Below are the results from a test Sun ran using their new 2nd generation CMT based systems (T series) for a NBU media server compared to their UltraSPARC VI based system. There are many advantages to the CMT systems including acquisition costs, power and cooling and space.
__________
At a large Financial customer, we tested the T5220 against the our M5000 server. Here are the results of that test:
M5000 server with 10 T10K tape drives: 940 MB/s sustained throughput, 40 % CPU, $195/MB/sec
T5220 config #1 with 10 T10K tape drives: 940 MB/s sustained throughput, 25 % CPU, $65/MB/sec
T5220 cinfig #2 with 16 T10K tape drives: 1700 MB/s sustained throughput, 40 % CPU, $37/MB/sec
T5220 config #3 with 10 T10K tape drives: 1120 MB/s sustained throughput, 40 % CPU, $55/MB/sec
Showing posts with label Sun MIcrosystems. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sun MIcrosystems. Show all posts
9/11/07
Jonathan Schwartz's Weblog: The Continuing Rise of OpenOffice.org
The Continuing Rise of OpenOffice.org">The Continuing Rise of OpenOffice.org
The technology landscape shifted again yesterday, with another announcement between Sun and IBM - IBM has joined the OpenOffice.org community. Bluntly put, with only one (rather unlikely) exception, there is no more credible enterprise partner for OpenOffice.org than IBM. This is a big accomplishment for both teams - congratulations, folks.
At the risk of repetition... why are we (both) interested? Do we really believe the growing OpenOffice population will have an impact on the world's datacenters (where both of us make our living)? Obviously, yes.
The technology choices consumers make are already having a profound impact on how business runs. As an example, with 70% of the US economy driven by consumer spending (among the highest in the world) - when consumers spend, they are increasingly spending via the network. Using the devices, software and services they've chosen. Do I expect them to buy a datacenter through OpenOffice? No.
The choices consumers make, given their numbers on the web (here and around the world - in population centers, of course) are driving standards, from time-based video to applications and document standards. The technology industry is no longer the sole driving force - consumers are increasingly in charge. In the developed and developing world.
So our theory is simple. Free software, like free search or video, appeals to the broadest segment of the world's population - free is a universally attractive price tag (and a critically important intellectual property philosophy). One need only look to the recent successes behind the global rise of the ISO Standardized Open Document Format - appealing because of its price tag ($0), its complete freedom from tricky royalty, patent or technology obligations, and the ubiquity of products that support it (like OpenOffice, Google Apps, and others).
So what's driving OpenOffice adoption? Sun's endorsement? IBM's involvement? Google's support? Ubuntu's popularity? Its global community is enormously important, for sure.
But let me put it this way. I was with the CEO of a very popular internet software company recently, who said she felt it necessary to get her company's core product download to under 5 megabytes. I asked why- at more than ten times that size, OpenOffice downloads seemed in no danger of slowing globally, even to places with poor network infrastructure. Her response?
"My download doesn't save a customer $400." There you have it.
So get OpenOffice here, and tell your friends - if they'd like Microsoft Office compatible office productivity software, at home or at work or at school, they can get it.
Free.
In all the right senses of that word.
Jonathan Schwartz's Weblog: The Continuing Rise of OpenOffice.org
9/9/07
What is eTude : Marc Hamilton's Weblog
What is eTude
This week, at Sun's analyst conference in New York City, Rich Green talked about a project we have referred to internally as eTude. So what is eTude and when can you get it? For those of you who missed Rich's talk, let me explain a little about eTude, or the Solaris 8 Migration Assistant, why we developed it, and who should consider using it. In order to describe eTude, I actually have to go into a little background on Sun's virtualization technologies and how they help Solaris users reduce cost and complexity in their data centers. So here we go.
When we initially released Solaris 10 in January 2005, we introduced one of the world's most powerful OS virtualization technologies, Solaris Containers. Solaris has for many years supported running multiple operating system images on high end SPARC enterprise servers with hardware domains. However, long before some of today's popular virtualization companies were even started, Solaris engineers recognized the need to bring virtualization to a much broader class of systems, so we developed Solaris Containers. Solaris Containers runs not only on our high-end SPARC servers, but on any SPARC server, as well as over 800 x86 servers from Sun, IBM, Dell, HP and other vendors.
