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Sun Announces New AMD-Based Product Line

Posted by simoniker on Mon Nov 17, 2003 01:31 PM
from the has-got-his-hat-on dept.
Sun Microsystems AMD
Transfan76 writes "Today Sun Microsystems has officially announced an alliance with AMD. They "have formed an alliance to deliver a broad range of AMD Opteron[tm] processor-based systems, Sun also announced it plans to offer its Java Enterprise System on the AMD Opteron processor and is significantly extending the reach of its Solaris Operating System (OS) and leadership in the 64-bit space." You can read the official press release from Sun here. And the AMD release here." We previously reported rumored plans to this effect a few days back.
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  • From Sun's press release [sun.com]:

    "By running the current version of the Solaris OS on the AMD Opteron processor platform, we are experiencing substantial improvements in kernel performance for Solaris over other x86-based systems, " said John Fowler, chief technology officer, software, Sun Microsystems. "With the Solaris OS running on the AMD Opteron processor, our customers and partners can take advantage of unique features such as containers delivering virtualization and high levels of security. Solaris has led

    • Slick, yet entertaining. 8 out of 10 troll points.

      "...second only to the Windows..." gave it away. Any Sun employee uttering that phrase would probably be publically executed.
    • Interesting, I could not find the paragraph you mentioned in the release.

      This is the original paragraph:

      "By running the current version of the Solaris OS on the AMD Opteron processor platform, we are experiencing substantial improvements in kernel performance for Solaris over other x86-based systems, " said John Fowler, chief technology officer, software, Sun Microsystems. "With the Solaris OS running on the AMD Opteron processor, our customers and partners can take advantage of unique features such as co

    • Re:But will this really help web-focused enterpris (Score:5, Funny)

      by oldmanmtn (33675) on Monday November 17 2003, @01:46PM (#7494743)
      optimizing their syndicated dynamic solutions marketbase...cross-media functionalities...enterprise-level mindshare paradigms

      Good god man! You've created a Content Black Hole! You're dragging down the Scores of every post in the vicinity!

    • Solaris has led the industry in proven military grade security built-in to the OS, and with Trusted Solaris OS, offering unmatched levels of privacy, second only to the Windows .NET security framework.

      Second to Microsoft? How is this good for SUN?

  • AMD SPARC? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by forgoil (104808) on Monday November 17 2003, @01:35PM (#7494629) Homepage
    I assume that AMD at this point in time has no plans for any SPARC CPUs, but I wonder how much AMD could do if they got all Sun's SPARC resources and basically bodged together a next gen SPARC from the Opteron. But something tells me that x86-64 is the way of the future if Sun don't want to slip behind more.
    • Going on the performance of SPARC's design teams thus far, it'd make the Opteron run slower.
    • Actually I think they are going to combine the two words: thus we get SPAMD :-) Seriously though, this is great news for AMD, and as long as AMD stays afloat it will help keep cpu prices down.

    • Re:AMD SPARC? (Score:5, Informative)

      by southpolesammy (150094) on Monday November 17 2003, @01:53PM (#7494823) Homepage Journal
      SPARC is an open specification. Nothing's stopping them from doing it now, except perhaps ROI.
            • Sadly, I agree with you for the most part.

              If Sun can come out with a 2GHz UltraSparc IV by the end of next year, they'll at least be back in the workstation market. (2GHz USIV will approximately compare to a 6GHz P4.) As far as true innovation at Sun, there are three things which MIGHT pan out into a quantum leap like they've pulled off before.

              1) Throughput computing. Actually having a complete system (processor, RAM, I/O, video, and all busses) built together to efficiently stream data from any one end t

  • Wonderful news (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17 2003, @01:36PM (#7494634)
    Air conditioning manufacturers specialising in cooling server rooms will be delighted with Sun's switch...
    • All I can say is that it can't be worse than what Sun's traditionally made.

      I at one point had an opportunity to come in contact with a prototype embedded Sparc chip and reference board. The thing drew *70 watts* of power. For an embedded board.

