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In a bid to show it's no laggard when it comes to
supporting open source, Sun Microsystems is launching a new salvo --
the release of specifications of its latest 8-core processor, the
UltraSparc T1.
The vendor has released to the public domain key specifications of its latest 8-core processor, the UltraSparc T1.
In a bid to show it's no laggard when it comes to
supporting open source, Sun Microsystems is launching a new salvo --
the release of specifications of its latest 8-core processor, the
UltraSparc T1.
Sun chairman and CEO Scott McNealy launched the OpenSparc Project,
where it will release into the public domain key specifications for the
T1, code-named Niagra, which Sun unveiled last month. McNealy disclosed
the open source plan at a press and analyst event in New York, where
Sun launched its first servers, based on the new UltraSparc T1
platform.
Does that mean an AMD or Intel could end up developing a non-Solaris derivative of the Sparc platform?
"Wouldn't that be cool?" McNealy asks. On a more serious note, he
says if open source software efforts have helped spur innovation, why
not try it with hardware?
"There's eight cores [in the T1 platform] that maybe someone wants
to do something bigger or smaller or whatever," McNealy says. "You
don't know where it's going to go, that's the beauty of it."
McNealy is probably hoping that a start-up will develop technology
that it can ultimately acquire, says Joe Clabby, vice president and
practice director at Summit Strategies.
"You can only take stuff so far with the R&D resources you have
inside," Clabby says. "If you open it up to others with different
architectures, it opens up so many more possibilities."
The main event was the launch of the new T1-based servers. Both the
T1000 and T2000 are rack-based multicore, multithreaded servers based
on the 9.6 GHz processor. The T2000, which starts at about US$8,000, is
available now, while the US$3,000 T1000 will ship next quarter. The
T1000, a 1.75-inch server, supports up to 32 threads using the
company's new CoolThreads technology, and is suited for caching,
e-mail, streaming media, Web-serving Java application servers,
security, and business integration.
The 3.5-inch T2000 servers, which are also better for
transaction-oriented applications, such those provided by BEA Systems,
Oracle and SAP, was widely anticipated and comes just one quarter after
Sun unveiled its dual core Opteron based Galaxy servers.
Symantec chairman and CEO John Thompson was present at the event to
tout the new platform's built-in hardware-based encryption. Oracle
president Charles Phillips also came on stage to announce a new
licensing model for its software based on a .25 processor factor. A
T1-based 8 core system will count as two processors, Phillips says.
Oracle had been long criticized for its hard line on CPU licensing for multicore systems.
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