According to various industry statistics, the average server today runs at somewhere between 5 and 15% capacity. That means you probably have a lot of extra servers sitting around in your data center, happily consuming unnecessary power and cooling. In most cases, however, you can't simply combine the software applications that two servers run onto one server without some sort of virtualization technology. There are a multitude of reasons for this ranging from application and OS constraints to administrative or security reasons. There has been a tremendous amount of information written about Solaris Containers, if you are not familiar with Solaris Containers you should visit the Solaris Container Learning Center before reading on. But the quick summary is that Solaris Containers virtualize the OS, allowing a single Solaris image to support multiple software partitions, or containers, that for the most part appear to any user or application as a separate copy of the OS.
To date, however, Solaris Containers have only supported applications that are already running Solaris 10. So Sun engineers developed something called BrandZ . BrandZ is a framework that extends the Solaris Containers infrastructure to create Branded Containers, which are containers (also called zones) that contain non-native operating environments. The term "non-native" is intentionally vague, as the infrastructure allows for the creation of a wide range of operating environments. So without going into the exact details just yet of how the Solaris 8 Migration Assistant works, it does utilize the BrandZ technology in Solaris to allow Solaris 8 applications to run in a Solaris 10 container. While many Solaris 8 customers have already completely migrated to Solaris 10, in part because of the legendary reliability of SPARC servers and in part because of our long term support model, we still have many customers running old Solaris 8 applications. Sometimes those apps are planned for near-term retirement and it doesn't make sense to migrate them fully to Solaris 10. In other cases the customer plans to migrate the application but has a shorter term need to reduce cost and complexity and would like to consolidate an older Solaris 8 app onto a newer, more efficient hardware platform. And that my friends, is the genesis behind eTude.
Unlike other virtualization technologies that may run an older OS without supporting it, Sun will fully support Solaris 8 applications running with the Solaris 8 Migration Assistant when the customer purchases a Solaris 8 Migration Services package, as well as the underlying Solaris support subscriptions. With over 5000 Solaris 10 applications shipping today, there has never been a better time than now to move to Solaris 10. Besides the Solaris 8 Migration Services, Sun has services and programs to help you migrate from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and other operating systems to Solaris 10. Of course Solaris Containers is just one of the many virtualization technologies from Sun that can help you reduce cost and complexity in your data center. Our CoolThreads servers support a hypervisor based virtualization technology called LDoms (Logical Domains) and we will soon introduce the Solaris x86 Virtual Machine (xVM) hypervisor for Solaris running on systems with x86 processors from Intel and AMD.
So, when can you actually get the Solaris 8 Migration Assistant? Well, if you are one of the lucky customers in our beta program, you are already using it. If not, you will have to wait until a bit later this year, when we officially release the product. Meanwhile, no time like the present to start planning, so contact your Sun account rep and ask for your own personalized Solaris 10 Upgrade Assessment, which can help identify exactly which applications in your data center could benefit from the Solaris 8 Migration Assistant.
5/25/07
Solaris 10 costs less than Red Hat Enterprise Linux (and does more)
from: Jim Laurent's Weblog.
Those who have seen me speak to customers, know that I have a
"mantra" when asked to compare Solaris to various Linux
distributions. It goes like this:
Those who have seen me speak to customers, know that I have a
"mantra" when asked to compare Solaris to various Linux
distributions. It goes like this:
- Solaris does more than Red Hat
- Solaris costs less than Red Hat
- Solaris is open source like Red Hat
- Solaris runs on more Intel, AMD and Sparc platforms than Red Hat.
As a result, one FAQ I get is, "How much less does Solaris 10 cost?" According to our Sun site and the Red Hat site list price comparisons for support and licenses are:
| Standard service 1 year (5 x 12) | Premium service 1 year (7 x 24) | |||||
| Solaris 10 (up to 2 sockets) | $720 | $1080 | ||||
| Solaris 10 (unlimited sockets) | | $1320 | $1980 | |||
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (up to 2 sockets) | $799 | $1299 | 11-20% more than Solaris | |||
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (unlimited sockets) | $1,499 | $2,499 | 13-26% more than Solaris |
Hmmmm.... So much for the idea that "Linux is cheap or free."
Other important notes about Solaris 10:
- It supports (in addition to our own AMD based workstations, servers and blades) those by Dell, HP, IBM and more.