      My old university was recently (okay, it's been a few years now) donated a 64-unit sparc cluster by a national laboratory who was done with it. Last I'd heard they only had 2 units powered up -- they needed to have their (large, heavy-duty) server room refitted with
  • This is good for AMD, giving them additional credibility and sales in the short term. But it doesn't address Sun's long-term problems: they aren't competitive in terms of hardware and they can't make money from Java.
    • So releasing new competitive hardware doesn't address "they aren't competitive in terms of hardware"?

      • And at least the *real* performance of Opteron is a refreshing change from the old Sun habit of relying on myth and illusion to sell their hardware. Now they reserve that role to the OS alone, we'll see how long that will last ;-).

        SPARC is not a speed demon. For a long time now, lots of "commodity" CPUs have been more impressive performers, especially when one considers price/performance ratios. The benefit of Sun hardware for many years now has been in the IO subsystems. Fiber based drive arrays and

  • Who Knowns (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17 2003, @01:41PM (#7494694)
    The Java Desktop they could create some serious revenue. Imagine a large company with Opteron workstation for engineering and scientific appilcations and SunRays as e-mail/web/StarOffice boxes.

    Sun, the company who is now renowed for their expensive systems could use "commodity" computing to bring themselves back and Linux to the desktop. Who would have thought.
    • Sun, the company who is now renowned for their expensive systems could use "commodity" computing to bring themselves back and Linux to the desktop. Who would have though

      Great plan, but there are a few points. Sun appears to be an hour late and a dime short. They are finally doing now what they should have done two years ago. Their stock is in ruins, their founders have split with their pensions, and all that is left is the heaping ruins of a giant that moves to slow to avoid extinction.

      If I were Sun

    • Re:Who Knowns (Score:5, Interesting)

      by digitalhermit (113459) on Monday November 17 2003, @02:21PM (#7495085) Homepage
      It could be one of those ideas whose time has finally arrived. My experience with Java hasn't been all that great. There are several competing Java VMs and each had idiosyncracies and problems that precluded the "write once, run anywhere" philosophy from actually working. Getting Java to work under Linux is not quite as simple as under Windows or MacOS, and messages on news groups, the Fedora Core lists, and in local LUGs attest to this.

      The latest releases are *much* easier, however. I downloaded and installed the latest Sun Java SDK on a Fedora Core 1 machine. The graphical installer put everything in /opt (not exactly LSB, but I can live with it) and exited. It didn't set JAVA_HOME or adjust any user PATH variables, but hunting through the instructions I was able to find the correct chapter (I knew this before reading, just wanted to confirm that they did say so).

      Now Java has always had this (perhaps undeserved) reputation for being slow. Not the case with Java/Fedora. Whether it's the NPTL that's part of Fedora or optimizations in the Java VM itself, the jar files I tried opened as quickly as natively compiled applications. Responsiveness was just as good. For the record I tried Jedit, Arachnophilia, Mindterm, WeirdX and a bunch of math/science applications for fractals, mapping, function graphing, etc.. Yes, a lot of the applications are already available natively under Linux, but the idea that I can move my desktop environment to anywhere without setting up automatic NFS mounts, playing with VNC servers, or fussing with roaming profiles is pretty cool.

      Now I'm not as big a Sun fan as I was five years ago, but I think this technology is pretty cool.

  • IBM and now Sun (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Euphonious Coward (189818) on Monday November 17 2003, @01:46PM (#7494737)
    With IBM shipping Opteron boxes, and now Sun announcing, it seems the Opteron architecture probably has legs. When HP announces, all doubt will fade.

    (If you never had doubts about Opteron's ultimate prospects, consider Alpha. It had more going for it than Opteron ever did, and generations earlier. Current Alphas (EV7 and EV79) are fully competitive with current Opteron and Itanium, even without a proper engineering team for several years, yet the Alpha is "dead".)

    Intel could do a lot worse than to revive it. It may need to, to stay competitive with Opteron.

