SUN: dot dot dot
SUN folks are true engineers. They are not good at writing application software that requires certain level of business logic. But, when they wake up, they are good at one thing: enterprise mission critical systems with good price/performance.
The most recent report shows that SUN's 2Q06 server revenue market share had a 19% gain over 1Q06, while HP, IBM and DELL showed decline. Am I surprised? No. This is just the beginning for SUN.
Solaris 10 + Opteron + Niagra is the future of enterprise computing, folks.
The SUN Fire x4500, x4600 servers are amazing stuff. I talked about them previously, showing benchmarks where ths x4600 smashes 16P Itanium 2 Superdome. With a x4500 and a x4600, you can start your Web 2.0 shop and support 1,000,000 users, enough to get you to pre-IPO. The total cost of two machines is about $100,000. If SUN can sell 10,000 of them, that's $1 billion revenue. The numbers add up.
SUN folks now say they are the dot in Web 2.0. AMD64 makes that possible: it allows SUN to build high performance, highly scalable and reliable systems at affordable price points. Coupled with Solaris 10, SUN creates an unbeatable proposition for enterprises, large and small.
Going forward, as Solaris 10 getting easier to use and more popular, I think Linux will face serious challenges. HP and IBM can only hope that they can pump enough effort into beefing up Linux, otherwise, they will be left without an OS.
In Opteron server design, SUN is clearly ahead. HP and IBM are at 4P 8 core only. The Sun x4600 with four Opteron 880, 4 GbE ports and 16GB ram costs $25K. I went to hp.com, configured an HP Dl585 with four Opteron 880s, 2GbE ports and 16GB ram, the price is $22K.
If I were a customer and only needed 4P, I would rather buy a Sun Fire x4600 with 4 processors, reserving the right to upgrade to 8P (16 core) later. Furthermore, I can upgrade the x4600 to quad core, 32 way monster.
posted by Sharikou, Ph. D. @ 8/23/2006 11:43:00 AM
22 Comments:
I did an analysis on the server setups and performance here, and Intel might be in for a world of hurt.
Interesting analysis....
I worked for a lot of big IT shops over the past few years. Here's my analysis of the server vendors...
HP:
HP has Itanium, X86-64, MIPS. They are slowing killing MIPS in favour of Itanium. However, instead of pusing HP/UX on Itanium, they are pushing NonStop (from Tandnem) on Itanium. This puts Itanium at HP in a weird position. Good margins on Integrity NonStop however limited growth due to limited ISV support.
NonStop hardware is top notch however its market acceptance is going to be limited to niche markets where companies are willing to develop applications for NonStop platform (NonStop Kernel). They need to somehow port Linux over to NonStop Itanium and convince ISV's to certify app servers, databases etc to Linux on NonStop. However ISV's are not interested in doing so until it becomes viable for them. Right now if you want to develop apps on NonStop, you can only use NonStop SQL MX. Good lock-in strategy however lack Oracel, DB2 and MS SQL on NonStop is not helping it penetrate IBM, SUN and Dell shops.
To sum it up, HP needs a unify an OS and its enterprise apps across x86, itanium and MIP. Linux is the answer. They need to make Linux their Solaris.
DELL:
Screwed big time. Late to Opteron game. Sun, HP and IBM have established Opteron products. Dell doesn't. Apple probably moved up in pecking order Intel at Dell's expense. Dell has no software stack to offer. Hence can only compete with price.
SUN:
Best position of the bunch for growth. Strong mind share in X86-64 thanks to getting on AMD bandwagon early. Established Sparc business. Unified operating system across X86-64 and Sparc. Software stack is a little weak when it comes to J2EE.
IBM:
IBM has an advantage over HP because its easier to port and maintain Linux to PowerPC. IBM has already ported most of its software to Linux. IBM needs to EOL AIX and make Linux #1 priority.
Phd pretender said
"If I were a customer "
How could you be a customer of anything. Your blog says it all you are an incomptent delusioned AMD fanboy with no sense of reality. You got a life, family, pussy.
Got to give you credit. You are a lunatic that is worth a few laughs from me as you continue to spew shit and the flies love ya. Every once in a blue moon there is brillaiance. Too bad you can't figure out how to harvest it to something more constructive.
