Monday, June 05, 2006

DELL customer Rackspace went HP for AMD64

Intel is set to launch Woodcrest on June 19th, 2006. I saw some vendors have Woodcrest servers ready for June 23, 2006.

But, Rackspace, a long term DELL customer, who has 20,000 servers and is adding 800 servers a month, had to go HP for Opteron today. On May 18, DELL announced plans for MP Opteron (4 processors and more) by the end of 2006, but DELL did not announce plans for 2P Opteron servers. Rackspace couldn't wait any longer, it went HP for the 2P Opteron HP DL385.

Didn't Rackspace read the wonderful Woodcrest stories? Didn't DELL show Rackspace those wonderful Woodcrest stories? Rackspace can't wait just a couple of weeks?

Or, maybe Rackspace actually got a Woodcrest in their labs?

"We've really been a sole-source buy [with Dell] for years, and going to another vendor is a big change from a technology standpoint," Lew Moorman, SVP of Rackspace said. "It was something we needed to do."

14 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

btw...
I just found out that tomshardware "tested" the conroe preview
and after reading some around it
its hilarius this fact:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/06/05/first_benchmarks_conroe_vs_fx-62/page4.html

"These benchmarks were run on a Conroe system during the Intel demonstrations. We collected the results, and then compared them later to those from an optimally configured Athlon FX-62 system in our own test labs. This leads us to a couple of caveats about interpreting the results."
in short words...
again.. intel bringed another "buttonpresser" to gatter information under INTEL CONTROLLED circunstances.
in short words, not better than the presentation of anandtech

12:42 PM, June 05, 2006  
Blogger "Mad Mod" Mike said...

Everybody was invited so they could further give credibility to their Conroe tests, because everybody thinks these were "independently vendor controlled" tests, which is so wrong.

This is IDF 2.0

1:20 PM, June 05, 2006  
Blogger Sharikou, Ph. D. said...

This is IDF 2.0


IDF 1.0 is here.

1:23 PM, June 05, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

While good news for AMD (and customers) I read the press release a little differently. Specifically, Rackspace didn't "switch" but rather they added an additional choice for their customers.

4:20 PM, June 05, 2006  
Blogger Sharikou, Ph. D. said...

Rackspace didn't "switch"

Rackspace switched from DELL to HP. There were other reports. Of course, Rackspace will continue to offer Intel servers, but from HP. It had to switch because its customers mostly want Opterons and DELL doesn't offer it.

5:35 PM, June 05, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wouldn't you think that large companies making million dollar decisions probably have seen Woodcrest, and how it performs... and said, "nah..." and decided to go with Opterons?? Maybe that's why Dell (who kept claiming their customers have not asked for AMD before) FINALLY jumped in bed with AMD... since they are losing customer and sales.

I wouldn't be surprised to see other defectors to AMD's Opteron who are immune to the Intel PR Marketing machine, and that those IT managers who base their million dollar decisions on facts, performance, and the cost of running their business (electricity and all).

When they realize the future upgrade path 1207 provided to them ,while Intel hits another wall, will send them AMD's way.

For us consumers, it's all great because the Tech Industry can be innovative again! Imagine the free minds of developers, system builders, partners, etc ALL have a "choice" in what "they" want... and not driven by Intel's standard so they make a buck on CPU, Chipset, Graphics, network, memory, etc.

What's left for the partners?? Oh wait, they're a monopoly... :)

6:23 PM, June 05, 2006  
Blogger Kin said...

Intel is selling its communications division. They must be getting desperate for cash.

12:04 AM, June 06, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Time and Tide wait for no man, the AMD tide is a given even if Woodcrest is competative in 2P the now is 4P + its so easy and inexpensive the Amd way,
problem solved.

4:09 AM, June 06, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Most of the analysis here is simply incorrect. RackSpace has sold AMD Opteron based servers for years, but just as their own "white box" builds (Supermicro based I believe). Given that they generally target mid to large enterprise customers, and the comfort level such customers have with a brand name, they brought in HP because it's a name on the box. They aren't dumping Dell for HP, and last I heard a few months ago Opteron to Xeon sales were roughly 50/50 at RackSpace, with Windows customers skewing towards Xeons and Linux customers preferring Opterons.

3:52 PM, June 06, 2006  
Blogger Sharikou, Ph. D. said...

They aren't dumping Dell for HP
Why don't you just google for more info? They of course won't say dumping DELL in their PR. But they said it elsewhere in interview that they had to dump DELL. It doesn't make sense to keep DELL while HP can provide both AMD and Intel.

3:55 PM, June 06, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dell is still noted as a systems partner on the site and Dell server systems are still noted in the sample config pages.

I also specifically asked a customer service rep and received this reply:

"Roy: Oh, no....we have not stopped offering Dell at all......We just added HP to the mix because of their AMD offerings......Our clients were demanding AMD products......We could not have waited for Dell to release theirs....."

4:38 PM, June 06, 2006  
Blogger Sharikou, Ph. D. said...

Dell is still noted as a systems partner on the site and Dell server systems are still noted in the sample config pages.


Yes. You are right. Rackspace will continue to buy Intel servers from DELL.

4:43 PM, June 06, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thank you for considering the comments (anonymous from myself and others) regarding continued Dell availability and revising the entry.

10:39 PM, June 06, 2006  
Blogger Sharikou, Ph. D. said...

Thank you for considering the comments (anonymous from myself and others) regarding continued Dell availability and revising the entry.
Thank you for correcting my mistake. After re-reading the report, it was clearly that Rackspace will continue to buy Intel servers from Dell.

10:49 PM, June 06, 2006  

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