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AMD Opteron Technology and x86: Raising the Standard on Industry StandardsHardware & Performance IssuesPlease click on a question below or download a pdf version.
A: In addition to very impressive CPU speed/price value of the AMD Opteron processor, the Sun Fire V20z and V40z offer excellent I/O bandwidth. For example, the V20z supports a 6.4GB/sec. link between the Opteron CPU and the PCI-X tunnel. This I/O capacity is then distributed, based on need, to two PCI-X slots, two 1GB networks and Ultra320 SCSI. A: Yes. In our current B1600 blade server, we support SPARC technology and x86 blades, and we support Solaris/SPARC, Solaris/x86, and Linux/x86 technologies on their respective hardware simultaneously in a single chassis. Going forward, we will introduce additional products and will be continuing and expanding our multi-operating system support. A: The V20z is certified to run Windows 2000 and Windows 2003. As such, it will run IIS 6.0 and the associated components such as .ASP and .NET. The number of processors needed is at your discretion based on the workload you anticipate. Q: How do the 64-bit AMDs compare at the limits of loading with the SPARC processors? A: This is impossible to answer because it really depends on the application. SPARC systems can have much higher numbers of processors and huge memory sizes (up to 576GB, going higher) than can AMD. So if your applications need this, you can't do it with AMD. However, AMD supports a faster floating point and integer performance today, so numerical analytics are better suited to AMD. Beyond that, it's hard to answer your question. We have extended our product line with AMD so we can cost effectively handle any workload a customer has. A: We support Gigabit Ethernet built in to a wide range of our products include V20z, V40Z, our workstations, and SPARC products. We are qualified for a number of 10GB cards from companies such as S2IO and expect to also offer our own options in the near term. Q: How aggressive is Sun in getting manufacturers to release Solaris OS-compatible device drivers? A: Very aggressive; we are investing heavily here and have well over 250 supported drivers on the hardware compatibility list. See sun.com/bigadmin/hcl Q: When will drivers for wireless PCMCIA devices be available? A: PCMCIA is I/O expansion option for notebooks. Today Sun's partners offer SPARC-based notebooks, and PCMCIA drivers for wireless devices are available from those partners. Q: Do you have drivers for wireless Ethernet devices? A: Third-party silicon hardware makers provide drivers for their components. If you are looking for a specific PCI-based wireless Ethernet solution, you can find the driver from that vendor's Web site. A: There is at least one company (Newisys) that has disclosed working on a chipset that will allow building of bigger AMD Opteron processor-based systems than eight socket, which is the current limit with existing AMD Direct Connect architecture. There may be others, but these are very difficult technical problems that commonly fail. Remember that AMD is going dual core, so an eight-socket system is really 16 way, which is getting big enough to cover lots of applications. Today, most people are not looking at bigger than eight-way due to the maturity of both the hardware and software, e.g., Windows and Linux. A: Yes, except that it doesn't apply in every case. Also, the breadth of devices available on x86 is much broader, which is why we are investing here. Please see: www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl for the certification list Q: What about driver support for SAN HBAs? Seems to be a lack of support by some vendors. A: Both V20z and V40z offer SAN HBA support from major vendors on various operating systems. Also, we are working very aggressively with all the major vendors to keep adding driver support for an ever increasing number of HBAs. Q: Will AMD Opteron processors play in the blade space for very high density applications? A: The challenge in blade systems in general is thermal dissipation. A large number of 100w CPUs in a small space is very difficult to cool, but we are working hard on this, as are others. What you will see from blade vendors is a variety of blade-form factors with a variety of power levels. Stay tuned. A: In general, AMD Opteron systems are positioned as multi-operating system solutions aimed at lower end applications (Web serving, application serving, media streaming, file serving, analytics, etc.). They do not support the processor count and memory, nor do they have the high-end reliability features that the APL line does, and thus handle different applications. For two-four processor count systems, the customer can choose. Solaris/SPARC systems have more than 10,000 applications, which is vastly larger than any other environment with the exception of Windows, so often times choices are influenced by software availability. Finally, SPARC systems will be going aggressively multi-core and multi-threaded, making the definition of "two processors" difficult to determine. With both SPARC and AMD Opteron products, we can solve any workload, price point, or software solution for our customers. Q: Where can I find out more about Solaris OS and V20z/V40z systems? A: Use the following links: A: Sun and AMD have a strategic relationship that includes close collaboration on technical, marketing, echo system development, etc. Sun and AMD have been working together very closely on Sun offering AMD's dual core chips-based server and workstation products when the CPUs become available. Q: Are there any plans to release a 64-bit Intel platform (Nocona or Itanium)? A: There are no announced product plans to deliver x86 systems based on Nacona or Itanium. As I wrote earlier, this is not a religious issue at Sun. We are committed to delivering value to our customers, and today, the AMD Opteron processor delivers better price/performance than Nacona or Itanium. Note that Solaris 9 OS runs on Nacona (no modifications required), and Nacona is on the Solaris HCL. A: The V20z and V40z currently support 2GB DIMMs which equates to 8GB of RAM per processor. As memory technology scales beyond current limitations, GBs per processor will increase. Q: How would you compare the Sun/AMD partnership with IBM's and HP's AMD relationships? A: Sun's relationship with AMD extends much deeper than a supplier relationship: we co-develop on software; we influence their