Why don't you try? Inquiring minds want to know? Did a INTEL executive molest you in your youth?
Solaris is great. Much easier to administer than Linux. But Linux has come much farther lately, and will close the gap.
sharikou,
it is nice to see you allow others to exercise their freedom of speech but frankly speaking, allowing complete trolls to get their comments posted is rather too much. Freedom of speech does not license unrestrained and wicked speech.
Far too many are abusing their 'right' to freedom of speech imho.
allowing complete trolls to get their comments posted is rather too much. Freedom of speech does not license unrestrained and wicked speech.
I have to give Intel folks the freedom to express their views. We know they are retarded and can't engage in any intelligent discussion. What can you do?
Sharikou, Ph. D wrote:
"allowing complete trolls to get their comments posted is rather too much. Freedom of speech does not license unrestrained and wicked speech.
I have to give Intel folks the freedom to express their views. We know they are retarded and can't engage in any intelligent discussion. What can you do?"
We can ignore and/or poke fun at them :)
-Longan-
P.S. I used to know this one gal from main-land China. She said in the 1980s, the Chinese government used to lie to them with how great netburst economy and lives in China was; how bad the evil America Athlon was.
Until one day when they started to have internet access and she found out. Omg! Netburst China sucked big time and she never believed her government again.
How long have Intel fanbois been lied by Intel with the netburst????
Do you still believe Intel? Are you sure Intel's Core 2 good? What if Dell, IBM, HP and Sun knew something that you don't Why-o-why suddenly Dell dropped Intel just before Woodcrest released?
I have to say, the comments are starting to make me laugh.
"I have to give Intel folks the freedom to express their views. We know they are retarded and can't engage in any intelligent discussion. What can you do?"
I believe there should be a limit even to freedom of speech. It bothers me when I saw 1/3 of posts are nothing some flaming stuffs. It is wasting people's time and destroy healthy discussion. It is good to allow all kinds comments and opinions from both camps(Intel and AMD), but personal attacks or attention seeking.
What to do? I would say cut them out of your post.
allowing complete trolls to get their comments posted is rather too much. Freedom of speech does not license unrestrained and wicked speech.
I have to give Intel folks the freedom to express their views. We know they are retarded and can't engage in any intelligent discussion. What can you do?
----
handled with class like a true PhD...
Hats off to you, sharikou.
I have to give Intel folks the freedom to express their views. We know they are retarded and can't engage in any intelligent discussion. What can you do?
I for one think that you should let them have their say a few times, but when "phd pretender" says the same crap over and over, and proves himself an idiot over and over, you should stop posting his responses. At least until he brings something new to the table...
"40 per cent of the market for servers by 2009"...
That is not too agressive, as we should expect ..or is Marty meaning to under-state a bit
"allowing complete trolls to get their comments posted is rather too much. Freedom of speech does not license unrestrained and wicked speech."
"I have to give Intel folks the freedom to express their views. We know they are retarded and can't engage in any intelligent discussion. What can you do? "
I completely agree with the previous poster. 90% of the time, the Intel Trolls just come here to make either personal attacks, or random rants.
This really derails any type of intelligent discussion as their comments are 90% off topic!!
To the rest of the 10%, friendly debates with intelligent discussions are welcomed. :)
Look at the post on this topic. It doesn't even say anything about the matter being discussed. Maybe you should only approve messages if they are on topic. If they spend the entire post bashing you, then what's the point? I don't want to come on here and see hundreds of posts bashing you while saying nothing about the news item. If they want to express their views, they can, but the least you can ask is for them to be on topic.
When will this blog live up to its name? This IS the journal for pervasive 64-bit computing right? Is there ever a discussion on 64-bit? Where can I get 64-bit software? Why do I need 64-bit on my laptop? Is 64-bit just for enterprise? Why did AMD push 64-bits starting in 2003 when there was no mainstream OS that would run it? Was that just a marketing tactic? Why do most PC vendors still pre-load the 32-bit version of the OS on my newly acquired 64-bit processor powered laptop? These are the things I would like to see from the "Journal for Pervasive 64-bit computing" Not a daily rant about how Intel sucks and AMD is like Jesus, puppy-dogs and apple pie all rolled into one corporate logo.
