The Sun Blade Blog

Sun Blade 6000 10GbE Multi-Fabric Network Express Module

We have a new Network Express Module (NEM) for the Sun Blade 6000 chassis.  

Take a look.

Posted at 01:59PM Aug 27, 2008 by Amit Raman in Personal  |  Comments[0]

IBM BladeCenter Lies, Continued

It seems like we keep coming back to this topic.  IBM updated their "Dare To Compare" web page .  They are misrepresenting facts about our blade server product line.

 IBM Says:

Sun offers the Sun Blade 6000, Sun Blade 8000 and Netra CT900. With Sun, 2-socket and 4-socket blade servers cannot run in the same chassis. Like HP, Sun lacks compatibility and fails to understand that being able to move blades and switches between chassis can help reduce your IT cost and complexity.

This is incorrect.  Customers can place Sun Blade X6450 (4-socket) and X6250 (2-socket) server modules in the same chassis.

IBM Says:

Sun offers Sun SPARC, Intel Xeon and AMD Opteron. Sun boasts 10 servers in a 10U 6000-series chassis. This is far from dense. IBM BladeCenter H offers 40% better density with 14 servers in 9U and IBM BladeCenter E is twice as dense with 14 servers in 7U when you leverage a 42U rack.

IBM is wrong again.  IBM's density gets cut in half if you add an expansion blade for the HS21.  In order to match Sun's CPU, Memory and storage density, IBM customers sacrifice a lot.  

IBM Says:

Currently Sun does not support solid state drives.

IBM has not been paying attention to our recent SSD announcements.  Our blades will support SSDs, very soon.  Just ask your Sun rep.

There is much more on the IBM page.  If you want some clarification, please leave me a note on this blog.

Posted at 03:13PM Aug 08, 2008 by Amit Raman in Personal  |  Comments[2]

A July 2008 Posting

I have not posted in a while, so I thought I'd do something fun for this post, and not talk blades per se.  Our software portfolio gets a lot of press time, so I wanted to try them out.  I installed the StarOffice 9 BETA and xVM VirtualBox.  I also downloaded an ISO image for OpenSolaris.  I've coded with Java and MySQL previously, so I did not download them.  I've got a Mac OS X 10.5 laptop (1GB RAM).  Here are my noted impressions.  Screenshots are provided below as proof that I did boot OpenSolaris, through xVM VirtualBox, on my OS X.  Enjoy.

StarOffice 9 BETA

- I was skeptical at first.  Anything that says BETA and is a first timer on a Mac, is doomed for failure

- I am pleased to say that this BETA has worked really well.  Compared with OpenOffice, the load time is faster, the copy+paste works and whole experience is smoother

xVM VirtualBox

- Note the 'xVM' in the name.  This is the latest download of the software.  It supports OpenSolaris and many Windows' flavors

- It's free

- Setup was easy.  But, the dialog box for ISO booting was hard to find at first

- I only have 1 GB RAM on my machine.  Response time was good, but not great.  More horsepower would have helped. 

OpenSolaris

- It did boot!  What else can I say, it's up to creative developers to make the most of this combination.  

I am certain that developers, students and IT professionals can use our tools.  And while you're at, please run our software on our blade platforms. 

Posted at 07:45PM Jul 22, 2008 by Amit Raman in Personal  |  Comments[0]

Sun Blades Now Support All PCIe and PCI-X Cards

The title says it all.  Magma has created an ExpressModule that passes the PCIe signals from our blades to Magma's expansion box (see below).  The expansion boxes are 1U-4U and can hold PCI-X and PCIe cards.  Voila!  Our blades can be used for demanding visualization, telecom, BIDW and media applications.  Customers with customized PCI-X, PCIe cards [i.e.: SS7 telecom cards], should strongly consider Sun Blade Modular Systems as a deployment platform. 

The expansion boxes hold x4 to x16 cards in all form factors.  This solution  holds more  cards than  competing products from HP & IBM.  Pricing starts at $1900.   Please contact your  Sun rep. for full details. 

UPDATE: I've created a page on our Sun Blade Wiki.  Please take a look here.

UPDATE: The PR for this announcement is available.

Posted at 03:54PM May 22, 2008 by Amit Raman in Personal  |  Comments[0]

More Sun Blades in High Performance Computing

File this under increased traction for Sun Blades in HPC

#1
The Sun Constellation System received Supercomputing Online's Editors' Choice - 2007 Product of the Year Award. 

#2
Another design win for Sun Blades at UAE University with a 100 blade, 8.3 Terraflop grid.  Another potential Top 500 Super Computing entry for Sun Blades. 
[Read More]

Posted at 06:56PM Mar 31, 2008 by blades in Personal  |  Comments[0]