    • When HP announces, all doubt will fade. Not very likely. That would seriously confuse their customers, given the enormous investment HP is making in Itanium.
      • "given the enormous investment HP is making in Itanium"

        Exactly. HP will be the last major manufacturer to announce Opteron servers. They will only do it when market pressure grows too great not to.

        Recall that HP just spent enormous capital (of all kinds) absorbing Compaq. They don't have much of a cushion to ride out the Itanium failure. Therefore, they may well be forced to field Opterons despite their misgivings. When that happens, that will be the final imprimatur for Opteron.

        By then, maybe Al

    • HP to intro Athlon 64 desktop today (Score:4, Informative)

      by whig (6869) * on Monday November 17 2003, @03:50PM (#7495886) Homepage Journal
      According to the Inquirer [theinquirer.net]:

      AMD IS LIKELY to get a boost from Hewlett Packard today, with reports saying the firm will start selling a Presario 8000Z as soon as Wednesday.

      According to the report on cnet.mp3.com, HP will offer a variety of different options with the desktop, which will be available in retail this week.

      The machine, the report says, is just one of a family of Athlon 64 desktops HP will sell, and costs $1,239 for a basic machine.

      But HP won't start using the Athlon FX - a sort of Opteron - for a little while, it appears. If and when it does, it will be offered as a gaming machine.

      The announcement is a boost for AMD, coupled with Sun's expected endorsement of its Opteron microprocessors today.
      • They won't have much trouble out-selling itanium [theinquirer.net].

        This could be one of the final nails in itanic's coffin (or maybe the iceberg that finally sinks it.)

        When will Carly wield the axe? And what will intel do now?

    • [Alpha] had more going for it than Opteron ever did, and generations earlier.

      Maybe from an engineering perspective, but one thing Opteron has that Alpha doesn't is compatibility with existing x86 applications. That's going to mean a lot to a lot of people because they think it will reduce the cost of a transition. Whether or not it is actually cheaper is irrelevant if customers think Opteron will make it cheaper.
      • Itanium 1 blew chunks. Very slowly.

        Itanium 2 actaully contains a fair bit of Alpha technology, and in the right situations is not a bad processor. (It's not my style of processor though, I'm anti-VLIW pro-OOO).

        However, if all the investment within DEC and Compaq and HPaq that was diverted to other projects over the last few years had been maintained for the Alpha project, I'm sure that the hypothetical late-2003 Alphas would be more powerful than the I2.

        It was burried alive, there's no denying that.
        Good

  • Excellent! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by painehope (580569) on Monday November 17 2003, @01:47PM (#7494748)
    The AMD64 ( or x86-64, whatever we're calling it this week ) architecture is very promising, and Sun is still an excellent vendor ( despite numerous blunders...they've made some horrible mistakes, but they've also had some great successes ).
    This has the potential to breathe new life into both vendors, and gives us all an alternative, which is important in a marketplace that has such a dynamic history but is currently being choked to death by certain vendors that think marketing is more important than quality.
    Now who should I get my next worksation from, IBM w/ SUSE or RHWS, or Sun w/ their desktop Linux stack? Hmm...
  • What we all want to know is, when do we get to see 106 CPU Opteron systems!? Tiny little 8 cpu systems just don't cut it any more!

  • Sun also announces 0.5-1m desktop win in China (Score:5, Informative)

    by ChrisRijk (1818) on Monday November 17 2003, @01:51PM (#7494798)
    Register article [theregister.co.uk]
    Along with the Opteron systems, Sun announced a big win for its Java Desktop System. The Chinese government will roll out 500,000 to one million PCs with the software over the next year.


    "This, I believe makes us the number one Linux player on the planet," McNealy said. "The goal is to reach the Chinese government's goal of 500 million alternative desktops, and you can decide what alternative means."

      • JDS (Java Desktop System) runs off Gnome etc.
        Solaris is moving to Gnome (ie JDS) to be default UI.

        ie if you had a Sun system and a Linux/x86 system with JDS side by side, the UI would be identical.

