Why Sun Should Acquire a
Solid State Disk Company
Editor:- May 28, 2004 -
a new article published today in the SPARC Product Directory is called
- Why Sun will Acquire a Solid State Disk Company ASAP.
Most
analysts agree that Sun is just not as good at designing processor chips (at
today's 30 million transistor level) as semiconductor companies like Intel and
AMD who can recruit the best chip talent, and optimize silicon better than a
fabless designer. But computer architectures are changing... Sun may be able
to leapfrog its server competition not by cranking up the GHz on its SPARC
CPUs, but by embedding solid state disk support in its Solaris OS. By the way,
that would also make Sun's AMD servers faster than the Linux competition. ... read the article
IDC Says Suns Quarterly Server Revenue Declined 12% While
Worldwide Linux Market Grew 56%
FRAMINGHAM,
Mass. - May 28, 2004 – According to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly
Server Tracker, factory revenue in the worldwide server market grew at 7.3%
year-over-year to $11.5 billion in the first quarter of 2004, marking the fourth
consecutive quarter of positive overall growth.
Dell ($1.128
billion) and Sun Microsystems ($1.174 billion) were in a statistical tie for the
number 3 spot in the rankings of server vendors, based on worldwide factory
revenue results that differed by less than 1%. But Sun's revenue declined 12.5%
compared to the same quarter a year ago.
Linux server sales grew revenues at 56.9% and unit shipments at 46.4%,
the 7th consecutive quarter of double-growth revenue growth. This is the second
consecutive quarter in which Linux servers have posted more than $900 million in
worldwide factory revenue. ...IDC
profile
ACSL Announces New Intel Architecture Solaris Server Directory
Editor:-
May 26, 2004 - ACSL announced today that it will publish a new directory of
Intel Architecture Solaris computers, suppliers and products on June 7th.
The
new directory will include:-
- a list of manufacturers which offer preloaded Solaris on IA systems
- news about the IA Solaris market
- articles and market research data
The IA Solaris server market
has had a tortuous history. The first IA Solaris system was Sun's own 386i back
in 1998. Sun canned its Intel and Motorola chip based products in 1990 following
the runaway success of the SPARCstation 1. During the late 1990s there were some
brave vendors who offered preloaded Solaris on Intel boxes, but doubts about
Sun's long term commitment to the concept and the low performance of IA
processors compared with SPARC stopped the market taking off at that time.
In
1999 ACSL's editor wrote an article in the SPARC Product Directory called
Should Sun
Microsystems make its own brand of "Intel Inside®" PC's?. That
met a blank wall of silence from Sun which was still in runaway growth mode with
its SPARC/Solaris business. Unfortunately Sun's business
hit a brick wall
a few years later, and the company went through a messy public process of
becoming a viable company again which took many years. The Will-we? Won't-we?
Decision making about commercializing x86 Solaris was painful for Sun's partners
and customers to behold, and created fantastic business opportunities for Sun's
competitors.
Although there are
signs of a recovery
in the SPARC market the idea of running Solaris on properly supported IA
servers is also taking hold. This new market will not replace the SPARC market,
in the short term, but is complementary, and for Sun users presents a less risky
alternative than switching to a different OS for cost sensitive applications.
The success of the IA/Solaris server market will depend primarily on
3rd party OEMs. Sun does not have much credibility or critical mass in the IA
server market. But it does produce a good OS which other companies can leverage
with their longer experience of IA systems.
ACSL's new directory pages
will help readers who want an independent source of information about IA/Solaris
systems and suppliers. ACSL published the first independent directory of SPARC
systems and suppliers in 1992. ACSL published
STORAGEsearch.com the first major
storage portal in 1998. We welcome contributions and inputs from vendors and
other interested parties to the new IA Solaris directory, which will be
published on June 7th. ...ACSL profile
Intransa's IP SAN Earns Solaris Ready Certification
JOSE, Calif. – May
24, 2004 – Intransa announced that the company's IP SAN IP5000
platform has passed Sun Microsystems' "Solaris Ready"
certification process and the company has become a Sun iForce partner.
The
certification along with Intransa's participation in Sun's iForce go-to-market
program makes it easy for network managers to integrate Intransa's native IP
storage solution into current and future Solaris-based networks.
