Comment Why not the reverse? (Score 1) 96
This is not an IBM technology, but instead is based on a technology developed by Transitive.
It would be much more useful if IBM would offer the version of Transitive software which allows POWER applications to run on x86 systems, rather than the reverse. The only thing which makes sense to run on a emulator on a IBM POWER system would be a mainframe environment.
Why emulate the most mass-produced CPU instruction set ever, given the ISA is still in mass production? Why emulate the cheap volume processor on a more expensive, proprietary platform? The reverse makes much more sense. The more expensive, more closed architecture should be emulated on the less expensive, more open platform.
I fail to understand what value running x86 Linux apps on POWER provides. Intel Woodcrest and AMD Opteron provide great 64-bit performance, the AMD/Intel competition keeps prices dirt cheap and innovation moving at light-speed, and VMware provides fine-grained virtualization. And just like the AMD/Intel war keeps processor prices low, the coming Xen/VMware war is going to cut the cost of virtualization.
Emulators are needed to support customers on processor architectures which are dead. That is Alpha and PA-RISC. Next would be current platforms which customers want to move off of. That would be the Mainframe first, then Itanium, and after that perhaps SPARC and POWER.
There are clearly some weird politics going on at Transitive.
HP's partnership with Transitive is not focused on taking care of HP's own Alpha and PA-RISC customers, but instead on offering a SPARC on Itanium emulator. HP does have a partnership with a mainframe emulator, which makes some sense, but why not offer consolidated hosting to your own existing customers first?
IBM's partnership with Transitive is not focused on POWER or mainframe customers, but instead on offering an x86 on POWER emulator.
I can never envision the business case for emulating the industry-standard x86 architecture on a proprietary RISC platform like IBM's POWER.
I would love to see VMware buy Transitive and offer the ability to create Alpha, PA-RISC, Mainframe, Itanium, POWER, and SPARC VMs on ESX server. Of course if they did that, it would be EMC declaring war on the rest of the IT industry, but it would be a really cool product.
It would be much more useful if IBM would offer the version of Transitive software which allows POWER applications to run on x86 systems, rather than the reverse. The only thing which makes sense to run on a emulator on a IBM POWER system would be a mainframe environment.
Why emulate the most mass-produced CPU instruction set ever, given the ISA is still in mass production? Why emulate the cheap volume processor on a more expensive, proprietary platform? The reverse makes much more sense. The more expensive, more closed architecture should be emulated on the less expensive, more open platform.
I fail to understand what value running x86 Linux apps on POWER provides. Intel Woodcrest and AMD Opteron provide great 64-bit performance, the AMD/Intel competition keeps prices dirt cheap and innovation moving at light-speed, and VMware provides fine-grained virtualization. And just like the AMD/Intel war keeps processor prices low, the coming Xen/VMware war is going to cut the cost of virtualization.
Emulators are needed to support customers on processor architectures which are dead. That is Alpha and PA-RISC. Next would be current platforms which customers want to move off of. That would be the Mainframe first, then Itanium, and after that perhaps SPARC and POWER.
There are clearly some weird politics going on at Transitive.
HP's partnership with Transitive is not focused on taking care of HP's own Alpha and PA-RISC customers, but instead on offering a SPARC on Itanium emulator. HP does have a partnership with a mainframe emulator, which makes some sense, but why not offer consolidated hosting to your own existing customers first?
IBM's partnership with Transitive is not focused on POWER or mainframe customers, but instead on offering an x86 on POWER emulator.
I can never envision the business case for emulating the industry-standard x86 architecture on a proprietary RISC platform like IBM's POWER.
I would love to see VMware buy Transitive and offer the ability to create Alpha, PA-RISC, Mainframe, Itanium, POWER, and SPARC VMs on ESX server. Of course if they did that, it would be EMC declaring war on the rest of the IT industry, but it would be a really cool product.
