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The Real Story about where Sun servers are headed

 
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Staying with Sun will require a move to a new platformJuly 2009 — Now that Sun has announced plans to be acquired by Oracle, this is a good time to evaluate whether or not Sun servers are a wise investment going forward.

Although Sun may have met their customers’ needs in the past, today customers should ask themselves whether Sun is in step with their present and future needs. Sun’s proprietary processor designs require a substantial investment in the face of increasing challenges from industry standard architectures, putting the future of Sun’s proprietary technology at risk.

If the facts below concern you, HP has the strategy and solutions to help you cut costs today and move to a more certain future.

Fact 1: The prospects for a future for the SPARC architecture and future roadmap are in doubt:

  • Feb 2008: Sun announces the delay for a full year of their high-end chip, ROCK, from when they had promised.1
  • Feb 2008: Sun's SPARC64 provider Fujitsu, decides to spin off its money-losing chip business.2
  • March 2008: The head of Sun's chip business resigns.3
  • March 2009: Fujitsu presents that it is shifting resources from its mainframe/UNIX® business to its IA (Intel Architecture) server business.4
  • April 2009: Chief ROCK architect departs Sun.5
  • June 2009: Reports (unconfirmed by Sun) surface that Sun has cancelled ROCK, its enterprise CMT processor which has been in development for 5 years.6

Recall that in the past citing the need to cut costs, Sun cancelled the UltraSPARC V and Gemini processors in 2004, 7and in 2006 quietly cancelled the promised UltraSPARC IIIi+.8

Proprietary SPARC development requires a large R&D investment while the hardware business is facing increasing pressure to perform in a declining market. Without high volumes or technological differentiation, will the return for SPARC investment justify the cost?

Fact 2: SPARC64-based M-Series servers have an uncertain future.

Customers may consider a SPARC64-based system OEM’ed from Fujitsu. However, you need to be aware that Fujitsu has presented their go-forward strategy includes shifting resources from mainframes and UNIX servers (M-series) to focus on IA (Intel Architecture) servers.9

Why commit to a SPARC hardware option when there is such uncertainty with the SPARC roadmaps?

Fact 3: What if your application needs include UNIX, Microsoft® Windows® and Linux? Sun's SPARC systems do not support the leading Linux distributions: Red Hat and SuSE Linux, nor do they support Windows.

HP ProLiant and HP BladeSystem offer customers the market-leading10 x86 systems that can run Solaris, Windows, VMware and Linux.

With HP Integrity, customers enjoy a multi-OS platform as well. This includes HP-UX 11i, Windows, Linux, OpenVMS and NonStop. All of these systems run on the HP Itanium architecture backed by two of the most successful technology companies ever: HP and Intel®, as well as leading software vendors.

More information for customers looking to make the switch from Sun to HP is available by clicking
here.

Fact 4: Sun has discontinued offering the Sun Blade 8000 family.11

Again, Sun has introduced a blade family that turned out to have a very short life—just 27 months (if you count from the 8000P). What is next? Press reports paint an uncertain Sun hardware future.12

Why commit to a Sun hardware future during this uncertainty?

Fact 5: Oracle license costs per core are lower on HP servers than most SPARC systems.

System Oracle license factor per core
HP ProLiant, BladeSystem and Integrity servers running processors from Intel and AMD 0.5 x number of cores
Sun SPARC Enterprise servers running the UltraSPARC T2, T2+,
SPARC64 or UltraSPARC IV/IV+ processors
 0.75 x number of cores

Bottom Line: The Sun server roadmaps are uncertain. At this crossroad, remember that you have other options, including a move to HP. During your evaluation, please consider HP for industry standard options ranging from HP BladeSystem, ProLiant, Integrity and Integrity NonStop servers.

Take the TCO Challenge

The first step in switching to HP is to take a five minute SUN TCO Challenge. Here you can find out the potential savings advantages of transitioning to HP.

Learn more about HP's Sun Complete Care Program.

1http://www.sun.com/servers/sunfire_eol.jsp Non-HP site
2 "Sun Delays Rock Processor By a Year."http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/processors/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=206106172 Non-HP site
3 "Fujitsu to spin off loss-making chip unit."http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto021220081320187923 Non-HP site
4http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9902401-7.html Non-HP site
5http://www.news.com/2100-1006_3-5189458.html Non-HP site
6 "Sun and Fujitsu hint at Sparc futures."http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/15/sparc_roadmaps/ Non-HP site
7http://research.sun.com/spotlight/2007/2007-08-13_transactional_memory.html Non-HP site
8http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=data_center&articleId=9006152&taxonomyId=52&intsrc=kc_top Non-HP site
9http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/w1/en/messaging/realstory-server-mktshare.html
10http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2008/080220b.html?jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN
11http://www.oracle.com/corporate/pricing/databaselicensing.pdf Non-HP site
12 'Sun is a Software Company, New Top Shareholder Says."http://www.pcworld.com/article/152663/.html?tk=rss_news Non-HP site
13http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/pr/2008-11/sunflash.20081114.1.xml Non-HP site
AMD is a trademark of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Intel is a trademark of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. Microsoft and Windows are U.S. registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group.
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