Archive | 2003

Sun’s Server Delivers Best Price Performance – First to Break the $200/QphH@3000GB Barrier for Any Configuration

Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced another record-breaking benchmark in a series of announcements that further validates its performance and price/performance superiority. Performance tests of Oracle9i Database Release 2 running on the Sun Fire 15K server, Sun StorEdge arrays and the Sun ONE platform have established Sun as the fastest performing and best price/performance single system on the market. This industry standard benchmark represents ad-hoc queries and is representative of the real-world decision support and data warehousing applications. IBM has yet to run a TPC-H benchmark on its mainframe or p690 single-system server.

The Sun Fire 15K system outperformed the next best single server, the HP Superdome, 23 percent on the high-load throughput test. Throughput is a measure of a heavily-loaded system, it also beat HPs price/performance by seven percent.

The benchmark was performed on a 72-way 1.2 GHz UltraSPARC[r] III processor-based Sun Fire 15K system with 288GB of memory, running the industry-leading Solaris 9 Operating System (OS) and Oracle9i Database Release 2, topping the performance of all HP systems. The server also utilized 33 Sun StorEdge A5200 disk arrays. The system delivered 28,948.1 QphH@3000GB at a price performance of $184/QphH@3000GB, with a scheduled availability of April 30, 2003.

The versatile 72-way Sun Fire 15K server with 1.200 GHz CPUs is rated by Sun at 7,250 Mainframe Equivalent MIPS, which surpasses the fastest IBM mainframe, while maintaining a lower price. Following are TPC-H Version 2 performance and price/performance results currently published for the 3000GB scale factor.

About TPC-H

Established by the Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC), the TPC-H benchmark is an industry-standard Decision Support test designed to measure systems’ capability to examine large volumes of data, execute queries with a high degree of complexity, and give answers to critical business questions. The TPC-H benchmark evaluates a composite performance metric (QphH@size) and a price/performance metric $/QphH@size) that measure the performance of various decision support systems by the execution of sets of queries against a standard database under controlled conditions.

TPC-H, QphH and $/QphH are trademarks of the TPC. For additional information on the TPC-H benchmark, please visit the Transaction Processing Performance Council’s Web site at http://www.tpc.org/

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision — “The Network Is The Computer” — has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that make the Net work. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Solaris, Sun Fire, Sun StorEdge and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and in other countries. All SPARC trademarks are used under license and are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates.

UltraSPARC® processors rise above commodity products

Microprocessors are often thought of as commodity components distinguished only by price. Yet Sun has proven that its open, noncommodity UltraSPARC processor chips deliver superior functionality that more than compensates for a slightly higher manufacturing cost.

If Sun had clung to a commodity-centric focus during the last 15 years, its customers might never have enjoyed the benefits of certain revolutionary advances in chip design, including reduced instruction set computer (RISC) and symmetrical multiprocessing (SMP) technology. For Sun, it’s always been about finding the right balance between innovation and economy.

That approach continues today, and it has never been more valuable. The UltraSPARC processor’s chip multithreading (CMT) technology is ready to boost performance up to 50 times over existing UltraSPARC processor chips. The UltraSPARC processor and CMT enable administrators to harness the power of dozens of servers onto a single blade. The management and maintenance savings are as phenomenal as the technology itself.

Commodity Does Not Equal Open

In the microprocessor realm, the terms “open” and “commodity” are often used carelessly in a manner that erroneously equates them. This sows confusion both in the industry and in the marketplace.

The term “open” refers to the capability of products and technologies to connect and interoperate with each other. Open interfaces, be they hardware or software, are generally publicly documented and based on an explicit or de facto industry standard. For example, the Internet depends on the propagation of the TCP/IP networking protocol.

The term “commodity” implies a common component that offers negligible feature differentiation from similar components. Thus, price becomes the most significant point of comparison. Thanks to economies of scale, a commodity generally promises lower prices. And of course, lower costs are generally good. Yet by definition, a commodity does not promise greater functionality.

The confusion between “open” and “commodity” might be thickest when people talk about Intel processors. Some call Intel’s chips “open” because they are ubiquitous on desktop systems. Yet Intel neither openly shares its design and hardware interfaces nor publishes these specifications. Intel’s chips are not open; they are commodities.

