Comment Re:What's the point? (Score 3, Informative) 96
Well one reason it's useful is that it's possible to partition POWER servers down to tenths of a CPU so it's easy to find space to run something like p-AVE. Another is that SLES is licensed by the box rather than by CPUs or LPARs so anything that helps get more apps to run is a good thing.
I've got a 16 CPU P570 here at work and we run Linux on it exclusively due to the cost, as AIX means that you get soaked on costlier licenses. I've done my share of trying to get apps (primarily statistical programs) to work on the POWER CPU. I got R to work but there plenty of other programs that either don't have source or won't compile cleanly though part of that is almost certainly due to my GCC n00bishness so being able to run the x86 version right away is compelling.
I'm also beta-testing p-AVE right now. It works and is easy to get up and running. It's slow right now though compared to something that can run on POWER. It's interesting that this isn't an IBM product. It is from the same company who made Rosetta for Apple, namely Transitive Corp. So in one product you're going from PowerPC to Intel and the other goes Intel to POWER. It looks like IBM are going to do what Apple did and swallow the cost for end-users (or maybe make it back in Global Services consulting fees).
I've got a 16 CPU P570 here at work and we run Linux on it exclusively due to the cost, as AIX means that you get soaked on costlier licenses. I've done my share of trying to get apps (primarily statistical programs) to work on the POWER CPU. I got R to work but there plenty of other programs that either don't have source or won't compile cleanly though part of that is almost certainly due to my GCC n00bishness so being able to run the x86 version right away is compelling.
I'm also beta-testing p-AVE right now. It works and is easy to get up and running. It's slow right now though compared to something that can run on POWER. It's interesting that this isn't an IBM product. It is from the same company who made Rosetta for Apple, namely Transitive Corp. So in one product you're going from PowerPC to Intel and the other goes Intel to POWER. It looks like IBM are going to do what Apple did and swallow the cost for end-users (or maybe make it back in Global Services consulting fees).
