Sinking the Itanium
Editor:- September 29, 2005 -
an article published this week in TheInquirer.net - "How many
chips does it take to sink an Itanic?" - reports on the dismal state of
Itanium server sales.
It seems that despite server makers giving
away Itanium servers - the total market is still very small. That prompted some
of my own reflections on this subject below.
SPARC Product Directory has
commented before that we expect the Itanium to quietly disappear, despite
vociferous comments to the contrary by Intel and HP that they are continuing to
pour money and resources into it. This was the first time in 30 years that
Intel's next generation microprocessor was a flop.
In the period 1975
to 1980 - Intel processors dominated designs first, because they invented the
market and then with 2nd generation 8 bit micros Intel offered better
development tools and more support chips than the competition from Motorola,
Zilog, Mostek, Signetics etc.
In 1979 when 16 bit processors started
to figure in many of the new product plans that I was involved in as an
Electronic Engineer, Intel was actually shipping the 8086 in volume upto 2
years before Motorola (who was struggling with reliability problems due to the
very big ceramic chip case needed to fit in all the extra address pins).
At
that time AMD was promoting its second source of the Zilog 16 bit design, the
Z8000. AMD had a good ad campaign aimed at wannabe 8086 designers - which said
"the Z8000 is better!" But Intel did a deal with the devil -
and allowed AMD to become a legal second source for the x86 microcode. In
return, AMD dropped the Z8000. Many senior Intel manager, haunted and annoyed
by that deal, have since told me that the AMD deal was not strictly necessary
at the time because Intel had already sown up about 80% of 16 bit design wins by
1980 anyway. I remember Intel's 16 bit design win campaign called "Crush"
- because my wife who was an ISE with Intel at the time took me on a Carribbean
holiday which was the reward the European sales force got for their part in it.
But at that time few people knew or suspected that IBM and Microsoft would shift
the balance of processor architecture with the IBM PC.
In the period
1981 to 2000 - the domination of Microsoft's operating systems in PCs
simplified Intel's design task - because all they had to do was to make sure
that their 16, and then 32 bit processors were code compatible and ran faster.
But
in the period 1996 to 2000 Sun had shown with its SPARC chips and
Solaris OS that there was a big ($20 billion / year) market for 64 bit servers.
Although Sun's business collapsed with the bursting of the dotcom bubble, and
then the whole IT market went into a long recession extended by the events of
9/11 - Intel's thinking was driven by the need to establish a 64 bit processor -
which needed a more reliable operating system than Microsoft could provide. So
the issue of code compatibility with Windows was dropped at the point when the
Itanium was conceived.
As we now know that was a really big mistake.
Because code incompatibility also locked out Linux - which has now overtaken Sun
in revenue in the non Windows server market. And Microsoft did eventually manage
to get its OS reliability up to the level needed for enterprise servers. The
beneficiary of all this was AMD whose 64 bit x86 compatible processor is now
regarded as the top performer in the 64 bit market.
But it takes more
than a fast chip to drive an enterprise, and the breadth of software
applications and networking support on SPARC Solaris is still far greater than
that on Solaris x86 or Linux. Intel and HP seem to be the only two companies in
the world saying that the Intanium is a viable server platform But saying is
not the same as believing. Itanium, like the Titanic, is one for the history
books. But I doubt if it will inspire any movies. SPARC History
LSI Logic Increases Solaris 10 Support for MegaRAID
MILPITAS,
Calif. - September 28, 2005 - LSI Logic Corporation announced today
that it will port the MegaRAID line to Sun Microsystems' Solaris 10
Operating System for x64/x86.
Once complete, LSI Logic and Sun
customers will be able to cost-effectively manage, protect and share
information, using MegaRAID systems and software with the Solaris 10 OS on
X64/X86 processor-based systems. The dual channel Ultra320 SCSI PCI-X MegaRAID
adapter already supports the Solaris 10 OS, on x64/x86 platforms. The MegaRAID
family also includes 3Gb/s SATA II and SAS.
...LSI Logic
profile, RAID
controllers
Sun Chooses LSI Logic for Serial SCSI
MILPITAS,
Calif. - September 20, 2005 - Design wins at four of the five largest server
OEMs pushed LSI Logic's Serial Attached SCSI IC design win market
share above 80%, the company announced today.
HP, Dell, Sun, and
FSC have selected LSI Logic SAS products. Other OEMs including Japan market
leader NEC, Chinese server maker Lenovo and Taiwan server maker ACER will also
be using LSI Logic SAS products. Revenue from the SAS design wins is expected
to exceed $450 million over the next three years. LSI Logic has also completed
extensive interoperability testing with leading hard disk drive manufacturers
including Seagate, Maxtor, Hitachi and Fujitsu.
