IBM and Sun continue their intense competition in the Unix server arena as both companies release new multiprocessor servers within seven days of each other.

by Amy Newman of serverwatch.internet.com [June 27, 2002]

The entry-level Unix server space is getting a little more crowded.

Last week Sun Microsystems announced the Sun Fire V480, a 4-way UltraSPARC Unix server priced to compete with Wintel offerings. This week, IBM countered with its p630.

Sun fires away
The Sun Fire V480 provides 900 MHz UltraSPARC III processors in a rack-optimized compact design.

Described by Sun as an entry-level server, the V480 is being positioned within Sun's high-volume entry-level Sun Fire family, between the Sun Fire 280R and the V880 servers. The new server provides a rack-optimized, high-performance system in the 4-way server space.

The V480 comes in a 5 RU, 24-inch deep rack-optimized chassis that contains a DVD ROM drive, two hot-swap (N+1) power supplies, two hot-plug Fibre Channel disks (36 GB), integrated dual 10/100/1000 Mb/s Ethernet, RSC, and six PCI slots. It supports up to 32 GB of memory.

The server also features front and back LEDs, automatic system recovery, and Remote System Control for monitoring and reporting system and component status.

Rich Partridge, VP Enterprise Servers, D.H. Brown Associates described the V480 as "a strong product offering, noting "The Sun Fire V880 has been well received in the very competitive Wintel marketplace. With the large memory capacity and attractive pricing of the Sun Fire V480, Sun is well-positioned to continue its success in the entry-level server market, serving the needs of enterprise businesses."

Sun is pitting the V480 against comparable Wintel offerings, citing various benchmarks and price points. For example, the Sun Fire Plane Interconnect provides 9.6 GB per second throughput, which the vendor claims is three times faster than Wintel systems on the market today. Sun also claims a new performance record for a 4-way server on the SPECweb99_SSL benchmark for the V480 server. The server is able to support 568 conforming connections. Sun also notes that the V480 server's 8 MB of CPU cache is more than six times the capacity available on Wintel systems.

Last week, Warren Mootrey, director of marketing for Sun's Volume Systems Group, said the V480's $22,995 starting price tag was several thousand less than that of similar Wintel offerings from Hewlett-Packard, Dell, or IBM, the leading players in the Wintel space.

The standard V480 server base configuration is being sold with two 900 MHz UltraSPARC III processors, 4 GB of memory, and two 36 GB Fibre Channel disks.

Sun also released a storage bundle. The package consists of the Sun Fire V480 server base configuration and a Sun StorEdge T3 Array with nine 36 GB Fibre Channel disks. The storage bundle is priced starting at at $44,595.

Sun also unveiled the new and improved Sun Fire V880. The V880 now features up to eight 900 MHz UltraSPARC III processors and 64 GB of memory. The new model is priced starting at $34,995 with two processors and six drives.

The V480 features the same architecture as the V880, the main difference being price and processor capacity, as the V480 is a four processor system.

All three products are available and shipping immediately. Infineon and Digex are two enterprises that have already hopped on V480 bandwagon.

IBM replies with "mini-me"
This week, IBM unveiled the p630, a 4-way offering positioned between the p670 and the p610 that is a "mini-me" version of the p690, according to Jim McGaughan, director of product marketing for the eServer line. With its "mainframe-inspired capabilities," the p630 offers "all the reliability of the p690 at a lower price point," McGaughan said.

Like the p690, the p630 uses the Power4 chip, a heat-seeker-engine-based microprocessor. At 1.0 GHz, the processor is slightly slower than that of the p690, but faster than the 900 MHz UltraSPARC III processor in the V480.

The p630 boasts some unique characteristics according to McGaughan. It is the first 4-way Unix server to feature Dynamic Logical Partitioning, the capability to dynamically reconfigure partitions without bringing the server down. IBM currently offers this capability on its mainframes and iSeries servers, and it supports logical partitioning on its larger Unix systems.

The p630 also features copper/silicon-on-insulator processors, chipkill memory, dynamic processor deallocation, and first failure data capture. According to the SPECweb99_SSL benchmark, a fully loaded (i.e., all four processors going) p630 supports 1,050 transactions, nearly twice as many as a V480, McGaughan said.

The p630 is expandable to four processors, 16 GB of memory, four hot-swappable disks and four hot-plug PCI-X slots. Enterprises can also cluster up to 32 p630 servers using IBM's High Availability Cluster Multiprocessing (HACMP) software.

Footprint-wise the the p630 is compact. The 4U server fits in a 16-inch rack-mount configuration or a desk-side configuration.

Down the road, IBM plans to offer a remote I/O drawer, which will increase the amount of logical partitions that can be defined, as well as the overall number of hot-swappable disks and hot-plug PCI-X slots.

The p630 offers front access to major system components and cables as well as wireless manageability through a PDA or via cable through a console port.

The p630 will have a base price of $12,495, which is nearly half the price of the V480. However, the p630 comes standard with only one processor, whereas the V480 comes with two. The base package for the p630 also includes a CD ROM drive, 1 GB of memory, one 18.2 GB disk drive, and AIX 5L preinstalled.

The p630 is scheduled to be available for purchase starting August 30. A -48 Volt DC Power option is planned for the first quarter of 2003

—End