- It also runs on our scalable (up to 144 processors and 2 TB of RAM) Sparc servers and workstations
- It is FREE to download and use in production without paying the license or service support contract. (Sparc or X86)
- With each update of Solaris 10 you can download the new update (which include rolled up patches) for free as well
- Solaris 10 includes a binary compatibility guarantee as well as indemnification
Red Hat touts a number of new features in RHEL 5 that Solaris has had for years including:
- Multi-level security which was first built into SunOS 4 back in the early 90s and is now included in Solaris 10 in the form of Trusted Extensions.
- Real-time processing which was first featured in Solaris 8 over 7 years ago
- Virtualization which was introduced in Solaris 10 in 2005
- Open source development model which Solaris introduced 2 years ago
- Integrated LDAP directory which Solaris 8 included in the year 2000
- Auditing features which have been built into Solaris since version 2.3
- SystemTap profiler which is a poor substitute for Solaris 10 advanced, award winning Dynamic Tracing Facility
Other advanced, open source features in Solaris 10 include:
- ZFS, an advanced, easy to manage scalable file system
- Service management facility to simpify operation and security
- Secure by default to control network services out of the box
- Predictive self-healing to provide the highest RAS available.
- A large collection of third party applications
In short Solaris is a better "Linux than Linux"
Why should you care?
If you are interested in a data center quality operating system used for years by the most demanding customers at a low price, Solaris should be your first choice.
Finding Your Servers With Solaris
from: Marc Hamilton's weblog
You ask your outsourced service partner, who by the way probably charges you on a per server basis, to tell you how many servers they are managing for you. Hum, what sounds funny about that?
You ask your sys-admin to run her home grown scripts that were written 5 years ago
You ask your admin to walk around and count (as in with pencil and paper)
You buy some expensive inventory management software and load it on every server
If you are an average CIO, you probably follow one of several ways to find out how many servers you have in your datacenter and on your network.
There are actually some pretty good solutions for the latter, until you think about how many servers on your network actually run the same OS as when they were purchased and first installed. Did someone walk out with the server in building 2a last night or did one of your developers just download the latest Solaris OS and wipe out your fancy inventory management software by mistake? Well, Sun is about to change all that with a new technology we call service tags. Steve Wilson, who runs the Sun Connection software team, explains the details of
Service Tags in his blog. But the concept works like this:
Using technologies and protocols such as SLP (RFC 2608), ZeroConf and XML, every server running Solaris, be it a Sun server or one from another vendor, will soon include service tags. Currently there are 881 systems from virtually every major vendor, including Sun, Dell, HP, and IBM on the
Solaris Hardware Compatibility List. In the next month you will be able to download service tags as an add-on package for Solaris and they will come standard in the next release.
If you have a Sun x64 server with ILOM (Integrated Lights Out Management), service tags will be integrated into the ILOM software so you won't even have to have Solaris booted to find your server. Over time, service tags will be built into every piece of Sun hardware and software.
Then, using Sun Connection, you can quickly and easily register the service tags on all your systems. You could even create a
cool map like this that shows where all your servers are.
So what about privacy and security? You can always turn service tags off, but why would you? I guess there are people with General Motors cars that don't enable their OnStar service because of privacy concerns. If you are concerned about what data we collect and how we ensure the security of that data, Steve Wilson's Sun Connection team would be happy to explain it to you.
4/20/07
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.
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
- 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.
4/19/07
Sun's T2 chip will have 64 threads......
New UltraSPARC T2 CPU doubles threads from 32 to 64
As more than one energy expert has noted, efficiency plays an enormous part in power consumption, regardless of the context.
Sun’s three-family server strategy fits into this thinking quite well. Based on three separate chip sets designed for particular workloads, use of each member of the family for particular situations can go a long way in reducing power consumption while boosting computational performance.
Sun Fire CoolThreads servers based on UltraSPARC T1 chip multithreading (CMT) processors are ideally suited for massive transactional throughput — making them a perfect fit for managing large numbers of Web-based transactions. In areas that require the industry-standard x86 chip and demand both multithreaded and high floating point performance, AMD Opteron processor-based Sun Fire x64 servers might prove a better choice. And for heavy-duty database applications where single-threaded performance trumps throughput, UltraSPARC IV+-based Sun Enterprise servers deliver the necessary horsepower.