IDC estimates the server market will grow from 6.9M units in 2004 to
9.5M units in 2008. One data point used to make market projections is shipment
estimates for the major server market suppliers such as HP, Dell, IBM, Sun and
FSC. Together, these five vendors represented 74.7% of the worldwide server
shipments in the 1st half of 2005, according to IDC, and have continued
worldwide leadership in terms of server shipments since. By 2008, IDC estimates
that Serial Attached SCSI will achieve more than 30% market share in the
enterprise storage and server space.
...LSI Logic profile,
Serial Attached SCSI
Sun Launches its Fastest SPARC Servers Yet
SANTA
CLARA, CALIF - September 20, 2005 - Sun Microsystems today announced
the release of Sun Fire servers powered by new 1.5 GHz UltraSPARC IV+
processors.
The new UltraSPARC IV+ processor based Sun Fire servers
deliver up to 5x the performance increase over UltraSPARC III systems.
The new Sun Fire Servers running the USIV+ processors are immediately available
and began shipping in late August. Pricing starts at $30,995.
Commenting
about the competition, Jonathan Schwartz, President of Sun Microsystems said:- "This
introduction makes it clear that SPARC and Power are going head-to-head, now
that IBM and Dell have de-comitted to Itanium and Hewlett Packard has
effectively end-of-lifed HP-UX. And of the two, only SPARC benefits from the
features and volume of the open source Solaris 10 operating system, which
supports industry-standard servers from Sun as well as IBM, HP and Dell."
...Sun
Microsystems profile
Editor's comments:- SPARC users will
welcome these long anticipated servers, and the low cost upgrade path that the
new chips facilitate.
When any server vendor like Sun talks about
their competition - you have to take what they say with a pinch of salt. The
real competition to SPARC/Solaris servers are not the living dead Power and
Itanium or the deceased Alpha. The real competition to SPARC/Solaris is Intel
Architecture AMD chips running Linux.
Although Sun makes a lot of
noise about the 2 million plus downloads of Solaris x86 and the performance of
its own new Galaxy servers - the fact is that Sun has achieved very little
measurable market share in the IA server market. Most Solaris x86 runs on non
Sun supplied hardware, and recent market data suggests that nearly half of Linux
servers are actually running on old Windows machines which have been redeployed
as low end appliances.
2006 will mark 20 years of commercially
available SPARC servers. In 1996 SPARC Product Directory published a forcast
from leading SPARC evangelists predicting the second SPARC decade (which has now
passed). In January we will publish a similar follow up article - "Will
SPARC Reach 30?"
Oracle Uses IP Acceleration Technology from NetEx in Technology
Centers
MINNEAPOLIS,
Minn.- September 19, 2005 - NetEx today announced its HyperIP Data
Replication Optimizer is being utilized by Oracle Corp. to optimize
data movement between Oracle's Atlanta-based Enterprise Technology Center and
the Oracle Partner Technology Center in Reston, VA.
"We're honored to be included with the elite group of vendors
providing infrastructure solutions for Oracle's Technology Centers," said
Robert MacIntyre, Vice President, Business Development and Marketing at NetEx. "Oracle
user feedback has been very positive and extremely valuable to ensure that
Oracle partners and customers get the most value from HyperIP."
HyperIP eliminates the inefficiencies of traditional TCP/IP-based
networks by accelerating leading data replication applications, including Oracle
DataGuard, critical to supporting business continuity and disaster recovery
compliance and ensuring these applications are consistently completed on time.
Data replication optimization substantially improves end-to-end performance and
minimizes the risk of non-compliance, compared with costly and complex Fibre
Channel WAN products. HyperIP DRO installs as a simple appliance that easily
attaches to an existing IP infrastructure and requires no changes to
applications or code upgrades to network devices.
...NetEx profile
UltraSPARC IV+ Servers - More Sizzle than Flash Bang Wallop?
Editor:-
September 14, 2005 - an article on ZDNet today discusses Sun's
UltraSPARC IV+ processor, which they say will appear in servers imminently.
The
article says that the new chips still aren't clocked as fast as those already
available in SPARC servers made by
Fujitsu. The main
difference in the UltraSPARC IV+, compared to the IV is the addition of some
on-chip cache and a small tweak upwards in clock rate.
