Maximize performance, minimize price.
Powered by the Solaris OS and UltraSPARC IV processors with chip multithreading, the new Sun Fire V490 and Sun Fire V890 servers combine sub-$50K prices with enterprise-grade capabilities.
At Sun's third quarterly Network Computing 04 last week, Sun introduced two new servers that deliver enterprise-class computing at record-breaking price/performance levels. They also protect customer technology investments, thanks to full binary compatibility and familiar form factors.
The new Sun Fire V490 and Sun Fire V890 servers are powered by the Solaris Operating System (Solaris OS) and the UltraSPARC IV processors with chip multithreading technology (CMT). With up to 4 and 8 processors, respectively, executing up to 8 and 16 compute threads simultaneously, the Sun Fire V490 and V890 servers are designed to address business processing, decision support, and database applications, as well as other demanding workloads.
With the Sun Fire V490 and V890 servers, Sun doubles the throughput of previous midrange server systems, while maintaining the same footprint. And with prices starting below $35,000, the servers are the lowest-cost implementation of Sun's enterprise-grade architecture.
Chip Multithreading Doubles Performance
The Sun Fire V490 and V890 servers--the first servers under $50,000 to use UltraSPARC IV processors--follow up the successful V480 and V880 servers. The Sun Fire V490 and V890 servers deliver the same extensive application support, high RAS (reliability/availability/serviceability), and easy deployment as the earlier models, but the new servers are also a huge step forward.
Because they use the UltraSPARC IV processors with chip multithreading, the Sun Fire V490 and V890 servers offer twice the scalability and up to twice the throughput as their predecessors. The Sun Fire V490 server includes up to 4 UltraSPARC IV processors executing 8 concurrent threads; the Sun Fire V890 server includes up to 8 processors executing 16 concurrent threads.
"With multithreading, the UltraSPARC IV processors can run two threads per chip. The Sun Fire V490 and V890 servers deliver up to twice the performance of the UltraSPARC III-based Sun Fire V480 and V880 servers, and they do it in the same space-saving footprint and form factor as the previous generation," says Matthew Keep, Sun product marketing manager, Scalable Systems Group.
"When testing the Sun Fire V890 server, we had high expectations for optimum scalability. It delivered."
Ian Sims
ESRI ArcGIS server Test Team
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Price/Performance Records
The Sun Fire V890 server is less than half the price of a similarly configured system from Hewlett-Packard1 and runs 10 times more ISV applications, with a price tag that is 20 percent lower than IBM's p5702.
The Sun Fire V490 and Sun Fire V890 servers also deliver record-breaking throughput and world-record price/performance on a range of key target workloads.
The Sun Fire V490 server achieves world-record price/performance on the 1 terabyte TPC-H benchmark, demonstrating the highest performance for data warehousing and database architecture at this price point3.
On the Lotus Domino R6iNotes benchmark, which simulates e-mail users accessing their mailboxes through the web, the Sun Fire V890 server set three world records in the eight-processor class: for best performance, highest number of users per CPU, and best price/performance--demonstrating outstanding processing power for a platform costing less than $50K4.
The Sun Fire V890 server also confirms Sun's leadership in the high-performance computing market by achieving the best SPECompM2001 performance for eight-way servers. This eclipses the recent result posted by a similarly equipped Hewlett-Packard Alphaserver ES80 system by up to 17 percent5.
Beyond the benchmarks, Sun customers are already reaping the benefits of enterprise computing at entry-level prices with the Sun Fire V490 and V890 servers.
"When testing the Sun Fire V890 server, we had high expectations for optimum scalability. It delivered," says Ian Sims, a member of the ESRI ArcGIS server Test Team. "We tested with 2 CPUs, then 4, then 8, and went from generating about 4000 maps to 14,000. System management was a breeze. We were consistently able to reconfigure in a lights-out data center from a remote location."
Making the Most of the Solaris OS
The Sun Fire V490 and V890 servers effectively leverage the strengths of the Solaris 8 and Solaris 9 Operating Systems, as well as providing a glimpse of the awesome capabilities delivered in the forthcoming Solaris 10 OS, available now through the Sun Software Express Program.
The Containers feature, a key capability available today in the Solaris 9 OS, can boost utilization levels to 80 percent, five times that of many UNIX and Microsoft Windows servers. With the Sun Fire V490 and V890 servers, that's like spending $50,000 and getting a quarter million dollars' worth of data center performance. The N1 Grid Container software, part of the Solaris 10 OS, provides further enhancements to drive higher utilization and application separation.