The IP5000 has been certified for both Solaris 8 and Solaris 9 on
Sun's UltraSparc 64-bit processor. Intransa is also participating in the Early
Release program for Solaris 10. With the support of Solaris 8 and Solaris 9,
Intransa continues to broaden its platform offerings for IP5000 customers. Among
the core features tested were Volume Virtualization, Dynamic Volume Expansion,
and Snapshot.
"As the only native IP storage solution on the
market, we are able to deliver a far richer palate of end-user benefits than any
other IP-based storage vendor," said Linda Arens, Director Business
Development of Intransa. "With this Sun certification, Intransa now extends
IP5000's full range benefits to Solaris end-users."
Intransa's IP
SAN IP5000 introduces a sophisticated architecture and management software that
enables customers to easily add storage capacity from 2 to 24 terabytes and
consolidate high volume e-mail and collaborative environments such as Microsoft
Exchange, databases, backup and restore applications and other mission-critical
data management and disaster recovery applications. The IP SAN provides IT
administrators an attractive alternative to expensive Fibre Channel components
since the Intransa IP SAN leverages network infrastructures that already exist
in the data center.
...Intransa profile
8-way SPARC Systems Set New TPC Benchmark Record
SANTA
CLARA, CA - May 18, 2004 - Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced
another world record benchmark, demonstrating its leadership in delivering
cost-effective data warehouse solutions.
Performance tests of
Sybase IQ Multiplex 12.5 running on two Sun Fire V440 servers in a clustered
configuration, Sun StorEdge arrays and the Solaris 9 OS have established the
best price performance and lowest total cost of ownership for 8-way systems. The
rack-optimized, low-cost SPARC servers outperformed the competitive offerings
from Hewlett-Packard and IBM.
On other Sun platforms, Sun leads the
industry on the best price-performance ever published on the TPC-H at 100GB and
300GB. This industry standard benchmark represents ad-hoc queries and is
representative of the real-world decision support and data warehousing
applications.
...Sun profile
Editor's
comments:- these kinds of benchmark games always compare the newest system from
manufacturer X against an older system from manufacturer Y. But it's good to
see SPARC systems getting back into the record setting business after a long
time on the sidelines.
EqualLogic and SANZ Install 28TB iSCSI SAN for DoD
Nashua,
N.H. - May 18, 2004 - EqualLogic, Inc. announces the implementation of
SANs for the Department of Defense.
The DoD intelligence
organizations, which cannot be named for security reasons, are using
EqualLogic's PeerStorage array solutions to create IP-based SANs in
heterogeneous environments requiring enterprise-class reliability and
full-featured management capabilities.
Current DoD SAN deployments are limited by the complexity and cost of
Fibre Channel, and SANZ was asked to implement a new, cost-effective and highly
available IP SAN solution for a host of Sun Solaris-based and Microsoft
Windows-based servers. EqualLogic's Peer Storage Array 100E was selected over
the EMC CLARiiON system as the core building block of the SAN, because it is the
only IP SAN solution to meet the DoD's requirement for high redundancy,
automatic management, data protection, and support for a wide range of operating
systems.
"The DoD implementation was an excellent opportunity
to align ourselves with the innovative SAN technology from EqualLogic,"
said Michael Phelan, president of SANZ. "EqualLogic's approach complements
our focus on delivering flexible, cost-effective storage solutions that feature
high performance, intelligence and reliability. Together we are filling a large
need in the government market for a fresh approach to flexible, scalable and
manageable SANs."
Each PeerStorage Array 100E supports up to 14 x 250-gigabyte disk
drives for 3.5 terabytes of storage capacity, comes with fully redundant
fault-tolerant hardware and includes full-featured automatic storage-management
software. Up to 32 arrays can be combined to form a scalable enterprise storage
grid of more than 100 terabytes. The PeerStorage array has achieved Sun Solaris
Ready Certification and Sun Blade Server Verification, has earned the Microsoft
Designed for Windows Logo qualification for iSCSI devices and has completed
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition qualification testing as an
iSCSI target.
...EqualLogic
profile, ...SANZ profile
NextCom Offers Internal DVDW–R Drives for SPARC Portables
Nashua, NH – May 17, 2004 -
NextCom LLC announces the availability of an internal DVDW–R
capability with write support up to 4.7GB capacity in its line of NextBlade,
PowerSPARC, FlexSPARCIIi and FlexSPARCIIIi mobile graphics workstations and
mobile servers.