As we've said
many times before - Sun's SPARC users who need more applications performance
now should look at solid
state disks as their primary route to increased speedups. Enterprise wide
speedups of x2 to x3 have been reported in dozens of
SSD case studies in
heterogenous environments, and one SSD vendor,
Texas Memory Systems,
offers money-back performance guarantees.
See also:-
article:-
Fujits...Who? - A Primer on Fujitsu's SPARC Heritage
,
article:-
Hardware Upgrades to Make Your Sun SPARC Server Go Faster
Neterion's "Test Drive 10 Gigabit Ethernet" Evaluation
Program Report
Cupertino, CA -
September, 13, 2005 - Neterion, Inc. announced they are extending
their end user evaluation program called "Test Drive 10 Gigabit Ethernet,"
launched in June.
The program has reached over 6,600 CIOs, CTOs,
IT directors, data center managers, system architects and lab directors at
Fortune 500 companies. The success of this program in revealing the latest end
user trends has led to the decision to continue the evaluation program.
"We are very impressed with the degree of detail and relevancy
of the information that we are receiving from the senior management of these
Fortune 500 companies," stated Dave Zabrowski, President & CEO of
Neterion. "We reached thousands of end users via mail, email, and then
talked directly to over 500 of them. We learned that 10 Gigabit Ethernet is
ready for prime time in a variety of mainstream datacenter applications and
Neterion looks forward to leveraging this data by driving even greater business
to our OEM customers and channel partners."
Based on the responses, awareness of 10 GbE technology is growing
rapidly as many data centers of Fortune 500 companies are currently conducting
cost studies, implementation planning or evaluation testing. Examples of the
applications driving these activities are: data warehousing, back-up and other
networked storage solutions, video-on-demand, oil and gas exploration, complex
life sciences, manufacturing data modeling, etc.
The research reveals that leading factors in determining migration
decisions include cost and application performance advantages that 10 GbE can
deliver over existing solutions such as trunking 1 GbE links. In addition, many
organizations are seeking to upgrade their systems and networks to deliver
increased levels of productivity, better meet the demands of business in a
zero-latency market, while minimizing disruptions to their existing
infrastructure.
...Neterion profile,
InfiniBand,
iSCSI
Sunnytech Offers Trade-in and Upgrade Path for Old Tadpole SPARC
Notebooks
Editor:-
September 12, 2005 - I noticed today that Sunnytech is offering owners
of old SPARC notebooks from Tadpole - trade-ins upto $2,000 against the
purchase of new higher performance NatureBook SPARC/Solaris notebooks.
The
future availability of Tadpole notebooks is far from clear following the
company's acquisition by General Dynamics. My own view is that the new ownership
will be great for military customers who will get a much shorter logistical
supply chain - but bad news for commercial users who don't appear in any
military marketing plans.
Tadpole had been losing ground in the
civilian SPARC notebook space for some time. So users have little choice but to
look at NatureTech products (resold by a variety of VARs) for an ongoing source
of competitive SPARC notebooks.
Meanwhile in the Intel Architecture
notebook market, Hitachi last week announced that it will shortly be shipping
user installable disk
upgrade kits which will enable Windows notebook users to increase storage
and performance by a disk upgrade instead of replacing the whole notebook. The
Solaris market is too small to be supported by that kind of upgrade by a big
name storage company. But if any VARs have their own supported upgrade storage
solutions they should let our readers know. ...more about Sunnytech's
offer, ...SunnyTech
profile
HP Wins $200 million Revenue from Sun Customers in First Half of
2005
PALO ALTO,
Calif. - September 7, 2005 - HP has generated more than $200 million in
revenue from wins in 150 Sun customer accounts during the first half of
calendar year 2005.
"Given recent market share figures,
customers are obviously concerned about the uncertainty of Sun's server roadmap,"
said Mark Hudson, vice president of marketing, Enterprise Storage and Servers,
HP. "Customers are turning to HP for the value of stable, standards-based
platforms with a broad portfolio of solutions for Linux, HP-UX and Windows
operating systems."
To drive this opportunity even further, HP has expanded its Sun
Eclipse Program of services and incentives that help Sun customers move to HP
solutions. The program now includes additional migration incentives, expanded
channel programs, new Linux migration tools and additional support options to
offer Sun customers more choice and flexibility to migrate to Linux, HP-UX 11i
and Windows® on standards-based HP Integrity, BladeSystem and ProLiant
servers. ...HP profile,
article:-
the New Solaris Migration?
