Survey Reports on Data
Center Rack Space
STAMFORD,
Conn - April 30, 2007 - 43% of data centers are running out of
physical space and power density in racks is at an all time high, a survey by
the Aperture Research Institute has discovered.
The survey of over 100 enterprise data managers, representing over
600 data centers, covered a spectrum of company sizes and industries, including
banking, insurance, healthcare, data services, retail, and telecommunications.
Nearly 90% of those surveyed indicated that 75% or more of the space
in their data centers was already allocated to IT equipment. More than 43% of
respondents reported that 90% or more of their data centers were in use, which
may suggest that future needs are being planned with the rapid growth in
processing and storage across all industries.
Compounding these concerns is the fact that servers and racks are
using more power than ever before. Nearly 38% of respondents said that their
average rack was using from 7 to 18 kilowatts or more. As well as putting
pressure on the power supply infrastructure, such a power high density will also
increase demand for cooling and increase the risk of downtime. ...read
the survey results (pdf),
Rackmount Storage
Sun Disrespects Copyright of SPARC Product Directory
Editor:-
April 27, 2007 -
Sun Microsystems, Inc. has shown it has little respect for the
copyright works of others by its recent action of misusing content from the SPARC
Product Directory
in a new website celebrating Sun's 25th anniversary.
"First
Sun used our content, without permission or attribution" says the original
author and publisher Zsolt Kerekes. "Then we were offered a form of
attribution which was worthless (a footnote at the bottom of a multiple screen
long article. Finally after I mentioned possible legal sanctions - Sun
replaced the content with a plagiarized version of the original purloined text.
I still haven't had an apology from Sun or admission that they did anything
wrong. The whole episode has tainted Sun's 25th anniversary celebration for me."
Here
are the details of what was done. |
| 1 - Sun's copyright
trangression |
2 - The original source...... |
3 - Sun's "rewritten"
version |
| In Sun's
25
year timeline article which appeared on Sun's website this week the
paragraph below appeared alongside the image which marked the launch of the
SPARCstation 1. |
It was copied from a very popular article on
the history of the
SPARC systems market. See below. |
Following complaints by the original author and
Sun's unwillingness to put in place an a satisfactory attribution (the one they
offered would have been almost invisible). Sun replaced this text with the
plagiarized text below. |
| "It certainly wasn't clear that SPARC was
going to become the leading hardware platform for serious server applications.
At that time most computer manufacturers were talking about introducing their
own RISC based computers. Few have survived with today's Unix derived
computerware. Many simply vanishing once SPARC became successful."
|
"...It certainly wasn't clear that SPARC was
going to become the leading hardware platform for serious server applications.
At that time most computer manufacturers were talking about introducing their
own RISC based computers. The few which have survived ... ... Many others
vanished without trace once SPARC became successful." |
"Most computer manufacturers at that time
were thinking about bringing in RISC based computers into the market. While some
of Sun's competitors were delayed in producing their next-generation products,
Sun came in with the SPARCstation 1. No one knew that it would become the
leading hardware platform for serious server applications." | |
By the way - the "rewritten"
/ "Sun authored" paragraph which appeared on April 26 also includes
another sentence which is identical to another part of Kerekes' original article
- making it even clearer what the original source was. It shows that Sun's PR
didn't do a good enough white wash.
Kerekes admits that is not the
first time that parts or even the whole content of his articles have been copied
without permission or attribution on the web. But Sun's refusal, in this case,
to include attribution at the same level of visibility as the content it had
taken, even after being found to be in the wrong - suggests a cultural
unwillingness to admit mistakes or co-operate with independent publishers which
they do not control.
"It's a real problem for publishers when a
company with the reputation of Sun with its hand caught in the cookie jar -
wriggles and does everything it can to avoid giving a satisfactory attribution"
commented Kerekes. "In this case - the botched PR handling of Sun's 25 year
celebration web site - has become the story."
ASCDI Files Complaint Against Sun with UK Competition Authority
DELRAY
BEACH, Fla - April 24, 2007 - The Association of Service and Computer
Dealers International yesterday filed a Complaint with the UK competition
authority, the Office of Fair Trading against Sun Microsystems UK
Limited.
The Complaint seeks to reverse Sun policies that
allegedly infringe UK competition law.
"Sun's policy (since
2006) effectively closes the secondary market trade in Sun products to anyone
other than Sun. It is anti-competitive behaviour plain and simple," said
ASCDI President Joe Marion.
At stake is an estimated $1.4
billion market in 2007 in the EU for used Sun products. Absent interference
from Sun, independent resellers should achieve a market share for Sun products
of at least $533 million. If Sun's behaviour continues unchecked, not only will
this share drop, other manufacturers may follow suit, forcing independent
resellers out of the market and giving manufacturers near monopolies for their
respective products. ...ASCDI profile
Editor's
comments:- the pressure leading to this action has been building up for
3 years since Sun started to tighten its control on the independent VAR and
broker market using a combination of trademark law and restrictions on
3rd Party Maintenance.
In a landmark case
Sun
sued a UK VAR Amtec and tried to put them out of business.
ASCDI's
complaint to the UK fair trade regulators looks like it may have some merit -
but the outcome in legal disputes is never certain.
What is certain is
that by the time this issue gets resolved Sun will be shipping a new generation
of even denser servers - and that old / previously owned systems will be very
undesireable in comparison for several years.