Optimizing each member of the Sun server family for energy efficiency and computational performance is a constant process that has resulted in numerous innovations, with more to follow. A case in point can be found in preparations for rolling out the next-generation UltraSPARC T2 for CoolThreads servers later this year.
This processor will add more functionality to a server line noted for handling heavy traffic, and it will raise the bar for processor efficiency. A brief look at what to expect in UltraSPARC T2 — and how it builds off the success of UltraSPARC T1 — shows how Sun is providing solutions for markets in which performance and power consumption are of prime importance.
Thread Count Doubling Becomes Par for the CourseJust 16 months ago, Sun rolled out the UltraSPARC T1 chip in the new CoolThreads T1000 and T2000 server lines used for Web application tiers. These environments, with their increasing number of transactions, somewhat mirror the way population growth strains scarce resources....
Rest of Story
4/13/07
St. Louis OpenSolaris Users Group
The next meeting of the St. Louis OpenSolaris Users Group will be held at the new Sun Microsystems office:
When: Tuesday, April 17; 5:00 pm
Where:
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
622 Emerson Road
Suite 300
St. Louis, MO 63141
For those familiar with the previous Sun office location, the new office is in the building across the fountain pond from the old location. Parking is available in the garage immediately east of the building.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=sun+microsystems,+st.+louis,+mo&layer=&ie=UTF8&z=11&ll=38.664603,-90.276718&spn=0.3308,0.576782&om=1&iwloc=A
The meeting will begin at 5:00 pm with Open Forum/Q&A. The program presentation will begin at 5:30 pm. Refreshments will be served.
The topic for this meeting will be Live Upgrade. Live Upgrade allows system administrators to perform both system patching and system upgrades without incurring system downtime. Live Upgrade is the safest and least obtrusive method to perform upgrades. And, if an upgrade does not go smoothly, it is a simple matter to return the server to its previous state. Live Upgrade is a boon for servers with high uptime requirements. It also is a big help for Open Solaris users that want to stay on the cutting edge, upgrading to the latest Open Solaris Community Edition monthly builds without losing any customization.
Please visit our web site for more information, and for details on how to sign up for the [ug-stlosug] email discussion list:
http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/os_user_groups/stl-osug/
When: Tuesday, April 17; 5:00 pm
Where:
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
622 Emerson Road
Suite 300
St. Louis, MO 63141
For those familiar with the previous Sun office location, the new office is in the building across the fountain pond from the old location. Parking is available in the garage immediately east of the building.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=sun+microsystems,+st.+louis,+mo&layer=&ie=UTF8&z=11&ll=38.664603,-90.276718&spn=0.3308,0.576782&om=1&iwloc=A
The meeting will begin at 5:00 pm with Open Forum/Q&A. The program presentation will begin at 5:30 pm. Refreshments will be served.
The topic for this meeting will be Live Upgrade. Live Upgrade allows system administrators to perform both system patching and system upgrades without incurring system downtime. Live Upgrade is the safest and least obtrusive method to perform upgrades. And, if an upgrade does not go smoothly, it is a simple matter to return the server to its previous state. Live Upgrade is a boon for servers with high uptime requirements. It also is a big help for Open Solaris users that want to stay on the cutting edge, upgrading to the latest Open Solaris Community Edition monthly builds without losing any customization.
Please visit our web site for more information, and for details on how to sign up for the [ug-stlosug] email discussion list:
http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/os_user_groups/stl-osug/
4/12/07
Port Configuration on T2000 with Solaris 10
Ports can be bound to an IP. But, it is application dependent if the feature has been implemented. I know that Oracle Listener, while the config file implies that it associates ports to IP address, does not bind at the IP level, only at the host level. If the Oracle web server is based upon the Apache web server, it is a matter of changing the "Port" statement to a "Listen" statement. The syntax of the two statements differs slightly.
It is not customary for two different NIC to be on the same subnet unless NIC aggregation or failover is being deployed. It is more common to use subinterfaces.
Please make sure to read http://www.sun.com/servers/coolthreads/tnb/parameters.jsp , as it contains performance related notes on the T2000.
It is not customary for two different NIC to be on the same subnet unless NIC aggregation or failover is being deployed. It is more common to use subinterfaces.
