| Last SPARC
Standing in TOP500 |
Editor:- June 24, 2009 - the
33rd edition of the TOP500
list of the world's most powerful supercomputers was updated recently.
Only
1 single machine in the list today uses SPARC processors.
That's a
steep decline from 10
years ago - when the TOP500 included 95 SPARC systems.
Sun Executive Severance Calculations and Merger Background
Editor:-
June 4, 2009 - Scott McNealy would be eligible to get about $9.5
million if he were to be terminated in August.
The hypothetical
calculations for Jonathan Schwartz, John Fowler and other Sun executives are
detailed in an
SEC
document which also includes a blow by blow narrative of the lead up to
Sun's recent acquisition by Oracle.
It's not the most exciting read,
but provides as much info as anyone is going to get until the memoirs start to
appear.
Recession is Hurting Server Market - SSDs will Hurt More
Editor:-
April 28, 2009 - IDC
reported today factory revenue in the
worldwide
server market declined 25% year over year to $9.9 billion in the 1st
quarter of 2009.
This is the 3rd consecutive quarter of year-over-year
revenue decline and the lowest quarterly server revenue since IDC began tracking
the server market on a quarterly basis 12 years ago.
Unix servers
experienced 17.5% revenue decline year over year when compared with
1Q08.
Linux server revenue comprised 13.8% of server revenue in 1Q09,
declining 24.8% year-over-year to $1.4 billion, its lowest revenue level
in 5 years.
Editor's comments:- even when the recession ends
those past revenue shipments aren't going to bounce back.
When the
recovery starts the SSD
acceleration market will be in full force. That means users will be able to run
their apps using 70% fewer servers. That's something which was
originally predicted in my long range SSD market penetration model in
2003.
In the original article I explained that server oems were scared of the effect
that SSDs would have on their sales - and this fear was one of the reasons they
held back on user education about this technology. I also forecasted - that once
any single top tier server company announced SSD support - the others would be
forced to pile in too. But it was a game of dare to see how long they could wait
until users forced the issue.
Sun's Future Lies in Oracle
Editor:- April 20, 2009 -
Oracle
today
announced
an agreement to acquire Sun
Microsystems for approximately $7.4 billion.
Editor's
comments:- this ends nearly a decade of speculation about the future of Sun
Microsystems, a company which created a unique server business peaking at
over $20 billion annual revenue at the turn of the Millenium.
You
can read how Sun created that market, then lost it piece by piece and then
finally lost itself in the storage market in the article which tracks the
22 History of SPARC
systems market.
It's fitting that Oracle writes the end of this
story.
In the earliest days of the Sun market, portable relational
databases were a great selling tool for Sun VARs a to open the doors for the
unknown Sun.
Typically they'd get the customer to run a dbase
benchmark on their VAX and then run the same thing on a Sun. In the late 1980s
Sun hardware came in at less than 1/2 the price and more than 2x the
performance. And that was before the SPARC market heated up with a series of
ever faster, and then unbeatable, products in the early to mid 1990s.
...Later:-
April 22, 2009 - Although I've read a lot of "analyst" blogs - I
haven't seen any analysis about this significant deal that's worthy of a
link. So here's what I think.
The 2 most important emerging trends
in the computer market which I've been discussing for many years
elsewhere are:-
The new content enabled industries
of the future mean that vast data sets, which were once the preserve of telcos
or governments - will become much more commonplace than in the past.
Although
Google manages huge amounts of data using Linux, and internally developed
applications, most enterprises can't do that. Because unlike Google they don't
have a monopolist's business advantages, and unlike Google, they can't easily
recruit PhDs to write most of their software.
Instead enterprises will
turn to platforms which already have a reputation for managing large data sets
reliably - as the starting point for their new projects.
SSD
accelerated, Solaris hosted Oracle makes good sense for that kind of business
plan.
If readers have views on this Oracle / Sun thing that they'd
like to share. Drop me a line,
saying who you are and what you think.
Who's Going to Buy Sun Microsystems?
Editor:- March
19, 2009 - there's a lot of speculation on the web that
IBM
may buy Sun.
It's not the first time Sun has been the
subject (or object of such rumors).
Sun's
merger talks with Apple ended in February 1996.
And in July 2002
- I used the headline
Who's Going to
Buy Sun Microsystems? - to discuss possible buyers - at a low point in Sun's
fortunes.
In the 2002 article - I suggested - IBM and Fujitsu as
possible acquirers.
Some amusing ramblings about this on the
Fake Scott McNealy blog.
An
article in
SFGATe.com
raises the interesting point that Sun and IBM control about 90% of the
high end tape backup
market. However that's a market that's been
declining for years
anyway.
Users who haven't already migrated to
disk backup haven't been
getting a good experience from tape vendors even before this move. So it's not a
material factor. The dominance of the 2 companies in the Unix market might be.
But unless Linux suddenly gets grabbed by a single vendor - anti-competitive
issues in the OS space shouldn't be a worry.
Wind River's Linux Now Flowing through UltraSPARC T2
SANTA
CLARA, CA - March 17, 2009 - Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced
that Wind River has completed the port of its Linux 3.0 and Workbench
development suite to Sun's UltraSPARC T2 processor.