What Open Looks Like

The UltraSPARC processor architecture, on the other hand, is truly open. SPARC International is an independent body that oversees and promotes the technology’s evolution. The SPARC-V9 processor instruction set is in the public domain, as are entire UltraSPARC processor designs, which can be used by any company to create derivative products. This is what “open” really means.

Sun’s investment in UltraSPARC processors and the Solaris Operating Environment runs counter to the arguments of those who tout the benefits of commodity computing. The PC market, where commodity chips such as the Intel Pentium are anointed as standards, shapes their perspective.

Yet the forces that drive commodity microprocessors would not naturally have delivered advanced RISC, SMP, and CMT designs. Regarding the latter, most PC software is not multithreaded and cannot take advantage of a microprocessor capable of running dozens of threads. Also, 32-bit architectures cannot address sufficient memory to support large-scale CMT designs.

What Open Does

Sun has always built its products around open standards and with commodity components when possible. Yet there are several instances in which Sun has gone beyond a commodity-centric approach in order to spur innovation and create superior value for its customers. It is this perspective that drives Sun’s investment in UltraSPARC processors and the Solaris Operating Environment.

In 1986, Sun introduced the first UltraSPARC processor, which employed a revolutionary RISC architecture. Compared to the complex instruction set computer (CISC) design common in microprocessors of that era, the RISC-based UltraSPARC processor was an incredible breakthrough. RISC-based systems were up to seven times more powerful than CISC-based systems, at a lower cost.

The UltraSPARC processor’s next major wave of innovation, beginning in 1992, incorporated SMP, which enabled large shared-memory computers. Sun enhanced the basic UNIX threading model to create the Solaris Operating Environment, the highly threaded UNIX-based operating system so renowned today. Taken together, these advances delivered performance that was 50 to 100 times faster than uniprocessor systems.

The UltraSPARC processor is now entering its third wave of innovation, thanks again to Sun’s approach that considers microprocessors more than commodities. With CMT, our engineers have integrated the power of large-scale SMP onto a single piece of silicon. A single UltraSPARC processor chip can now process dozens of threads simultaneously, a quantum change in computer design.

The Solaris Operating Environment, unlike most desktop operating systems, can leverage CMT to run 32 or 64 simultaneous threads. For threaded applications, future UltraSPARC processors will deliver up to 50 times the performance of today’s fastest UltraSPARC processor, without a significantly higher cost-per-chip.

And just as important as speed, CMT enables administrators to consolidate the infrastructure of dozens of servers onto a single blade. Imagine the savings in administration, maintenance, power, cooling, and floor space.

Finding the Balance

Ultimately, the burning issue in the microprocessor market is not about openness versus commodification. It’s about finding the right balance between true innovation and economies of scale. Sun continues to be committed to open hardware and software interfaces built on emerging, defined, and de facto standards. As we develop technology for UltraSPARC processors and the Solaris Operating Environment, Sun customers can count on openness and, above all, superior value.

Solaris[tm], Solaris x86, Trusted Solaris and Sun Linux Platforms Unaffected by Today’s UNIX-related IP Lawsuit

Sun Microsystems, Inc. today confirmed with its customers and partners that it has licensing rights to UNIX code, on which the Solaris™ Operating System is based for both SPARC and recently available x86 systems. In light of SCO’s legal dispute with IBM over UNIX licensing rights, Sun announced it has absolutely no licensing issues with SCO today. Sun’s previous licensing agreements give Sun complete UNIX IP rights in relation to Sun’s operating systems. This makes the Solaris Operating System a safe choice for customers moving forward. With the Solaris multiplatform product line, customers can have a consistent Solaris environment from low-end x86 servers, up to hundreds of processors, in a SPARC mainframe-class system.