roadmap; and we co-market and co-sell technology. This is a relationship that extends to the highest levels of the company. It is difficult to know exactly what AMD is doing with other companies, but it is clear that AMD is our primary technical and business relationship as opposed to one of several bets. Also, we have an operating system (Solaris OS) and complete software suite that we are optimizing for the AMD Opteron processor; HP and IBM do not. A: Yes. We have extensive hardware certification programs, and our partnership with AMD includes jointly working with the motherboard manufacturers A: Both V20z and V210 provide solutions to similar customer needs. The V20z uses AMD Opteron CPUs, and V210 uses SPARC CPUs. Both systems offer extended I/O connectivity through PCIX slots. As they use different CPUs, they have different instruction-set architecture (ISA). The V210 is compatible with SPARC Solaris binaries of thousands of applications. The V20z is compatible with thousands of x86 binaries. A: We intend to continue to scale the capabilities of our AMD Opteron systems in terms of number of processors and memory capacity aggressively keeping up with technology advances. A: That's difficult to answer without knowing more about your application and how you want to administer your systems. For some applications, you cannot beat a large number of processors working on a very large memory pool, which you simply can't get by using a collection of smaller boxes. Also, the management of a large number of separate computers may or may not be more expensive for you, even if hardware purchase is lower. What we see is that there are applications such as Web server, analytics, application server, low-end data base, and media streaming, which are very well suited to systems like the V20z/V40z with great performance. There are other applications, such as big database, CRM, etc., which are much better suited to larger machines. Evaluate the total costs carefully. Q: HP also offers an AMD Opteron four-way processor. What's the advantage of buying from Sun? A: The Sun Fire V40z server outperforms HP's AMD Opteron four-way processor-based product (the DL585). The V40z also offers a number of superior features to the DL585; for example, the V40z supports faster DDR333 memory, whereas the DL585 only supports older and slower DDR266 memory. Q: Given AMD's dual-core plans, does Sun have an expected date for support? A: Yes. Sun plans to support dual core AMD processors when AMD launches them. Q: Is memory mirroring an option on these systems with hot swap replacement? A: The Sun Fire V20z and V40z servers do not support memory mirroring with hot swap replacement. The V20z and V40z both run ECC memory and correct single-bit memory errors. A: Yes A: The V20z and V40z include enterprise reliability features such as lights out management, hot swap disk drives, and redundant power (V40z). They are excellent in this type of application, and in fact we already have a number of customers doing exactly this. Q: Do the AMD Opteron processor-based boxes have built-in raid controllers? A: The Sun Fire V20z and V40z servers support built-in drive mirroring and the ability to stripe drives. A: The Sun Fire V20z server runs both Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003. Both of these operating systems have been WHQL certified on the Sun Fire V20z server. The .NET and .ASP development tools run on Windows 2000 and 2003 Servers. The V20z supports both single and dual processor configurations. A: Sun and AMD have a very strong relationship and are working very closely together. Sun also has a strong relationship with Intel. We are very focused on delivering enterprise value to the x86 platform and delivering value to customers for the long term. Our system architecture design allows us to include Intel processors if that delivers better value to our customers A: In a word, PERFORMANCE! AMD Opteron will blow away either of these platforms (they're kind of old — you should see our upgrade programs!). But even against the best machines from Dell, an AMD Opteron processor-based system is still outperforming. We're also partnering with the leading graphics vendors, so our graphics performance is top of the line, too. You're obviously a Solaris guy, but if you wanted Linux, an AMD Opteron system (Sun Java workstation) would be the way to go. Q: Drivers have always been a problem for Solaris x86. How is this being addressed? A: The situation is greatly improved, with more than 250 devices now supported. This is a major area of investment. See sun.com/bigadmin/hcl for the hardware compatibility list. A: Our AMD Opteron systems have set many industry record benchmarks. You can find the latest benchmark data on the sun.com site. Specifically, use the following links: A: Yes, there are dramatic differences between AMD and Intel architectures. The first is that AMD integrates the memory controller and has one-half the latency to main memory, which makes a huge difference in performance regardless of 32- or 64-bit applications. The second is that AMD has integrated the ability to multiprocessing systems up to eight-way that is very high performance. Both of these are exploited by the Solaris OS to create higher performance systems than with Intel. Which applications are faster varies, but what we see is 30-100 percent faster in most cases. Q: How many processors can you currently support per OS instance, and what are the future plans? A: The Sun Fire V20z server supports two AMD Opteron processors, and the Sun Fire V40z server supports four. We currently have plans for eight-socket systems. Q: Is there an in-house AMD box in the works? A: Yes. These systems are being developed by Andy Bechtolsheim and the team that joined Sun via the Kealia acquisition. We have not made any public disclosure on the details of the systems, other than we will deliver two-, four- and eight-socket AMD Opteron systems. Q: How do these machines compare in performance to the G5-based Apple Xserve and PowerMac? A: It is difficult to compare systems without knowing the application workload. Apple's G5 includes special instructions which help in video processing and related multi-media, so it tends to do especially well with software tuned to that. Outside of these applications, AMD Opteron systems tend to be faster due to lower memory latency and high clock rate, but, again, it will depend on the application.
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