Sun Microsystems Inc. is hoping to lure users of Hewlett-Packard Co.’s Alpha server technology with an incentive program that includes no-risk assessments of migrating to the SPARC/Solaris platform.
Sun Seeks to Lure Alpha Users
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Eugenia Loli
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It still eludes me why HP hasn’t sold the Alpha IP yet. It seems to me that Intel or Sun should purchase it for its branch prediction technology, if nothing else, which has remained state-of-the-art despite almost a decade without any development. Both Sun and Intel would make excellent candidates for purchasing the Alpha IP, especially considering the direction the EV7 Alpha was supposed to go, which was a massively multicore SMT design similar to Sun’s upcoming Niagra processor, which would theoretically support 32 threads in hardware.
Compaq did sell the Alpha IP to Intel before the HP merger.
Why would any company want to stay with a proprietary solution when open-source is being pushed so much? Especially using overly expensive Sun equipment?
One word: Scalability. Solaris scales WAY better than Linux. At least right now. Linux will catch up with Solaris eventually, probably even pass it by. But for the time being, if you need 106 procs in a single cabinet, controlled by a single OS instance, Solaris is the only way to fly.
I have wondered that myself. IBM should dump the PowerPC, kill off all their other processors and use Intel. Apple should switch as well. The whole world should switch to Intel.
Oh, you probably meant the linux kernel. Well when it is reliable enough some might switch somw might not. Depends on what support you can get. But support costs money.
Let’s see, SUSE is $79,95 for single user. Solaris x86 is $20 download or 95 for the media kit, 100 licenses free. Or you can go with RH AS, that’s really cheap isn’t it? Or windows 2003 server, not cheap, but buggy enough for anyone.
Clear cases for switching to the Solaris kernel, don’t you think??.
This pretty much eliminates anything sun sells.
Even the starcat is slower then a well configured IBM power4 box.
Alpha people with go where the speed is cause that is why they bought the alpha.
Sun is a generation behind in processor performance.
I don’t mean to start a flame war or anything, but your argument doesn’t really hold up. For one thing, most Linux distro’s are available for a free download. And you can put them on unlimited servers.
You could argue with the cost of support, but I’d bet Sun charges a wee bit more than $20 if you want support too. If you’re not willing to pay for support, you could always buy a boxed set of Red Hat, SuSE or Mandrake and put that on every computer in the world, if you were so inclined.
Me, I’d rather just download a Debian CD and put it on every computer I own. Total cost: The bandwith usage for the download, the cost of the CD-R disc, and the electricty it cost to burn it.
The point you are missing is most businesses don’t download and use free software for infrastructue use … that’s Sun’s market. Why do you think RH sells AS and gets about 95% of their revenues from that. and why SUSE and MD are joining in the AS marketing.
What always amazes me is the argument over a kernel. Why not just use the one you think will do the best job. In many cases that’s not the Linux kernel. If I were recommending a server software architecture for a business, I would not go with a ‘downloaded anything’. My recommendation would come with full support.
I don’t think the MS monopoly was good, nor do I think the Linux monopoly is any better. One size doesn’t fit anyone well.
Less critical jobs download away. But for 24/7 uptime, buy a debugged and supported jernel with a track record. This is going to be HPs problem with the Itanic bigtime. I have downloaded and installed and used just about all the Linux major distros and don’t find them the be all end all solution. They work, but there are better options.
Not trying to start a flame ware either … just making a point. Everyone says Sun’s stuff is proprietary, but so is Intel’s, IBMs, Apple’s RH AS, and many others.
The only real problem with the Alpha was the lack of a native OS.
Now with little development and still no OS well…
What do you mean by Native? Tru64 isnt native enough for you? VMS also runs on them afaik, and so does linux. I use Linux on my alpha on a daily basis. Cant forget NT4 either.
Mr. Jefro writes:
The only real problem with the Alpha was the lack of a native OS.
Now with little development and still no OS well…
Huh? Maybe I’m not understanding the comment, but VMS and Digital Unix ran fully native since the introduction of the Alpha. Linux and various BSDs all were ported to the Alpha quite early on. Even Windows NT was, IIRC, a native port. Perhaps not one that managed to do justice to the architecture, but none of the actual operating system had to run through FX!32. (1) Contrast that with the bits of MacOS written in 68K assembly well into the PowerPC days!
Yours truly,
Jeffrey Boulier
(1) Please let me know if I’m wrong here; I don’t know WinNT’s Alpha history as well as I ought.
No Native OS? what is OpenVMS and Tru64, you can’t get anymore native than that. Plus quite a few Linux distributions available for the Alpha platform. Even WinNT was supported in native 64 bit code for many years, until Compaq dropped it from the product line-up.
on the issue of NT also add a native complier and office suit for alpha.
Donaldson
Even WinNT was supported in native 64 bit code for many years, until Compaq dropped it from the product line-up.
From what i recall, it was MS that cut the Alpha support from NT, not Compaq. Apparently, if you look hard enough, you can find NT5 (aka Windows2000) for Alpha, a pre-release version. I heard this from a rather reliable source, but i’ve never seen it with my own eyes. I’ve seen NT4 on Alpha, thats what came installed on my first Alpha, though i wasnt given the administrator password, so i nuked that partition, and setup Debian on it.
when i think native, i think built for the architecture. for example, mac os x would be considered native for the powerpc, but if you look at the structure of the kernel, it is better suited for a cisc architecture. (it was a big story like four months ago, i think it was the scheduler in particular) but that is not what native means, it means using the instruction set for the processor you are on. you are misusing the word native for built for, and i have a tendency to do the same thing.
that being said, i have no idea how well the OSes fit the Alpha architecture
we still need proprietary CPUs,
until somebody open sourcing its CPU blueprint
just kidding.
OpenVMS and Tru64 fit the Alpha architecture like a glove, both are full native, I do internals support for both everything inside is for the Alpha.
we still need proprietary CPUs,
until somebody open sourcing its CPU blueprint
just kidding.
Actually, these things exist. People use them to burn (small) CPUs on FPGAs.
Not only does Intel now own the Alpha IP but they also have most of the team that designed the EV8 working on a new version of Itanium which will be both multicored and multi-threaded (SMT)