Sun confirms that:

About Solaris Operating System

The Solaris Operating System (Solaris OS) is the premier OS for the enterprise. With over 300 new features, the Solaris OS is the most scalable, available, manageable and secure services platform for the networked world. By focusing on industry standards, the Internet, innovation and integration, the Solaris platform delivers a documented lower cost of operation. The Solaris OS is the leading UNIX platform operating system with Sun servers owning 54 percent worldwide UNIX market share in shipments and 34 percent worldwide UNIX revenue share, according to Gartner Dataquest’s 3Q02 Servers Quarterly Statistics.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision — “The Network Is The Computer” — has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that make the Net work. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun Logo, Solaris, Trusted Solaris and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

All SPARC trademarks are used under license and are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.

UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries, exclusively licensed through X/Open Company, Ltd.

Enterprise-Class Platform Targets Microsoft Server Market with Robust Security and Lower Acquisition Cost by Up to 15x

Sun Microsystems, Inc. today delivered on its redoubled commitment to the UNIX® platform, extending the full benefits of the Solaris™ Operating System (OS), the number one UNIX platform, to x86-based servers with the Solaris 9 x86 Platform Edition. Seeing a growing market opportunity, Sun is expanding its products and services into the x86 server market. While industry competitors abandon UNIX, Sun’s strategy guarantees customer continuity and global support for UNIX on its entire line of both SPARC[tm] and x86 systems, and on third party x86 systems.

With the release of the Solaris 9 x86 Platform Edition, Sun is giving customers a proven, highly secure enterprise-class OS for entry-level servers. By offering management and hardening features previously unavailable on x86 servers, the Solaris 9 OS provides customers with a far more secure and less expensive alternative to Microsoft’s competing Windows servers. The Solaris 9 OS also offers newly integrated Sun™ ONE products, along with secure networking and content delivery functionality. Sun expects to deliver an integrated Sun ONE software portfolio on the Solaris x86 Platform Edition within the calendar year.

Non-commercial usage is available at no charge, while commercial pricing starts at US $99; attractive OEM pricing is also available. Source code for Solaris will now be available.

“Enterprise requirements are simple — security, scalability, global support and price/performance,” said Jonathan Schwartz, executive vice president, software, Sun Microsystems. “As the only leading vendor to increase its investment in UNIX, Sun with its Solaris OS now combines legendary security, unparalleled price/performance, product stability, and a growing commitment to both x86 and SPARC systems. With the evolving functionality of the Java platform and Sun ONE portfolio, Sun now stands alone in redoubling its commitment to UNIX and in lowering costs and increasing security in a tight spending environment.”

Wide Support for the Solaris x86 Platform Edition To date, the Solaris x86 Platform Edition has over 1.1 million registered licenses and features over one thousand certified applications in many different markets.

“Verizon’s use of the Solaris x86 Platform Edition will help us continue to increase reliability and security while reducing overall costs,” said Shadman Zafar, senior vice president-IT Architecture & eServices, Verizon Communications.

“AMD shares Sun’s commitment to the x86 market, and to providing customers compatible, stable continuity for their software and infrastructure,” said Marty Seyer, vice president of server business segment, Computation Products Group, AMD. “Enterprise customers can benefit from the proven performance and dependability of AMD Athlon[tm] MP processors together with the scalability and manageability of Solaris 9 OS.”

“We welcome Sun’s commitment to entry-level systems,” said Dr. Raj Nathan, senior vice president and general manager, Sybase Enterprise Solutions Division. “Our customers benefit from the lower cost of acquisition and operation of Sybase software — Sun’s extension of the Solaris OS to the low-end market creates an even more compelling end-to-end value proposition for our customers.”

“BEA believes that customers will respond favorably to Solaris x86, and be able to benefit from the experience BEA and Sun have in optimizing and tuning our software on Solaris,” said John Gray, vice president of Global Alliances, BEA Systems. “BEA looks forward to supporting this extension to the Solaris platform.”

“The Quantiva Analysis System (QAS) tests Web application performance using advanced statistical analysis and diagnostic algorithms, so it is absolutely critical for us to have a robust operating system capable of supporting massive numerical computing tasks across scores of distributed systems,” said Ron Hiller, founder and CTO of Quantiva, Inc. “QAS runs on Solaris x86 machines with uptimes of over 600 consecutive days, distributed across the Internet. As an added plus, we will be able to easily migrate to SPARC as our application suite broadens.”