Sun's SPARC Servers Set New Sybase Benchmark Record
SANTA
CLARA, Calif. - September 1, 2005 - Sun Microsystems, Inc. today
announced the UltraSPARC IV-based Sun Fire V890 system running Sybase IQ has
set a new benchmark world record.
The Sun Fire V890 server
achieved best multi-user performance for any system at the 100GB Scale Factor
24139 TPC-H throughput@100GB - more than twice the previous best from IBM, 11531
TPC-H throughput@100GB obtained with 16x Opt 2.0GHz processors (August 31,
2005).
...Sun
Microsystems profile,
Record Breaking
Storage
What Are the Most Important Trends in the Storage Market?
Editor:- September 1, 2005 -
STORAGEsearch.com, which is 7 years old today, has published a review
of the 3 most important trends which have affected the storage market in the
last 7 years.
The article also predicts what will be the 3 most
important trends for the next 7 years too. ...read the article,
...STORAGEsearch.com |
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Sinking the
Itanium
LSI Logic Increases Solaris 10 Support for MegaRAID
Sun
Chooses LSI Logic for Serial SCSI
Sun Launches its Fastest SPARC
Servers Yet
Oracle Deploys IP Acceleration Technology from NetEx
UltraSPARC
IV+ Servers - More Sizzle than Flash Bang Wallop?
Neterion's "Test
Drive 10 Gigabit Ethernet" Report
Sunnytech Offers Trade-in for
Old Tadpole Notebooks
HP Wins $200 million Revenue from Sun Customers
Sun's
SPARC Sets New Sybase Benchmark Record
STORAGEsearch.com 7 Year
Review
earlier
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Epoka Group,
with sales offices in
Germany, Denmark and Russia is a leading
European
reseller of Sun and Fujitsu SPARC
servers. |
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Serial Attached SCSI - Delivering Flexibility to the
Data Center - article by LSI Logic and Maxtor
If you think
you already know SAS because you know SATA and traditional SCSI then think
again. Sometimes disruptive technologies wear an unassuming disguise. In
fiction, Clark Kent, Frodo Baggins and Buffy Summers at first seem harmless, but
we see them change into Superman, the Ring Bearer and the Slayer.
SAS
too comes cloaked in plain garb - with a physical layer which looks a lot like
SATA. But like the Incredible Hulk there are muscles rippling under that shirt -
and you would be wrong to dismiss SAS so lightly. There's a lot more inside this
interface than it says on the box as this informative article reveals. ...read the article,
...LSI Logic profile,
...Maxtor profile,
Serial Attached SCSI | |
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the
Benefits of SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) for External Subsystems - article by
Adaptec
This introduction to Serial Attached SCSI gives you
an idea of the performance, compatibilities, applications and roadmap for this
new directly attached disk connection standard. With throughput capability
faster than 2Gbps Fibre-channel systems and faster than ultra320 SCSI - the new
SAS products not only provide an upward migration path for parallel SCSI
applications but also open the door to a new class of high performance high
reliability enterprise systems.
...read the article,
...Adaptec profile,
Serial Attached SCSI | |
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Serial Attached SCSI - Delivering Flexibility to the
Data Center - article by LSI Logic and Maxtor
"SAS gains a
performance advantage through its support of multiple initiators, or the ability
to support I/O requests from more than one controller at a time. With dual ports
and multiple initiator support, SAS RAID arrays can implement dynamic load
balancing, allowing I/O requests to be evenly spread across multiple
controllers, leveraging the full processing power of all of them. Without this
capability, the I/O requests can become skewed, and overload one controller,
while the others may not be at full capacity. SATA technology does not
support this capability."
...read the article,
...LSI Logic profile,
...Maxtor profile,
Serial Attached SCSI | |
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War of the
Disks: Hard Disk Drives vs. Flash Solid State Disks - Despatches from the
Magneto / Flash Wars - article by BiTMICRO
BiTMICRO is the
#1 best recognised brand of SSDs (source
STORAGEsearch.com SSD
Survey) and they have published a lot of
articles to help
customers understand the benefits of their products. When I first saw the
submission for this article I was pleased to see that it quoted extracts from
and linked to several other articles that I myself had written or edited - so
that gave me a warm glow.
After years of analyzing this market SSD
vendors and analysts are starting to see some clear patterns emerging. Although
opinions still differ on some subjects, and vendors are prone to pitch their own
solutions as best, this article is a useful synthesis of current industry
thinking by one of the leading flash SSD module manufacturers. ...read the article,
...BiTMICRO Networks
profile, Solid State Disks,
Hard disk drives | |
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