The internal drive provides 2x DVD write speed
and 4x DVD and CDROM read speed.
...NextCom
profile
See also:-
DVD drives & systems
Sun Microsystems to Resell SunGard's Disaster Recovery Services
Santa
Clara, CA - May 14, 2004 - Sun Microsystems, Inc. and SunGard
announced today new Sun Disaster Recovery Managed Services that will give more
small- and medium-sized companies better assurance of getting mission-critical
data and operations back online quickly in a variety of disaster scenarios.
Under
the new offering, the two firms are streamlining access to SunGard Availability
Services' complete portfolio of information availability services, including
business continuity and professional services all offered through Sun. This
virtual "one-stop" shopping is designed to reduce the costs of
engagement and simplify the delivery of the complete disaster recovery solution.
Key elements include:
System recovery: Provides fast, reliable, cost-effective protection
for all Sun server and storage platforms
End user recovery: Helps employees resume productivity following a
disaster
Mobile recovery: Delivers the Sun server computing environment to a
company's facilities
Disaster Recovery Planning: Provides full assistance with design,
implementation and testing of a company's business continuity and recovery
strategy, including special planning software
Recovery Preparation: Helps customize a business continuity plan
Test Assistance: Hands-on technical support for testing the recovery
plan
The new services are available now in North America, with plans to
expand availability to other regions in the coming months. ...SunGard profile
See
also:- Data Recovery
Services
BiTMICRO's Solid State Flash Drives Obtain Solaris Ready
Certification
Networld +
Interop, LAS VEGAS, Nevada - May 11, 2004 - BiTMICRO Networks announces
the successful acquisition of Solaris Ready certification from Sun
Microsystems on both SPARC and x86 platforms for its 3.5" Fibre
Channel, IDE / ATA and SCSI Wide solid state disks.
This certification is a major milestone in the company's ongoing
commitment to deliver products that adhere to open standards and interoperate in
heterogeneous environments; serving as complete "drop-in" replacement
for hard drives. BiTMICRO's E Disk SSDs are widely deployed across all major
platforms and operating systems. The E-Disk flash drives are being showcased at
Booth 340 of the Networld + Interop Exhibition from May 11 to 13, 2004.
...BiTMICRO Networks
profile
GNP Partners with ZNYX Networks to Develop High-Availability
Solutions for the Homeland Defense Market
MONROVIA,
Calif.- May 11, 2004 - GNP today announced that it had formed a
partnership with ZNYX Networks.
This new alliance will
focus resources from both companies on developing advanced system solutions for
homeland security applications that acquire, store and manipulate voice, video
and other high bandwidth data to monitor and protect facilities and
infrastructure.
GNP's new Homeland Defense Systems will be based on the new emerging
industry standard AdvancedTCA chassis with ZNYX Networks' AdvancedTCA ZX5000
series Ethernet switch product line and ZNYX Networks' OpenArchitect for
managed switches. The ZX5000 with OpenArchitect provides a high availability
control plane software platform enabling solutions with continuous service
availability, non-blocking L2-L7 switching, class of service and filtering with
high-speed fault tolerant failover on a switch-to-switch, VLAN-to-VLAN, or
port-to-port basis.
...GNP Computers
profile, ...Znyx
profile
Gigaram Releases Memory Upgrades for New Sun Systems
Irvine,
Calif - May 10, 2004 - Gigaram Corporation has announced they are now
manufacturing the following new line of Sun Licensed memory upgrades:
2GB memory upgrade for the new Sun Fire B100X Blade, 1GB through 4GB upgrades
for the Sun Fire V20Z & the 1GB through 8GB upgrades for the Sun Fire E2900,
E4900, E6900, E20K & E25K.
Using the latest in manufacturing technology combined with superior
components, Gigaram has once again kept on the cutting edge of memory solutions
for the Sun market. Complimenting this strategy is the fact that each kit is
extensively system tested (fully loaded) on a Sun system before shipping and is
backed by a Lifetime Warranty.