        At Comdex they had JDS running on a Sun Ray (which runs of SPARC/Solaris servers)

        So, you'll get your wish ^-^
  • Wow, did they really just say what I thought they said? Lacking an OS? How could HP be lacking an OS for a processor (Itanium) it virtually built? How could IBM's usage of Linux be taken as anything but having an OS for those platforms. What a load.

  • No pulled punches (Score:5, Funny)

    by painehope (580569) on Monday November 17 2003, @01:55PM (#7494837)
    stands as a beacon for HP and IBM customers facing a dead-end Unix, and Microsoft customers frustrated with security and fragility
    I wouldn't be surprised if they kicked a dog on the way off the stage...

  • Union of the underdogs? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Shutter_BC (412933) on Monday November 17 2003, @01:59PM (#7494882) Homepage
    I've been an AMD fan for quite a while, as anyone who reads articles at Anandtech [anandtech.com] tends to become. This has been more or less already stated, but... where is this going to lead without a strong media presence or public interest? I wonder how Sun and AMD plan to educate non-techies and convince them that they're cool [apple.com].

    I wish the both of them the best of luck, and one of these days, may good engineering prevail. I hope.

    • Had to say it (Score:5, Funny)

      by aardwolf204 (630780) on Monday November 17 2003, @04:02PM (#7496041)
      I've been an AMD fan for quite a while

      You must be very dizzy. My AMD fan goes 5000 RPM.


      Sorry, couldnt resist. I like AMD too, and yes, Anand could take Tom any day.

  • Reported by Slashdot? (Score:5, Informative)

    by szquirrel (140575) on Monday November 17 2003, @02:00PM (#7494890) Homepage
    We previously reported rumored plans to this effect a few days back.

    Where "previously reported" means "we linked to the article on news.com".

    Credit where credit is due?

  • And how good is that? (Score:4, Funny)

    by AndroidCat (229562) on Monday November 17 2003, @02:04PM (#7494922) Homepage
    [..] offering unmatched levels of privacy, second only to the Windows .NET security framework.

    Second to .NET's security? I have a bad feeling about this...

  • What about a compiler? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mi (197448) <mi+slashdot@aldan.algebra.com> on Monday November 17 2003, @02:40PM (#7495271) Homepage

    Sun offers a fairly advanced compiler and, perhaps more importantly, "performance libraries" on their Sparc machines. Intel is doing the same on their machines -- Linux, FreeBSD (via port [freshports.org]), and Windows. Will Sun do likewise with AMD or will they just help GCC in the amd64 optimization area(s)?

  • 'Java64' architecture based ...

    • Re:Why AMD? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by chill (34294) on Monday November 17 2003, @01:42PM (#7494695) Homepage Journal
      IBM is a major competitor of Sun. And since Sun has SPARC, it has all it needs in the way of non-x86 processors. It needs a good x86-compatible offering.

      Why not Intel? I think Sun & Intel are old enemies over the SPARC/x86 competition.
    • That doesn't even make sense! Java is a language, not an OS! Yes these systems will have Java installed on them, but so will StarOffice, GNOME and other pieces of software. The reason why Sun went with the Opteron is simple, they can present a unified software solution to the customer. Run Linux or Solaris in 64bit mode no matter how large the machine is. Whether its single cpu Opteron, or 64way SPARC box. Makes alot of sense...
      • Java is a language, not an OS!

        I believe that in Sun's current worldview Java is a meaningless trademark to be slapped onto anything: hence Java Desktop. We should have seen the warning signs early with Javascript.

    • Re:Why AMD? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by jared_hanson (514797) on Monday November 17 2003, @01:49PM (#7494774) Homepage Journal
      Well, IBM is one of Sun's largest competitors, so it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to jump in bed with them. There probably isn't a whole lot of reason to not choose Intel, other than the fact that Sun operates on religious principles rather than business ones.

      Sun likes to think they have the power to stick it to anyone they want. So, they are going after Intel by partnering with AMD. These practices haven't played out well for them in recent years.

