Enhanced line of Sun Fire x64 servers and Sun Blade systems

Sun Microsystems announced an enhanced line of Sun Fire x64 servers and Sun Blade systems that deliver up to 35 percent better performance over previous generations. With the new Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor, Sun’s strengthened x64 server line offers exceptional scalability, virtualization and consolidation capabilities with up to twice the storage, memory and I/O capacity as compared to competing servers. Sun’s portfolio of x64 Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor-based servers offer a choice of Solaris 10 Operating System (OS), Linux, Windows and VMWare.

Key systems in Sun’s x64 family include:

• Sun Blade X6440 server module – The Sun Blade X6440 is a four-socket server with industry leading memory footprint and high-speed I/O to deliver a compute dense platform balanced for high-volume workloads. The Sun Blade X6440 server module posted a world record 16-thread result on the prominent HPC SPECompM2001 benchmark that is often used to compare the performance of shared memory servers executing compute-intensive scientific applications.
• Sun Fire X4600 M2 server – The only compact two-to-eight socket server that can consolidate over 110 x86 servers onto one Sun Fire X4600 M2 server, saving typically over $150,000 per year. With the enhanced Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor, the unique 32-core 4U rackmount server delivers world record integer throughput performance for all x86 systems as well as the best eight processor result on SPECjbb2005, the Java-based Enterprise benchmark.
• Sun Fire X4240 server – The two-socket Sun Fire X4240 is designed with more memory slots and storage capacity and higher storage throughput delivering a world record-breaking two CPU result on the SPECweb2005 benchmark with 25 percent better web server performance than the HP ProLiant DL385 G5 and 27 percent better performance than the HP ProLiant DL380 G5.
• Sun Fire X4440 server – A SPECompL2001 world record holder running 16 threads, the Sun Fire X4440 server is the industry’s only four-socket 2RU x64 server based on the Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor. It also provides the same socket capacity in half the space of competitive servers.

Sun’s x64 servers with the new Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor are capable of consolidating systems at more than a 110:1 ratio and supporting up to 100 virtual servers on a single system. The servers are further enhanced with the Solaris Containers capability in the Solaris OS. Solaris offers scalability and manageability with the AMD Opteron processor spanning from two cores to 32 cores in a single architecture which allows users to standardize and streamline their IT support requirements and scale as their business needs require. Solaris 10 users can also select Solaris ZFS as their root file system and take advantage of a number of key virtualization enhancements enabling them to easily consolidate and maximize datacenter efficiency.

Sun xVM Server provides complementary virtualization solutions for heterogeneous environments. Sun xVM Ops Center software provides a unified management interface for both Sun xVM Server and Solaris Containers. With AMD Virtualization technology (AMD-V), and Sun’s xVM infrastructure, the enhanced line of Sun x64 servers simplify and optimize the next-generation datacenter, maximizing consolidation and lowering overhead associated with software virtualization, allowing for increased system utilization, performance and scalability improvements.

The Sun Fire x64 based product line pricing starts at $1,900 (USD).