Sun revs new Opteron, Sparc servers

Sun Microsystems is overhauling its server lineup with new systems based on AMD’s Opteron processor and a new, dual-core version of its own UltraSparc chip. The moves represent both a new direction for Sun and an extension of a technology that has been its hardware foundation for two decades.

The Sun Fire V20z is due in April with AMD’s Opteron 242 processor. It will ship without an operating system, but both Linux and Solaris licenses are available from Sun for less than $300.

A two-processor version is also due in April, and Sun will flesh out the line with four- and eight-way systems in the following quarters, said Neil Knox, executive vice president at Sun.

Until recently, Sun sold only servers based on its UltraSparc chips, but pressure from customers and analysts have spurred it to sell servers with x86 chips from AMD and Intel. Seen by many as a threat to its core server business, the chips are now part of Sun’s strategy to offer customers a choice of server platforms.

The partnership provides AMD a chance to crack the corporate datacenter, said Jamie Gruener, a Yankee Group analyst.

To further boost its Opteron efforts, Sun plans to acquire Kealia, a startup that develops Opteron-based servers. Kealia employs Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim, who will rejoin Sun to help design its Opteron systems and workstations.

Sun is also updating its higher-end servers with the UltraSparc IV processor, its first to include two processor cores on a single chip. An UltraSparc IV server will perform almost twice as fast as an UltraSparc III system, according to Clark Masters, executive vice president at Sun.

Sun will release five UltraSparc servers in the coming months, ranging from four-way systems to a server with 72 processors.

“We’ve arrived at a point where the economy is turning up, and [Sun is] appealing to their install base. IT managers are thinking about augmenting their systems, and Sun now supports three major hardware platforms,” said Jean Bozman, research vice president of IDC’s worldwide server group, referring to AMD, Intel, and Sparc.

Sun also announced new features for Solaris 10, a major upgrade to its Unix OS due in the third quarter. Among the changes is a technology called N1 Grid Containers, which enables customers to slice the server into several partitions that appear to applications as individual machines but actually use a single instance of Solaris.

Sun customers can already partition servers but must maintain a separate instance of Solaris on each partition, said Graham Lovell, head of Solaris marketing at Sun.

The technology will allow customers to use their processors more efficiently, according to Lovell, because they will be able to run several partitioned applications against a single processor. Applications will also be more reliable because faults will be isolated in each partition, he said. Resources such as memory and bandwidth can be doled out to particular applications more easily, he said.

Other additions to the Solaris 10 upgrade include DTrace, a diagnostic technology for identifying the cause of performance issues, and Predictive Self Healing, which examines server behavior, predicts where faults are likely to occur, and compensates for them.