“We are pleased Sun has listened to the x86 community,” said Alan DuBoff, president, Software Orchestration, Inc. “By offering the Solaris 9 OS on x86 hardware, customers can once again take advantage of the rock solid operating system on a low cost platform. Solaris has long been a leader in the enterprise sector and the addition of the Sun ONE software stack makes the Solaris x86 Platform Edition a very attractive and cost effective solution.”

Solaris x86 Platform Edition — Outperforming Microsoft with Integrated Value

With the release of the Solaris 9 x86 Platform Edition, Sun raises the bar for the entry-level server marketplace by adding hundreds of enterprise-class features to the Solaris OS, Sun’s proven, fully maintained and supported platform. New integrated server technologies, including the SunScreen[tm] 3.2 software firewall, the Sun ONE Directory Server, IPQoS services for bandwidth management and the Solaris 9 Resource Manager add to an impressive list of Reliability, Availability, Serviceability (RAS) features delivered in earlier releases.

The Solaris 9 x86 Platform Edition lowers the total cost of acquisition by a factor of as much as 15 compared to a two-way web server configuration of the Microsoft Windows 2000 Server.

Unlike the Microsoft Windows 2000 server and the Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced server, the Solaris 9 x86 Platform Edition includes the following enterprise-class services at no additional cost:

• Directory Server – The Sun ONE Directory Server 5.1
• Enterprise-class firewall – SunScreen 3.2 software includes enterprise-class proxy and firewall features
• Enterprise Volume Manager – The Solaris Volume Manager scales to thousands of disk partitions and includes mirroring and striping of volumes for data integrity and performance
• Support for IPv6 – Solaris 9 OS includes production-quality implementation
• Secure Shell – Solaris 9 OS includes this standard protocol for heterogeneous secure remote access

In addition, the Solaris 9 x86 Platform Edition bundles the Solaris 9 Resource Manager, a value of $1190, at no additional cost, providing guaranteed service level for applications and improving CPU utilization through consolidation of applications.

Solaris x86 for Developers

Currently, over 600 partners provide more than 1,000 solutions for the Solaris x86 Platform Edition. ISVs like Computer Associates, Nuance, a leading provider of speech solutions, Symantec, and Solaris OS/SPARC Platform Edition developers can leverage existing investments in deploying on entry-level systems. ISV Solutions are listed at http://solutions.sun.com.

Sun also offers Linux compatibility at both source and binary levels. Sun assists developers working on Java[tm], Solaris and Sun ONE through a rich set of programs, including Developer Technical Support and the Developer Essentials software subscription program. Together with its ISV partners, Sun is delivering powerful business solutions for the global enterprise.

Pricing and Availability

• Sun is shipping x86 systems that include a Solaris OS license. For more information see http://www.sun.com/lx50.
• Licenses start at $99 for commercial deployment. The Solaris 9 software is available for download at http://wwws.sun.com/software/download. Sun is offering attractive license terms permitting re-distribution by OEMs.
• Sun provides support for the Solaris x86 Platform Edition. Full licensing and support information is available at http://www.sun.com/service/support/sw_only/solaris1.html
• The Free Solaris[sm] Binary License Program for non-commercial use and used by non-profit organizations is described at http://wwws.sun.com/software/solaris/binaries.
• Source code can be licensed to customers.

About the Solaris Operating System

The Solaris Operating System (Solaris OS) is the premiere OS for the enterprise. With over 300 new features, the Solaris 9 OS is the most scalable, available, manageable and secure services platform for the networked world. By focusing on industry standards, the Internet, innovation and integration, the Solaris 9 OS delivers a documented lower cost of operation. The Solaris OS is the leading UNIX platform operating system with Sun servers owning 54 percent worldwide UNIX market share in shipments and 34 percent worldwide UNIX revenue share, according to Gartner Dataquest’s 3Q02 Servers Quarterly Statistics.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision — “The Network Is The Computer[tm]” — has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that make the Net work. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com

All SPARC trademarks are used under license and are trademark or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. in the US and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.

UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries, exclusively licensed through X/Open company, Ltd.

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Java, Solaris, SunScreen and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries.