Yesterday, Sun Microsystems announced new Sun SPARC Enterprise servers, highly scalable virtualization/consolidation systems with mainframe-class reliability for the open systems market. The new servers are already demonstrating their performance leadership. The Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000, using Sun Studio 12, topped the 1 TFLOP barrier, delivering a score of 1.032 TFLOPS on the Linpack benchmark (Highly Parallel Computing). This out-performs the best published single system from IBM p5 595 (1.9GHz POWER5) by over 2X and tops the high end single system Itanium 2 (1.6GHz/24MB) based box from HP (Superdome, by nearly 38%). The Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 (2.4GHz SPARC64-VI) has generated other world record breaking benchmarks including the SPECompL2001 benchmark with a score of 1230446. This beats the best IBM result on SPECompL2001 by 16% and the best Itanium 2 based result (from SGI) on SPECompL2001 by 22%. Plus, it beat the highest performing IBM p5 595 by over 20% and the HP Integrity Superdome by over 45% on the Stream COPY benchmark. Don't let the core count confuse you, IBM cores cost over twice Sun's cores. Look at the other benchmark results posted to see that IBM costs more, is slower, and has fewer cores. Sun’s SPARC64-VI processor is running at 2.4 GHz. IBM's fastest is 2.3 GHz. Itanium is 1.6 GHz. That makes it the fastest enterprise RISC processor on the market. Linpack HPC, results from www.netlib.org/benchmark/index.html as of 04/13/07. Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 (SPARC64 VI @2.4, 64 chips, 128 cores), 1.032 TFLOPS. IBM p5 595 (POWER5 1.9GHz, 32 chips, 64 cores) 418.0 GFLOPS. HP Superdome (Itanium 2 1.6GHz/24MB, 64 chips, 128 cores) 745.5 GFLOPS.] Results from www.spec.org as of 04/13/07. Sun results submitted to SPEC. Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 (128 cores, 64 chips, 128 threads, 2.4GHz) 1230446 SPECompL2001. IBM p5-595 (128 threads, 64 cores, 32 chips) 1056459 SPECompL2001. SGI Altix 4700, Itanium 2 (256 threads, 256 cores, 128 chips) 1005076 SPECompL2001 Stream is a publicly available benchmark and can be found at www.cs.virginia.edu/stream. Results as of 4/13/07. Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 (128 threads, 128 cores, 64 chips, 2.4GHz) COPY 224401.0 MB/s. IBM p5 595 (64 threads, 64 cores, 32 chips, 2.3GHz) COPY 186137.0 MB/s. HP Integrity SuperDome (128 threads, 128 cores, 64 chips, 1.6GHz) COPY 154504.0 MB/s.] The SPARC Enterprise servers, based on the SPARC architecture and the Solaris Operating System (OS), leverage the powerful combination of Sun's expertise in open, scalable, partition-based network computing and Fujitsu's experience in mission-critical computing technologies and high-performance processor design. “We're now expanding on what we've already delivered, giving customers mainframe-class reliability with open system advantages--and with the unmatched virtualization capabilities that Solaris customers expect,” said John Fowler, Executive Vice President, Sun's Systems Group. Included in this family are re-branded versions of the award-winning UltraSPARC T1 CoolThreads servers for the volume market. Meet the Sun SPARC Enterprise Server Lineup The Sun SPARC Enterprise server family includes six models ranging from high-end models to entry-level systems:

• High-end Sun SPARC Enterprise M8000/M9000 servers
• Midrange Sun SPARC Enterprise M4000/M5000 servers
• Entry-level Sun SPARC Enterprise T1000/T2000 servers

The mid-range and high-end Sun SPARC Enterprise Mx000 models are jointly developed and manufactured by Sun and Fujitsu Limited and based on the SPARC architecture and the Solaris OS. Jointly distributed by Sun and Fujitsu, the entry-level models include the innovative UltraSPARC T1 processor developed by Sun, as well as the energy- and space-efficient CoolThreads server designs. The Sun SPARC Enterprise T1000 and T2000 servers are re-branded versions of the successful Sun Fire T1000 and T2000 servers. The new availability of CoolThreads platforms through multiple vendors further demonstrates Sun's commitment to open standards and customer choice, all of which serve to reduce our customers' costs of entry and exit to any industry standard architecture. "With these new Sun SPARC Enterprise Servers, Sun is bringing the mainframe-class reliability and the virtualization technologies required by today's datacenters," explained Tom Atwood, group manager, Sun's Systems Marketing organization. "A balanced system architecture, combined with the Solaris 10 OS makes the Sun SPARC Enterprise family Sun's fastest SPARC servers ever. These new servers are an ideal platform for consolidation and can meet our customer's toughest computing requirements." Solaris Investment Protection: All Sun SPARC Enterprise servers run the award-winning Solaris 10 OS. With over 7 million registered licenses and more than 125 world records, the free and open Solaris 10 OS is the most advanced operating system on the planet. Sun's unique Solaris OS Application Guarantee protects hardware and software investments by helping to ensure that applications written to the Solaris application binary interface will run without modification on the new Sun SPARC Enterprise servers. What's more, SPARC/Solaris binary compatibility has been guaranteed for the last seven years, further protecting existing datacenter investments. This means that Sun's Sun Fire customers can migrate at their own pace and with minimal effort to the new Sun SPARC Enterprise platform, and continue to use the broad range of proven Solaris OS applications from the world's top ISV/IHV providers. IBM and HP customers will know that when they migrate to the Sun SPARC Enterprise servers they will enjoy the benefits of binary compatibility now and in the future. Advanced Consolidation Solution The Sun SPARC Enterprise servers are a superb consolidation platform because of their scalability, mainframe-class availability features, and broad spectrum of partitioning technologies to virtualize server resources. Because they are based on the Solaris OS, the servers can take advantage of Solaris Containers which increase system utilization. One of the breakthrough technologies in the Solaris 10 OS, Solaris Containers can consolidate hundreds of applications on a single Solaris instance, simplifying systems management and increasing systems utilization. Solaris Containers isolate software applications and services using flexible, software-defined boundaries. As a result, many private execution environments can be created within a single instance of the Solaris OS. In addition, Solaris Containers can be cloned and moved in the same domain or server, across domains, or across systems, increasing server utilization. Addressing the growing need to maximize system utilization while providing resource and security isolation with no overhead, Sun offers dynamic domain partitioning technology on the Sun SPARC Enterprise Mx000 family. Dynamic domains are a hardware partitioning technology that provide complete fault isolation, security isolation, resource isolation, and service isolation--and no application overhead. The granularity of dynamic domains is as little as one processor socket, providing great flexibility. Customers can easily match the size of their domains to their workload requirements. Dynamic domains can be re-sized without any application or Solaris OS downtime. Processor resources can be moved from one domain to the next, one socket at a time, enabling resources to be allocated to workloads in the most efficient manner. When combined with Solaris Containers and Solaris Resource Manager the Sun SPARC Enterprise Mx000 servers provide customers the flexibility and robustness to improve system utilization and increase the return on their computing assets. "Datacenter efficiency and achieving high levels of system utilization are now the name of the game for CIOs and IT managers," said Fowler. "Downtime is not an option. We understand these needs and we're now expanding on what we've already delivered, giving customers mainframe-class reliability with open system advantages--and with the unmatched virtualization capabilities that Solaris customers expect." Advanced Reliability, Availability, and Serviceability To help ensure continuous service levels with minimal downtime, the Sun SPARC Enterprise Mx000 servers come with mainframe-class reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS) features. Some of the unique features of the Sun SPARC Enterprise Mx000 family include hot-swappable components, redundant hardware, instruction-level retry, protected SRAMs and registers, memory mirroring, and extensive self-healing and self-management capabilities. Dynamic domains and Solaris Containers improve availability by isolating faults and limiting their affect. Sun also offers a proven set of services to help customers achieve their business objectives through consolidation, virtualization, availability, and high performance. To that end, Sun is launching Sun Smart Services to empower customers to achieve excellent business results from the new Sun SPARC Enterprise systems. All of the server product families offer Sun System Packs, which combine systems and support services at the point of sale for immediate cost savings. The comprehensive Sun System Packs include no-cost support for the entire system, faster response times, extended coverage hours, expanded telephone and online support, and other services. To help customers get the most of out their hardware systems and reduce the risk of unexpected downtime, Sun Professional Services offers a world-class services portfolio that leverages Sun best practices, ensuring maximum system uptime and service levels. For example, the High Availability Service Package includes native Solaris 10 OS support, remote monitoring and response mechanisms, knowledge engines that facilitate provisioning of both Solaris OS and Linux environments, and training and certification programs. Better System Performance Designed for a diverse range of network workloads, including ERP, CRM, BIDW (business intelligence data warehouse) and OLTP, the high-performance Sun SPARC Enterprise Mx000 servers scale up to 64 dual-core SPARC64 VI processors, 2TB of memory, and 288 PCI-X or PCIe I/O slots. The Sun SPARC Enterprise Mx000 servers can address the toughest computing problems. With four floating point operations per processor core, the Sun SPARC Enterprise Mx000 family also meets the requirements of high performance computing. Sun SPARC Enterprise T1000 and T2000 Servers The Sun SPARC Enterprise T1000/T2000 servers, based on Sun's innovative chip multi-threading technology (CMT) offer dramatic savings in energy and cooling costs while delivering breakthrough levels of computing throughput. They use the 8-core, 32-thread UltraSPARC-T1 processor in space-saving 1RU and 2 RU packages. These rack-mount servers have mission-critical RAS features such as extended ECC (memory protection), reduced component count, lower power and heat requirements, power, cooling and memory redundancy, and Sun's predictive self-healing technologies. Logical domains (LDOMs), with a granularity of as little as one processor thread, enable the improved resource utilization and fault isolation required for increasing system utilization. Sun StorageTek Solutions Servers are only part of the hardware solution for mission-critical applications. Servers aggregate and process the data, but data management itself is just as important. To that end, Sun SPARC Enterprise servers are enhanced by the Sun StorageTek line of disk, tape, and software solutions. Sun Customer Ready Program Fast and accurate application deployment can be a competitive advantage. To help Sun's customers rapidly and effectively deploy new applications with Sun technology, Sun offers the Customer Ready program which offers factory configuration and installation of the Sun SPARC Enterprise servers. Participation in the program results in faster deployments (up to 95 percent reduction in time to production) and reduced risk (up to 80 percent reduction in installation issues). After configuring the servers according to the customer's specifications, integration and service experts will pre-install and pre-test the systems according to best practices defined in the Sun Enterprise Installation and Sun Application Readiness Services. The systems are ready to be deployed as soon as they reach the customer site, speeding the return on IT assets. Learn more about Sun SPARC Enterprise servers.