Sun's Niagara 2, T2 processor due 2nd half of 2007

The Niagara 1 (T1) processor has been a great success among our customer base. They have been used for everything from web servers to Oracle Data base servers.

Advantages include an amazing number of simaltanious connections per server for applications and once Solaris 10 and Oracle are configured correctly, an impressive number of DB instances and connections.

With the Oracle multiplier of 0.25/core, the Oracle licensing savings alone can pay for the hardware and support while providing more throughput at lower space and power requirements.

The one draw back has been the limitation of one floating point per chip(8 Cores). Niagara 2 may open the door for many floating point intensive applications that would not have been considered before.

In the Beginning...

In November 2005, Sun launched the industry's most significant innovation in server processor design in recent history with the UltraSPARC T1 processor, codenamed Niagara.

With 8 cores, each supporting 4 threads, the UltraSPARC T1 processor executes 32 simultaneous threads within a design consuming only 72 watts of power--far less than other processors. The UltraSPARC T1 processor delivered on its promise to revolutionize server technology with breakthrough performance levels while dramatically reducing power, cooling and space consumption.


The Sun Fire T1000 and T2000 servers and Sun SPARC Enterprise T1000 and T2000 servers, collectively called Sun CoolThreads Servers have exceeded industry expectations. These servers have set World Record performance and efficiency benchmarks
across a range of the common commercial workloads, while winning many new customers across industries and generating rave reviews from the press and media. Sun Fire CoolThreads servers have become one of Sun's fastest ramping products ever.


Sun designed the Solaris 10 Operating System for chip multithreading giving UltraSPARC T1-based systems new functionality for optimized utilization, relentless availability, unparalleled security, and extreme performance.


You can experience the benefits of CoolThreads technology for yourself by taking a Sun Fire T1000 or Sun Fire T2000 server for a test drive via Sun's no risk, no obligation, no cost, 60-day trial. Sign up for the Try and Buy program today.

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Niagara 2, the Next Generation in the CoolThreads Revolution

Building on the success of the UltraSPARC T1, Niagara 2 represents the next giant step in CoolThreads technology. Due for release in the second half of 2007, the processor taped out in April 2006 and promises to deliver even greater levels of throughput and power efficiency across a broader range of workloads and markets.

The key design goals of Niagara 2 are to:

• Deliver processor technology and systems designed to scale to meet exponential growth in users, devices, access and workloads driven by Web 2.0 technologies


• Further increase eco-efficiency by delivering higher performance per watt


• Improve data center capacity and efficiency while reducing operating and capital costs


• Extend the benefits of CoolThreads technology to ever larger and more diverse workloads


• Support faster networking and I/O to serve new, interactive content and media types


• Deliver "no penalty" (i.e. cost and performance) end-to-end data center encryption


• Further increase service levels and reduce downtime


• Maintain Sun's legendary binary compatibility with UltraSPARC / Solaris
  OS technology to ensure today's applications just run, without
  modification, enabling customers to protect existing investments in both
  software assets and development and administrative skills

Niagara 2 is based on a 65 nm manufacturing process, enabling Sun to deliver an entire "System on a Chip" that provides a whole series of benefits to customers deploying the second generation of this breakthrough technology:

• Increasing threads per core from 4 to 8 to deliver up to 64 simultaneous threads in a single Niagara 2 processor, resulting in at least 2x throughput of the current UltraSPARC T1 processor-- all within the same power and thermal envelope
• 80-100% higher performance per watt and 3-4X SWaP for even higher levels of data center efficiency and cost reduction


• The integration of one Floating Point Unit per core, rather than one per processor, to deliver 10X higher throughput on applications with
  high floating point content such as scientific, technical, simulation, and modeling programs


• High-speed networking and I/O functionality integrated directly onto the processor, delivering higher performance with greater reliability and lower costs


• A range of embedded security ciphers to provide encryption / decryption at wire speed, enabling organizations to embed security mechanisms into every application they deploy, without the usual cost or performance penalty

In addition, the Niagara 2 processor will be used in creating systems that support multiple sockets, enabling CoolThreads systems to address ever larger and complex workloads.

Most industry analysts agreed that Sun created a multi-year advantage over the competition with the introduction of the UltraSPARC T1
processor. Niagara 2 will extend that lead even further. And you benefit by running your data center infrastructure faster, cleaner and
greener while serving millions of new users and saving millions of dollars in overhead costs.