Learn all about the breakthrough capabilities of the Solaris 10 OS in these Sun.com features:
An Application Server Workhorse
Cost-effective for any medium-size or large organization, the Sun Fire V490 and V890 servers are also powerful enough to handle the most demanding enterprise workloads with ease. Every industry can benefit from the power of the Sun Fire V490 and V890 servers, but they are of special interest to organizations that value price/performance: financial services, telecommunications, service providers, government, manufacturing, health care, and university/research. Put the Sun Fire V490 and V890 servers to work with confidence on the following jobs:
- Enterprise application serving
- Database and data warehousing
- Decision support
- Business intelligence
- Collaboration and messaging
- ERP and CRM
- Line-of-business
- Scientific and engineering
The Sun Fire V490 and V890 servers are also effective solutions for customers seeking to achieve server consolidation. As compute and data storage requirements grow, server consolidation can reduce total cost of ownership by lowering overhead and administrative expenses.
Get Started Today
Put entry-level-priced enterprise computing to work at your company today by visiting the Sun Store. The Sun Fire V490 server starts at $30,995; the Sun Fire V890 server starts at $39,995.
In addition to performance-doubling chip multithreading, the Sun Fire V490 and V890 servers offer several features that help you meet the demands placed on your IT infrastructure:
- Six and nine PCI slots, respectively, for scalability with stability
- Up to 32 GB and 64 GB of memory, respectively
- Rack-optimized 5-rack-unit (5-RU) and rack-mountable 17-RU form factors, respectively
- 9.6 GB/second Sun Fireplane interconnect
- N+1 hot-swappable power supplies and hot-pluggable disks
- Sun Remote System Control software for secure server management
- Automatic System Recovery to maximize uptime
Right now, Sun is also preloading the Sun Java Enterprise System (Java ES) on the Sun Fire V490 and V890 servers. You can evaluate this integrated set of network services for 90 days and activate the license instantly at any time during that period.
With the Java ES built in, the Sun Fire V490 and V890 servers reduce the cost and complexity of acquiring, deploying, and managing software. The Java ES integrates network identity, Web, application, portal, communication and collaboration, availability, clustering, and security software. For a single subscription price, you get the software, maintenance, support, consulting, and education services.
"Integrating the Sun Java Enterprise System is another way that the Sun Fire V490 and V890 servers help customers save time and money," says Keep. "Customers have come to expect record-breaking performance and investment protection from Sun servers, and with the Sun Fire V490 and V890 servers, that's exactly what they get."
1. The Sun Fire V890 server with four 1.2-GHz UltraSPARC IV processors, 16 GB of memory, six 73-GB disk drives, an OS license, 90 days of software support, a 1 GB Ethernet interface, a DVD drive, and three-year warranty coverage costs $75,995. The Hewlett-Packard rp7420-16 configured with four dual-core 1-GHz PA-8800 processors, 16 GB of memory, two 146-GB disk drives, a 1 GB Ethernet interface, a DVD drive, and three-year warranty coverage costs $180,143. Pricing source: UNIX server pricing and configuration; D.H. Brown Associates, Inc.; 8/13/04.
2. The Sun Fire V890 server configured with two UltraSPARC IV processors, 8 GB of memory, six 73-GB disk drives, an operating system license, 90 days of software support, a DVD-RAM drive, and three-year warranty coverage costs $39,995. The IBM p570 configured with two P5 processors, 8 GB of memory, six 73-GB disk drives, a DVD-RAM drive, AIX 5L V5.2 Express, and one-year SWMA for AIX costs $43,307. A two-year warranty extension to create three years of coverage costs $5,280, making the total cost $48,587. Pricing source: UNIX server pricing and configuration; D.H. Brown Associates, Inc.; 8/13/04. ISV source: http://www.developer.ibm.com/solutions/isv/igssg.nsf/searchgui; 8/13/04.
3. The Sun Fire V490 server delivered 2958 QphH at 1000 GB at a price/performance of U.S. $52/QphH at 1000 GB, and with a scheduled availability of 01/16/05. TPC-H, QphH, and $/QphH are trademarks of the Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC). Additional information on the TPC-H benchmark can be found at http://www.tpc.org.
4. The Sun Fire V890 server configured with eight UltraSPARC IV processors, running the Solaris OS and Lotus Domino 6.5.1 when configured in four partitions, achieved 14,000 users at $13.38 per user, 11890 NotesMark transactions per minute, and 99 ms average response time. The benchmark results stated above reflect results published on http://www.notesbench.org as of 9/13/04.
5. The Sun Fire V890 server produced a SPECompM2001 score of 14789. The Sun Java Workstation W2100z produced a SPECompM2001 score of 5085. These results have been submitted to SPEC. SPEC and the benchmark name SPEComp are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. The HP Alphaserver ES80 7/1150 server produced a SPECompM2001 score of 12289. Comparisons are based on published results as of 9/13/04. For the latest SPEC OMP benchmark results, visit http://www.spec.org/omp/results.
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