Please make sure to read http://www.sun.com/servers/coolthreads/tnb/parameters.jsp , as it contains performance related notes on the T2000.
4/5/07
Suse on Sun
I personally run Suse 10.2 on a Sun Ultra 20 and the performance is impressive even on the older 148 processor and DDR1 memory. I also ran SLED 10, however I prefer the more up to date opensource version.
We have successfully installed Ubuntu on the UltraSPARC T1, and it recognized all 32 threads and 32GB of memory with little difficulty.
This from desktoplinux
It sounds unlikely, but Novell and Sun Microsystems have partnered to bring SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 to Sun's Ultra Workstations: the Sun Ultra 20, Ultra 20 M2, Ultra 40, and Ultra 40 M2.
These workstations are powered by AMD Opteron chips. The older 20 and 40 models use single-core processors, while the newer M2 line uses dual-core CPUs. Novell is not the first to bring Linux to the Ultra line. Canonical, following on up the deal that brought Ubuntu to the UltraSPARC T1 processor on Sun Fire T1000 and T2000 servers, started testing Ubuntu on Sun's AMD-powered Ultra series last November.
RHEL 4 (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) is also available on these systems as an option. The newest Red Hat Linux, RHEL 5, however, is not yet available on them.
Typically, the Ultra series is sold with Solaris 10. However, David Simmons, Sun senior director of x64 Server/Workstation marketing, stated, "Sun is very pleased to extend our broad Linux OS offering on the Sun Ultra 20 and Ultra 40 Workstation to include SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10."
This marks the first time that Novell has offered its SUSE Linux OS on Sun hardware. In the past, Sun has primarily partnered with Red Hat, despite their differences, when it came to Linux.
Roger Levy, Novell VP and general manager of open platform solutions, added, "Sun engineering workstations and SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop are ideally suited for each other, focusing on speed, reliability and value for end-user customers. This match is another example of Novell's commitment to providing desktop-to-data center solutions that meet customer needs."
Levy noted that these engineering workstations will target engineers working on EDA (Electronic Design Automation), CAD/CAM, oil and gas, and other high-end desktop workloads.
Terri Hall, AMD vice president of software alliances and solutions, added, "AMD is pleased that Novell and Sun are able to provide these high-performing AMD processor-based workstations for customers. Sun workstations ... will address a growing market segment that is demanding the benefits of Linux on high-performance personal workstations."
If you want to take one of these SUSE/AMD-powered Sun workstations for a spin, they are now available from Sun Microsystems. For more information, visit Sun's desktop and workstation site.
We have successfully installed Ubuntu on the UltraSPARC T1, and it recognized all 32 threads and 32GB of memory with little difficulty.
This from desktoplinux
It sounds unlikely, but Novell and Sun Microsystems have partnered to bring SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 to Sun's Ultra Workstations: the Sun Ultra 20, Ultra 20 M2, Ultra 40, and Ultra 40 M2.
These workstations are powered by AMD Opteron chips. The older 20 and 40 models use single-core processors, while the newer M2 line uses dual-core CPUs. Novell is not the first to bring Linux to the Ultra line. Canonical, following on up the deal that brought Ubuntu to the UltraSPARC T1 processor on Sun Fire T1000 and T2000 servers, started testing Ubuntu on Sun's AMD-powered Ultra series last November.
RHEL 4 (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) is also available on these systems as an option. The newest Red Hat Linux, RHEL 5, however, is not yet available on them.
Typically, the Ultra series is sold with Solaris 10. However, David Simmons, Sun senior director of x64 Server/Workstation marketing, stated, "Sun is very pleased to extend our broad Linux OS offering on the Sun Ultra 20 and Ultra 40 Workstation to include SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10."
This marks the first time that Novell has offered its SUSE Linux OS on Sun hardware. In the past, Sun has primarily partnered with Red Hat, despite their differences, when it came to Linux.
Roger Levy, Novell VP and general manager of open platform solutions, added, "Sun engineering workstations and SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop are ideally suited for each other, focusing on speed, reliability and value for end-user customers. This match is another example of Novell's commitment to providing desktop-to-data center solutions that meet customer needs."
Levy noted that these engineering workstations will target engineers working on EDA (Electronic Design Automation), CAD/CAM, oil and gas, and other high-end desktop workloads.
