      Perhaps the most important thing for Sun is to keep software vendors supporting Solaris - especially 64 bit Solaris. Hardware isn't worth much without useful software and having a large market for Solaris x86-64 software can be beneficial for teh Sparc market. The effort of porting from x86-64 to Sparc and back should be pretty small.

      One of the chief selling points for Solaris is

      • Agreed, the sweet spot for Sun and AMD I think will be in selling 2-way and 4-way boxes. That is something that Dell doesn't have the research and development to do anything more than put together parts in bare bones commodity boxes. Sun's expertise has always been in building complete systems. They need to grow that knowledge base to include AMD chip based systems running both Linux and Solaris, and transform themselves into a company more reliant on revenue from services and support than selling uber-expe

  • Sun really is good at designing processors (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Skapare ( 16644 ) on Friday November 07, 2003 @11:39PM (#7422637) Homepage

    Sun really is good at designing processors. It's just that because Intel won the volume war because it happened to be the processor for the peecee, it was able to scale up manufacturing to cut prices even more, and sell to PHBs who care about price, not quality. Had IBM gone with the Motorola 68000 back when the first PC came out, which almost happened, we would see a totally different landscape today, where Intel would have probably gone the way of companies like National Semiconductor or Zilog. Imagine the first Linux kernel could have been written for an architecture with 4 times the registers. But alas, today, perhaps our only hope to remove the x86 plague is the PPC.

    • Sun really is good at designing processors.

      No, they aren't. The UltraSPARC III's ass is kicked around the block by both the IBM POWER4 and Intel-HP's Itanium 2. There's no rerason to belive the UltraSPARC IV won't be handed its ass by POWER5.

      Hell, Sun isn't really good at designing SPARC processors; the Fujitsu SPARC64 V kicks Sun UltraSPARC III's ass, and the dual-core SPARC64 VI will kick the dual-core UltraSPARC IV's ass.

      Sun builds complete systems, and the complete systems are pretty good. But th

  • Why Wait for Sun? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Rob Riggs ( 6418 ) on Friday November 07, 2003 @11:58PM (#7422722) Homepage Journal
    You can get an IBM eServer 325 [ibm.com] today.

    • Just what you need for those big databases.

      6GB of memory can be installed, an unusual number. I would have expected a larger upper limit. If you really need to break the 4GB barrier, 6GB seems low.

      I think we can finally write off the Inanium.

  • A move to Opteron would allow them to be more competitve in cost and focus more on what they're good at, designing systems, not processors

    Designing systems? Well, if they're just going to be come another motherboard manufacture, why would you ever buy an overpriced Sun System? I've seen sparcs handle loads that bring expensive x86 systems to their knees. Can opterons come in 106 processor [sun.com] combinations? I see they want to intoduce some lower end options, but their lower end models give them a lot of


    • Can opterons come in 106 processor combinations?

      Yes. Will 10000 [com.com] do?

      No, it's not available yet. But the point, I think, is that it is feasible to put lots of opterons in one box.
  • Buying an Opteron machine at Sun makes about as much sense as buying meatballs-and-potatoes at an expensive French restaurant--it's probably going to be fairly good eating, but it just kind of misses the point and end up paying way too much for it.

    I think Sun is basically doomed. Unlike the restaurant industry, the computer industry doesn't have much of an expensive vanity market. Sun has nothing to offer in their hardware product line that AMD and Intel-based solutions don't do better and cheaper, and S
  • Eh. Sun's beendown this road once or twice before. The writing always seems on the wall for Sparc, Solaris, or both, and like dutiful tech sheep... err... visionaries, the upper management tries something silly with "commodity" (NOT open, Sparc is an open standard, x86 with 64bit extensions is not) processors.

    Like in the past, they'll find their customers don't want cheap x86 processors. They want Sparc processors that will run all of their existing apps and tools without having to port it. If they want su

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