Way OT: Anyone running big SPARC boxes?

[William Burns]

Peter Bonivart wrote:

> Raymond Dijkxhoorn wrote:
>
>>> For a 4-way system look at the V440, it's much cheaper than the other
>>> 4-way system, the V480 and performs about the same. All these cheaper
>>> Sun's have smaller on board caches but still large compared to PC HW.
>>>
>>> After this it becomes not so cheap any more (V880 and up) so I would
>>> recommend multiple servers of the above models before a bigger iron.
>>> Always easier to upgrade the software with redundant servers than one
>>> big one anyway.
>>
>>
>> We did mailscanning with a V880, one iof the bigger SUN boxes, but
>> replaces it with a dual xeon. Its simply a waste of money to do scanning
>> on SPARC systems.
>
Well... Running a mail gateway on a SPARC machine wouldn't be my FIRST
thought.

On the other hand, SUN also has the sunfire v60, an INTEL based machine
which is available w/ single or dual processors. It is an Intel MB+1U
case, rebranded by SUN, and (optionally) running Solaris.

Another option is the Sunfire V20z. I haven't had chance to look at it
yet, but its another 1U intel box. I suspect that it is a SUN original
as opposed to rebranded hardware.
Unfortunately, I also suspect that its not on the solaris HCL yet !!!
I'm hoping that the V20z's Lights-Out-Management feature is a
traditional LOM from the SPARC world. If so, it'd be a big improvement
over my existing mail gateways, which require access to KVM ports in
remote locations that are not controlled by me.

Neither of the above machines are too expensive for mail gateway hardware.
On the other hand, Solaris license costs are higher for Intel machines.
That might push you to a Sunfire V210, which (for mail gateway hardware)
is a lesser price/performer, starting at $3500 for a single 1Ghz
processor, and only 512MB Ram.
(by the way, the V210 can be ordered w/ dual CPUs, just not dual
power-supplies)

> As you yourself quoted me on, the V880 is not cost effective for this
> kind of system. It's meant for other tasks and for your information it's
> ranked as low end by Sun, it's definitely not "one of the bigger Sun
> boxes".

(Still classed as "entry level" hardware by Sun, and starting at over $30K)

> A lot of you seem very hostile towards Sun even though you're
> either using really old equipment which was expensive 5-10 years ago or
> current equipment which is not suited to the task. If you want to
> comment on Sun please get updated with current products and prices.

Nah, It's not the pricing. I'm just upset 'cause I upgraded from SunOS
4.1.3 (now running Solaris 9) and I STILL can't get LPD working right.
"The network is the computer"?
Hello?!?

> To
> me it's real annoying that so many bashes Sun who has contributed
> tremendously to your beloved Linux. NIS, NFS, Java, Flashplayer 7,
> Star/Open Office, Gnome, the list goes on and on with stuff that Sun
> pays fully or partly to provide you with. Cut them some slack will you.

Peter:
If I'm not mistaken, those comments were from BSD users, so don't take
it personally. They snipe at everyone.

Hopefully I can respond to this without offending TOO much. (more?)
...and please feel free to contradict me if I divert from reality somewhere.

NIS/NFS:
These SUN contributions were great for their time, but I'd put them in
the "what have you done for me lately" category. Sun used to benefit
greatly from open source packages like sendmail, the various GNU tools,
etc. NIS, NFS (and, for that matter, UFS) have not kept up w/ the times.
Sun even seems to have washed it's hands of  PCNFS. (possibly to be less
of a microsoft target) Hopefully LDAP and GFS or something like them
will mature and standardize in the UNIX world, but I don't see SUN
leading us there anymore.

Java:
What great promise, and what a tragic state of affairs.
I'm not aware of a "real" Java implementation in the open-source world,
which I think would be prohibited by Sun's licensing model. Possibly Sun
is kept distracted by the failure of US courts to properly enforce the
Sun license in the face of Microsoft violations, but that doesn't change
the reality.
Java may still be making progress, but relatively speaking, it has
stalled, and fallen far short of the original "promise".
Microsoft's .net, and the (open sourced) mono project are evidence of
the world attempting to sidestep Java to the detriment of SUN.
Given that this is the case, it baffles me that Sun's latest round of
product renaming has attached the Java name to everything.

Flashplayer 7
Really? Cool.

Star/Open Office
This is indeed a great contribution to modern computing.
If only the world had not already standardized on the MS-Office sweet,
this could have been (and still might become) a world changing event for
every day people.

Gnome
Hey, it looks great. Better than OpenWindows, or CDE.
I've even heard RedHat employees speaking kindly about the contributions
made by SUN to this project.
On the other hand, I've got to wonder whether Sun-Desktop benefits more
from Gnome, than Gnome benefits from Sun. Either way, everybody wins,
assuming that Sun can manage to sell some desktop systems.
Speaking of which, when is Sun ever going to figure out how to sell
those Sun-Ray things?

> Since this is going off topic rapidly I will not answer any follow ups
> to this post.


I know that SUN shoulders a larger burden, maintaining excellent
application binary compatibility between versions of Solaris, as opposed
to "not even trying" in the Linux world ..But really, if McNealy is
going to relegate Solaris to the role of "piston ring", I don't know how
many people he's going to get to buy great piston rings, to build cars,
before they can get where they're going.

Sun has the parts, but they should be making the path to a finished
product more visible.

-Bill

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