Terri Hall, AMD vice president of software alliances and solutions, added, "AMD is pleased that Novell and Sun are able to provide these high-performing AMD processor-based workstations for customers. Sun workstations ... will address a growing market segment that is demanding the benefits of Linux on high-performance personal workstations."
If you want to take one of these SUSE/AMD-powered Sun workstations for a spin, they are now available from Sun Microsystems. For more information, visit Sun's desktop and workstation site.
4/4/07
Solaris Performance Tuning
Running Solaris? Want to make it run faster? Or just want to know how it is running? Then you need to check out http://www.solarisinternals.com/wiki/index.php/Solaris_Internals_and_Performance_FAQ and when you're done, go buy a copy of Solaris Internals 2nd Edition and Solaris Performance Tools for the ultimate reference manuals on Solaris 10.
4/3/07
Sun Microelectronics Licenses Multithreaded 10 Gigabit Ethernet Technology to Marvell
April 3, 2007 Sun Microsystems, Inc., (NASDAQ: SUNW) today announced a far-reaching technology licensing agreement with Marvell (NASDAQ: MRVL). Marvell will build and sell high-performance networking products based on Sun Multithreaded 10 Gig E Networking Technology-the industry's first network interface designed to optimize throughput between multithreaded processors and the network-to enterprise server and OEM markets. Marvell will also build specific products for Sun using this technology, which represents the highest throughput 10 Gig E technology available today. Adoption by Marvell, a recognized pioneer in network connectivity, is a strong Marvell will leverage the immense throughput and advanced capabilities of Sun's "Today's Internet-driven, media-rich communications are placing new throughput "Our customers clearly understand the bottlenecks that occur at the 'on ramps' to |
Sun's Solaris success paves way for next-gen OS push
Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz loves to splatter the media with the line that Windows, Red Hat Linux and Solaris stand as the only operating systems of significance in the server kingdom. We've spent the last few years struggling to appreciate the seriousness of that claim. Sun's declining system sales failed to inspire much optimism about the company conquering the data centers of tomorrow with a deflating “venerable” OS.
A couple of recent items, however, have tweaked our view of Schwartz's favored claim. It could well be that Solaris – of all things – provides the “iPod moment” Sun seeks.
Schwartz's justification for placing Solaris alongside Windows and Red Hat remains understandable enough. Sun has a gigantic customer base, immense ISV support and emphasizes its version of Unix far more than rivals such as IBM and HP. In addition, Sun spends a great deal of time courting developers and often includes Solaris angles in its various programs and applications aimed at coders.
For Solaris to “matter” in the sense that Schwartz uses the word, the OS must match Windows and Red Hat on forward looking terms – not a backward facing metric such as the installed base. Regrettably for Sun, Solaris suffers when analysts and customers make such “2010” comparisons.
For one, the Unix server market continues to shrink by most measures, while the Windows and Linux server markets grow at healthy rates. ISVs, customers and resellers all notice this trend and so divert their attention to the money making opportunities linked to Windows and Linux.
Linux enjoys an added bonus over both Solaris and Windows with its open reputation and backing from a wide variety of vendors. The open source OS benefits from healthy developer interest and diverse investment. Red Hat may dominate server-side Linux, but that does little to cramp the OS's communal cachet.
Schwartz, in particular, has tried to counter these issues facing Solaris, during his rise through Sun's ranks. He helped revitalize the x86 version of Solaris and then open-sourced the OS. Sun hoped that such maneuvers would break Solaris's ties to SPARC processors and create a developer frenzy of sorts with coders of all shapes and sizes hoping to explore the glories of the freshly released Solaris 10.
Where Sun bought into these hopes and dreams wholesale, we remained skeptical. Old Solaris x86 backers such as HP (Compaq, really) turned their back on the OS's Intel/AMD rebirth. Meanwhile, developer interest in OpenSolaris looked decent enough but few would confuse such contained enthusiasm with the industry-wide Linux obsession.
SPARC SCHMARK
Through sheer persistence and substantial foresight, Sun may actually be eroding Solaris's “proprietary Unix” baggage, giving critics a reason to believe that the company has another turnaround in store.