Why did AMD push 64-bits starting in 2003 when there was no mainstream OS that would run it?
Intel was planning to eventually make IA64 the one and only successor to the x86 family processors. AFAIK AMD didn't have the right to produce IA64-compatible CPUs, due to patent restrictions, so Itanic would be also a way for Intel to finally get rid of AMD. When you think about this it makes a lot of sense for AMD to push their version of 64-bit computing as early as possible. For the end user it mostly didn't matter, AMD64 CPUs are 100% 32-bit compatible with almost no performance penalty when running 32-bit code. Nowadays the situation is different, because Intel were forced to copy AMD64 (renaming it EM64T which BTW sounds bad, iAMD64 is IMHO such a better name) and probably in 5-6 months all the CPUs sold on the PC market will be AMD64-compatible. Now try to answer this:
Why did Intel push 64-bits (Itanic) starting in 2001 when there was no mainstream OS that would run it? And don't forget Itanic was announced much earlier, it was released in 2001 after it was delayed a few times.
Why did Intel push 64-bits (Itanic) starting in 2001 when there was no mainstream OS that would run it? And don't forget Itanic was announced much earlier, it was released in 2001 after it was delayed a few times.
That Itanium was ever targeted for the desktop is urban legend. I have never seen a citable, first hand source for that claim.
Anyone who looks at the architectural features and design tradeoffs made with Itanium can see that it was designed for the enterprise space. x86 compatibility was built into the intial version to help transition high-end x86 servers/apps onto the platform, but the platform was really focused at big iron- which was already 64-bit in the day. When Itanium shipped, there were at least 3 or 4 (can't recall exact numbers) mainstream 64-bit enterprise OSes available, and plenty of 64-bit apps in that space. Desktop? Still not there. How many consumer apps can use, much less require, 64bit CPUs today? How many consumer-grade motherboards even ship with enough memory slots to get past 4GB? What percentage of customers actually use more than 4GB memory?
Yeah, thought so.
That Itanium was ever targeted for the desktop is urban legend. I have never seen a citable, first hand source for that claim.
The K8 was designed to be a server CPU, that competes with Itanic and also happens to not suck on the desktop. On the desktop it offered better performance and performance/watt than P4, so basically it was the way to go. It was much better, even without 64-bitness. Also AMD64 programs usually run faster, even if you don't have 4 GB RAM, because AMD doubled the number of GP and SSE registers. Also now it's not uncommon for desktops to have 1 or 2 GB RAM, which is already coming close to 4G. When it becomes common for desktops to have 4 GB RAM or more (e.g. in the next 2-3 years), guess what architecture would Intel push to the users, if AMD64 didn't exist. It would be either IA64 or the old IA32 with its ugly 36-bit PAE hack. AMD64 is a much better alternative to both.
When it becomes common for desktops to have 4 GB RAM or more (e.g. in the next 2-3 years)
So the primary driver for 64-bit desktop computing, the way of the future, was released 5-6 years before it was needed then? So all the hype about having a platform that would be 64bit-ready was really about selling something that would be obsolete before the demand appeared? Sounds like a bunch of marketing hype that paid off in spades!
"With a x4500 and a x4600, you can start your Web 2.0 shop and support 1,000,000 users, enough to get you to pre-IPO. The total cost of two machines is about $100,000. If SUN can sell 10,000 of them, that's $1 billion revenue. The numbers add up."
The nice thing about Dell servers is that you can start small and scale up over time.
Dell makes their machines economically viable for real startups, not just VC-funded companies that piss away their money on overpriced equipment.
Witness how Google builds their own stuff. It saves them a ton of money, probably hundreds of millions a year.
Only dumb startups buy expensive $un gear.
"The nice thing about Dell servers is that you can start small and scale up over time."
we you have n't checked the sun site recently have you friend. the good doctor was referring to maxed out capacity. if you want to start small sun starts at $975. try getting that on the dell web site
linux is better at 1 thing runing on x86-64 boxes built with comodity hardware.
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