"The
combination of Sun's enterprise class UltraSPARC CMT platforms and Wind River's
Carrier Grade Linux gives telecom and networking system developers a new and
significantly superior vehicle for delivering their most mission critical
applications to enterprise and service provider customers," said Mike
Knudsen, VP, Sun OEM.
Editor's comments:- I first came across
Wind River Systems in the late 1980s,
when I was designing real-time systems which shared memory space with embedded
SPARC servers running SunOS. (The SPARCstations were the cheapest part of those
systems. The slowest too.)
I was an evangelist for using Unix systems
in real-time, and did the events circuit and wrote articles for our customers
talking about the benefits of using C and Unix for their real-time applications
- and leaving the real-time I/O handling to a virtual device interface which
we supported with over 100 VME based processors and peripherals - which were
mostly COTS - although we sometimes designed fast I/O if commercial products
weren't available.
At that time Wind River were talking about a product
called VXworks. I didn't
use it - because it wasn't stable enough for my needs at the time. .
In
the late 1990s nearly 20 companies were listed in our
SPARC OS
directory. There was even talk of IBM's AIX being ported to SPARC.
Most
of that real (and vaporware) support ended by 2000 due to a
combination of
market factors. The availability of Linux on SPARC is something which I
said in 2003 - would be the
Trigger Event that
will Turn Around Sun's Revenue Decline. That was in the midst of another
recession - following the dotcom bust - which had a bigger negative impact on
Sun (than the recession we're in now).
Sun Launches Flash SSD Analyzer Tool to Boost Server Sales and
Performance
Editor:- March 11, 2009 -Sun Microsystems launched
its new Sun Flash
Analyzer - a free Java tool to help users determine how much their (Solaris,
Windows and Linux) servers could benefit from SSD acceleration.
The
company also launched a try before you buy marketing promotion for its servers
which have Sun branded 2.5"
SLC flash SSDs pre-integrated. The 32GB SATA SSDs have sequential R/W upto
250MB/s and 170MB/s respectively. Random R/W IOPS are upto 35,000 and 3,300
respectively (4k blocks).
Endurance is
3 years - assuming max write speed and 100% write duty cycle.
Pliant Technology kicks off new series - the SSD Industry
Bookmarks
Editor:- March 5, 2009 - Pliant Technology's
VP of Marketing, Greg Goelz shares his SSD Bookmarks in the 1st
episode of a classic new series starting today on the home page of StorageSearch.com.
HP to Offer Solaris 10 on x86 Servers
PALO
ALTO, CA - February 25, 2009 - Sun Microsystems today announced an
expanded multi-year partnership agreement that enables HP to distribute
and provide software technical support for Sun's Solaris 10 OS on HP's ProLiant
servers.
HP ProLiant led the x86 server market with 38%
factory revenue share in the 4th quarter of 2008 according to
IDC. ...HP profile
Editor's
comments:- it took over 22 years to get here. You can see the key milestones
in Surviving the
Solaris x86 Wars
StorageIO Founder Publishes Book - Green and Virtual Data Center
Stillwater, Minn.- January 27, 2009
- "The Green and Virtual Data Center" - is a new book (376 pages,
MSRP $79.95) by noted author and StorageIO founder Greg Schulz.
The book sets aside the political aspects of what is or is not
considered green
to examine the opportunities for organizations trying to grow their business
while being environmentally friendly in an economically efficient manner.
Addressing multiple technology domains and disciplines, it looks at design and
implementation tradeoffs using various best practices and technologies to
sustain application and business growth while maximizing resources, such as
power, cooling, floor space, storage, server performance, and network capacity.
...StorageIO profile | |
other SPARC news on this page
Last
SPARC Standing - TOP500 Supercomputers
Sun Executive Severance
Calculations
Recession is Hurting Server Market - SSDs will Hurt More
Who's
Going to Buy Sun Microsystems?
Sun's Future Lies in Oracle
Wind River's Linux Now Flowingon UltraSPARC T2
Sun Launches Flash SSD
Analyzer Tool
the SSD Industry Bookmarks
HP to Offer
Solaris 10 on x86 Servers
New Book - Green and Virtual Data Center |
|
|
| . |
| SPARC News
Volumes at Historic Low |
Editor:- June 5, 2009 - the
volume of news about the SPARC server market is about 50x less than it
was at the peak of the market a decade ago, as you can see by viewing the
archived news links on the
SPARC History
page.
That's because the SPARC market is much smaller in annual
revenue and hundreds of oems have switched their priorities to the Intel
Architecture server market.
The hottest part of the server market in
recent years has been the storage
market. Storage has been a bigger part of the overall IT budget than servers
for many years. You can see storage
news here.
And within the storage market, undisputedly the hottest
part of the market now is that for SSDs. Click here for
SSD news.
If and
when, there's a resurgence in SPARC technology news, such stories will be run
here below. | |
| . |
| Can You Trust Your Flash
SSD's Specs? |
Editor:- I've noticed is that
the published specs of
flash SSDs change
a lot -from the time a product they are first announced, then when they're
being sampled, and later again when they are in volume production.
Sometimes
the headline numbers get better, sometimes they get worse. There are many good
reasons for this.
The product which you carefully qualified may
not be identical to the one that's going into your production line for a
variety of reasons... ...read the article | | |