"As our customers look to get the
most performance from their Sun systems we in turn strive to engineer &
manufacture the highest quality memory at the most competitive price" added
President Keller Lee. ...Gigaram profile
Intransa Adds Former Sun Marketer to its Executive Ranks
SAN JOSE, Calif. - May 4, 2004 -
Intransa Inc. today announced the appointment of Ravi Pendekanti as vice
president of marketing.
The position reports directly to president and CEO, Dr. Avi Katz,
and will be responsible for managing Intransa's global marketing efforts.
"Ravi
represents another stellar milestone in Intransa's corporate development. He has
been a standout leader for Sun Microsystems and has consistently demonstrated
an ability to profitably open markets to new products, services and corporate
partnerships," said Dr. Avi Katz, president and CEO of Intransa. "Ravi's
experience with open systems and market category creation will be instrumental
in helping Intransa expedite its market opportunity, and delivering native IP
SAN solutions to customers worldwide, today."
For the past seven years, Pendekanti served as a senior director of
marketing at Sun Microsystems, leading the team responsible for Reference
Architectures and Customer Ready Systems which form the core of its solutions
offering. At Sun Microsystems, Pendekanti was also recognized with the "Chairman's
Innovation Award" for his contributions leading to success in market
positioning, strategy development, and for timely execution.
"I
am excited at joining Intransa, a true leader in the IP SAN space that is
clearly growing by leaps and bounds," said Pendekanti. "It is also
really nice to see the kind of exceptional talent and energy here at Intransa.
This will be one awesome ride." ...Intransa profile |
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Why Sun Should
Acquire a Solid State Disk Company ASAP
IDC Says Sun Server Revenue
Lost Out to Linux and Intel Growth
ACSL Announces New IA Solaris
Directory
Intransa's IP SAN Earns Solaris Ready Certification
8-way
SPARC Systems Set New TPC Benchmark Record
EqualLogic and SANZ Install
28TB iSCSI SAN for DoD
SPARC Portables Get Internal DVDW–R
Drives Option
Sun Microsystems to Resell Disaster Recovery Services
BiTMICRO's
Solid State Flash Drives are Solaris Ready
GNP Partners with ZNYX
Networks
Gigaram Has Memory Upgrades For New Sun Systems
Intransa Adds Former Sun Marketer to its Executive Ranks
Rave
Computer Shipping FlexSPARC-III
earlier news -
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Nibble:- the SPARC IV Chip
To those who
don't know the internal details of the SPARC IV processor, Sun's recent
announcement that it was shipping these chips in new servers may not have
sounded very impressive.
A superficial glance shows that the new chip
runs at the same clock speeds as the old SPARC III (upto about 1.2GHz). And
these clock rates don't sound impressive at all when pitched against those in
the Intel architecture world which are 3 to 4 times faster.
To be sure,
Sun has been a laggard in recent years in bringing out faster processors. But
the SPARC IV is the first of a new generation of processors from Sun, Intel etc
which includes two internal processors. Inside the SPARC IV are two SPARC III
processors which share a high speed cache and either of which can operate on the
incoming instruction pipeline. At peak performance the single SPARC IV will
operate twice as fast as a SPARC III.
Because the 2 chips are pin
compatible, except for a single pin, it means that motherboard designers can
rush new high performance servers to market using a single (old) design of
motherboard.
It's the operating system which makes the real difference.
And because Sun designs new versions of Solaris in parallel with new chip
designs, the latent power is available to users from the first day that the new
systems are shipped. This is in contrast with the Intel market where
historically Intel and AMD typically have had to wait one to three years
before Microsoft's operating systems have supported new hardware features.
There
is a problem with clock speed in 64 bit processors. Due to data skew along wide
physical busses it's not so easy to guarantee that all the signal arrive at the
same time and that's why 64 bit chips tend to run at motherboard clock speeds
which are about half that of 32 bit chips. This problem applies to all
manufacturers, not just Sun. But once you are inside the chip, the wider data
bus effectively doubles the speed of calculating memory access addresses, and
makes up for the external difference.
So in performance terms a 1.2GHz
SPARC IV performs as fast as a 4.8GHz 32 bit SPARC chip would, if there were
such a beast. Except that the whole commercial SPARC market switched to 64 bit
processing about 8 years ago. That should make you feel a bit more confident
that the new SPARC IV systems will be appearing a lot faster than if they
required a total system redesign. Also the performance is more impressive than
you might have thought at first.
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