For one, Sun's rivals have given up on knocking Solaris x86 in favor of, um, selling it. HP executives have recently been caught bragging about selling more x86 boxes running Solaris than Sun. HP also offers broad support for Solaris on x86 servers and even dishes out statements to customers celebrating this fact. Add IBM's tie-up with Sun around Solaris on x86 blades, and you have to give some credit to the Lazarus Edition of Sun's OS.
HP likes to bill the Solaris x86 push as a way of bringing disgruntled Solaris/SPARC types to its side. We figure that's just fine with Sun who would rather see a SPARC defector stay on Solaris than move to another OS running on x86 chips.
The OpenSolaris ploy appears to have gained (http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/marketing/metrics/latest/) momentum as well with activity on the project's web site (http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris/resource/110106-17-months-conversations.jpg) skyrocketing in recent months.
On both of these fronts, Solaris has gained that crucial freshness factor missing when Schwartz first started hammering away on the three OSes that matter campaign.
The Solaris revival becomes even more interesting as we look out to 2010, if our sources are to be believed.
iSolaris
For many months now, a crack team of Sun software engineers have beavered away on a secret project to create the “Solaris of the future.”
Complete article
A couple of recent items, however, have tweaked our view of Schwartz's favored claim. It could well be that Solaris – of all things – provides the “iPod moment” Sun seeks.
Schwartz's justification for placing Solaris alongside Windows and Red Hat remains understandable enough. Sun has a gigantic customer base, immense ISV support and emphasizes its version of Unix far more than rivals such as IBM and HP. In addition, Sun spends a great deal of time courting developers and often includes Solaris angles in its various programs and applications aimed at coders.
For Solaris to “matter” in the sense that Schwartz uses the word, the OS must match Windows and Red Hat on forward looking terms – not a backward facing metric such as the installed base. Regrettably for Sun, Solaris suffers when analysts and customers make such “2010” comparisons.
For one, the Unix server market continues to shrink by most measures, while the Windows and Linux server markets grow at healthy rates. ISVs, customers and resellers all notice this trend and so divert their attention to the money making opportunities linked to Windows and Linux.
Linux enjoys an added bonus over both Solaris and Windows with its open reputation and backing from a wide variety of vendors. The open source OS benefits from healthy developer interest and diverse investment. Red Hat may dominate server-side Linux, but that does little to cramp the OS's communal cachet.
Schwartz, in particular, has tried to counter these issues facing Solaris, during his rise through Sun's ranks. He helped revitalize the x86 version of Solaris and then open-sourced the OS. Sun hoped that such maneuvers would break Solaris's ties to SPARC processors and create a developer frenzy of sorts with coders of all shapes and sizes hoping to explore the glories of the freshly released Solaris 10.
Where Sun bought into these hopes and dreams wholesale, we remained skeptical. Old Solaris x86 backers such as HP (Compaq, really) turned their back on the OS's Intel/AMD rebirth. Meanwhile, developer interest in OpenSolaris looked decent enough but few would confuse such contained enthusiasm with the industry-wide Linux obsession.
SPARC SCHMARK
Through sheer persistence and substantial foresight, Sun may actually be eroding Solaris's “proprietary Unix” baggage, giving critics a reason to believe that the company has another turnaround in store.
For one, Sun's rivals have given up on knocking Solaris x86 in favor of, um, selling it. HP executives have recently been caught bragging about selling more x86 boxes running Solaris than Sun. HP also offers broad support for Solaris on x86 servers and even dishes out statements to customers celebrating this fact. Add IBM's tie-up with Sun around Solaris on x86 blades, and you have to give some credit to the Lazarus Edition of Sun's OS.
HP likes to bill the Solaris x86 push as a way of bringing disgruntled Solaris/SPARC types to its side. We figure that's just fine with Sun who would rather see a SPARC defector stay on Solaris than move to another OS running on x86 chips.
The OpenSolaris ploy appears to have gained (http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/marketing/metrics/latest/) momentum as well with activity on the project's web site (http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris/resource/110106-17-months-conversations.jpg) skyrocketing in recent months.
On both of these fronts, Solaris has gained that crucial freshness factor missing when Schwartz first started hammering away on the three OSes that matter campaign.
The Solaris revival becomes even more interesting as we look out to 2010, if our sources are to be believed.
iSolaris
For many months now, a crack team of Sun software engineers have beavered away on a secret project to create the “Solaris of the future.”
Complete article
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