      Sun stuck with UNIX in a time when everyone was getting away from it. This paid off well for them a few years back. However, they have since used the same philosophy and have been digging a big hole. They tried to ride out on Solaris and SPARC, but the shift is towards Linux and x86. This move is a step in the right direction, but it might be too late. They have Java, but while Sun has been moping around, IBM jumped on the Linux bandwagon, and took a lot of the Java momentum away from Sun.

      In short, if Sun would have played their cards right, they could be where IBM is today. Now, however, they have 2-3 years of catchup to do, and not many people are going to wait around.

      • Re:Why AMD? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by oldmanmtn (33675) on Monday November 17 2003, @02:48PM (#7495344)
        There probably isn't a whole lot of reason to not choose Intel, other than the fact that Sun operates on religious principles rather than business ones.

        Opteron is cheaper, faster, and requires less power than Itanium. AMD's 64-bit ISA is a hell of a lot cleaner than Itanic's. And AMD appears to be making the switch to 90nm technology faster and better [theregister.co.uk] than Intel, which will further help their power/cooling story.

    • Re:Why AMD? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      >Considering that these are JAVA based systems, why
      >pick the processor that bent over backwards to be
      >x86 compatible?

      Because despite the Java branding, Sun's Java Desktop System is really an x86 Suse-based Linux distribution, complete with Gnome. (Java Enterprise System is Solaris with Gnome.)

      Of course, Java is also included, and is a key part in Sun's strategy with these systems. But the "Java Desktop..." and "Java Enterprise..." names are pure marketing.

      • ... Sun's Java Desktop System is really an x86 Suse-based Linux distribution, complete with Gnome.

        Ding! Right.

        (Java Enterprise System is Solaris with Gnome.)

        Bzzzt! Wrong.

        Java Enterprise System is the re-branding of the Sun ONE server stack -- web, application, directory, identity portal and a few more things --, with a fixed, yearly per-employee license price and a synchronized quarterly upgrade schedule.

        If I'm not mistaken, Java Desktop System will become the default desktop for Solaris as well

    • Re:Why AMD? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Hoser McMoose (202552) on Monday November 17 2003, @02:14PM (#7495007)

      Could be because the Opteron is one of the fastest chip in the world at executing Java code right now, and that's when running in IA-32 (aka 32-bit x86) mode?

      Check out the results for SPEC JBB2000 [spec.org]. On a per-processor basis, AMD's Opteron chips are second only to Intel/HP Itanium2 based systems, and the Opterons are quite a bit cheaper. Actually, when combined with the new x48 Opteron chips announced alongside the Sun deal, AMD should make up most of the current 8% difference between the two chips.

      So, they get better performance than anything IBM has to offer (even the full-fledged Power4 can't match the Opteron in Java if the above test is to be believed) and a much lower price tag than what Intel is looking for. Seems like a pretty good choice if you ask me.

    • The meat in "Java-based systems" is good old C and C++ software. Sun's "Java desktop" is Gnome with a Java runtime shipping with it. Sun's "Java server" stuff is a C kernel with C userland stuff and a Java runtime.

      Sun loves to attach the name "Java" to anything they can, to cover up the fact that what people actually do with Java is pretty limited. In that sense, they aren't all that different from Microsoft and ".NET".
    • And on the other side of the anecdotal and completely irrelevant evidence fence, I've never once had a problem with AMD's processors on the very large number of installs that I've done and supported. Not a single one.

      Of course, I've also been smart enough to make sure each unit either comes equipped with a set of quality fans, or to pass along the order for the same to staff. And we don't select for substandard motherboards either. The smart professional will spend the few extra bucks to avoid the probl
    • Their only strength was hardware and support. Now they will ship commodity hardware and compete with a company that kicks ass in support (IBM). I kinda feel sorry for them, they should have fired Scott McNealy LOONG time ago.

      Not true. It's not like Sun is going to stop doing what it normally does. It is simply expanding it's product offerings in the same way that IBM has.

      People that were going to buy AMD or x86 now have the option of going with Sun, where they would have had to chosen a different

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