Sun Launches Online Sale to Celebrate 25 Years of Innovation
Santa
Clara, Calif - April 23, 2007 - In celebration of its 25-year anniversary, Sun
Microsystems is offering discounts of up to 65% on its most popular
servers and storage for 2 weeks starting today.
Click here to
see the promotional prices online.
Sun also launched a
Web site honoring the company's
quarter-century of innovation, with videos from CEO Jonathan Schwartz and
Chairman and Co-founder Scott McNealy; historical timelines; photos; a virtual
scrapbook of memories from Sun's 25 years; and more.
Editor's comments:- Sun's
timeline
also includes a well crafted paragraph commenting on the SPARCstation 1 which
is copied verbatim from my own
SPARC history
article.
Sun / Fujitsu SPARC Server Line Finally Sees Light of Day
TOKYO
- April 17, 2007 - Fujitsu and Sun Microsystems, Inc. today
unveiled a new line-up of co-developed mainframe-class servers.
The
new servers, based on the SPARC architecture and running the Solaris 10 OS, are
the fastest SPARC servers ever, and will be marketed by both companies and
affiliates under the "SPARC Enterprise" product brand. This the
culmination of over two years of joint development between Fujitsu and Sun,
building on their 20-year strategic relationship.
The new servers
(available today) address the growing customer need to maximize system
utilization by offering an array of highly granular partitioning and domaining
technologies. The SPARC Enterprise servers are also designed to ensure minimal
downtime. The systems marketed by Sun and Fujitsu are identical except for
branding, and Sun guarantees 100% Solaris binary compatibility. ...Fujitsu profile
Editor's
comments:- I first reported on the start of this project 4 years ago in
2003.
See
also:- article:-
Fujits...Who? - A Primer on Fujitsu's SPARC Heritage
QLogic's FC HBAs Rule OpenSolaris Roost?
well,
maybe not...
ALISO
VIEJO, Calif - April 17, 2007 - QLogic Corp today announced that it
has completed a license agreement with Sun Microsystems and joined the
OpenSolaris storage community, making it the "first company to offer fully
qualified Fibre Channel HBAs and technology for OpenSolaris".
More than 95% of
Fibre Channel HBAs in
Solaris OS environments are from QLogic. This large installed base encompasses
the entire range of Sun application and hardware environments.
...QLogic profile,
article:- Surviving
the Solaris x86 Wars
Editor's comments:- it shows how much
things change. 10 years ago the main FC adapter companies supplying the Sun
market (in the SPARC
Product Directory) were companies like
Antares
Microsystems, JNI,
Performance
Technologies, GENROCO,
Emulex
and many others...
QLogic was certainly not the first to
supply FC HBAs into the SunOS market, nor the SPARC Solaris market. But by the
time Sun's OS got renamed to OpenSolaris - and was born again for the Intel
market - most oems had
exited the Sun
compatible market or been
acquired / gone bust
or went on to do other things.
...Later:- QLogic's claim that
it supplied "more than 95% of FC HBAs in Solaris environments" was
shown to be spurious and without foundation. I was informed that Sun had forced
QLogic to retract this claim - and it doesn't appear in the company's later
archived version of this press release.
I had already ridiculed
another assertion by QLogic about being "first" in Solaris.
To
sum it up... Not a single claim in the original press release stands up to
independent scrutiny. It's not unusual for vendors to make over reaching claims
in their press releases but this was a particularly striking example.
Sun's Forthcoming 16 Core SPARC Takes Shape
Editor:- April 10, 2007 - Jonathan
Schwartz's blog today reveals that Sun has got first silicon of its
next generation SPARC processor.
Codenamed "Rock" it will
have 16 CPU cores and over 2,300 pins.
See also:-
storage chips
Sun Donates Storage Technologies to Open Source
Santa
Clara, Calif - April 10, 2007 - Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced
it is donating a significant set of storage technologies for storage developers
within the OpenSolaris community.
Some of the many items
included are the ZFS dynamic file system, NFS v4.1 (also known as parallel
NFS), Solaris iSCSI
Target and some fibre-channel
related drivers. ...Sun
Microsystems profile,
article:- Surviving
the Solaris x86 Wars
Sun's UltraSPARC Finally Breaks the 2GHz Barrier
SANTA
CLARA, Calif - April 3, 2007 - Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced
the availability of faster 1.95GHz and 2.1GHz UltraSPARC IV+ processors for its
popular Sun Fire servers.
Sun claims that, compared to previous
generations, the new UltraSPARC IV+ processor has shown 2X performance over the
UltraSPARC IV and 5X performance over the UltraSPARC III.
...Sun
Microsystems profile
Editor's comments:- if Sun's processors had
maintained the performance momentum of the 1990s - they should have shipped
2GHz SPARC chips 5 years ago. In fact
Fujitsu was
shipping 1.9GHz SPARC64 based servers 3 years ago (in 2004) but presumably
disheartened by its previous failures in the Sun compatible market didn't make a
marketing push in the Sun installed base. But later is better than never - for
faster SPARC chips. | |
| . |
 | |
Survey Reports
on Data Center Rack Space
Sun Disrespects Copyright of SPARC Product
Directory
ASCDI Files Anti Competitive Complaint Against Sun
Sun
Launches Online Sale to Celebrate 25 Years
Sun / Fujitsu SPARC Server
Line Finally Sees Light of Day
QLogic's FC HBAs Rule OpenSolaris
Roost?
well, maybe not...
Sun's Forthcoming 16 Core SPARC
Takes Shape
Sun's UltraSPARC Breaks the 2GHz Barrier
earlier news -
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