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AMD Opteron Technology and x86: Raising the Standard on Industry StandardsSoftware IssuesPlease click on a question below or download a pdf version.
A: We're looking at integrating the Java Desktop System tools in the Solaris 10 OS release for the workstations. This would provide this functionality with Sun branded products. Q: Will any of the AMD Opteron processor-based operating systems support iSCSI? A: Solaris 10 OS will have iSCSI support. For Red Hat, SuSE, and Windows, you will have to look at their commitment roadmap. Q: When will ESRI products be supported on Solaris 10 OS? A: ESRI graphics applications would be gated by OpenGL support. I don't know their schedule. But OGL support for Opteron would be after March, For SPARC it could be December. Q: Will they work in a SAN environment such as EMC? A: We are working with BMC and CA on ensuring that their products work on Solaris OS for both SPARC and x86 platforms. Both the V20z and the V40z work in a SAN environment. Q: What is the timeframe for Studio 9 in 64-bit for AMD Opteron processors? A: 64-bit will be supported in Studio 10 and synchronized with the Solaris 10 OS at the end of this year. Q: Will Sun Cluster 3 be made available/certified on AMD Opteron processor-based systems? A: It is available today. A: Veritas has already committed support for Solaris on x86 platforms Q: Will GNOME be supported at Solaris 10 FCS? If so, which version? A: Yes, GNOME will be in the Solaris 10 OS — the version is 2.6. Q: Any time frame for Solaris OS (NOT Linux) support for OpenGL on x86/AMD Opteron systems? A: In the first update to Solaris 10 OS, which should be in March 2005. A: Tune in to our NC04Q3 event to find out. You can get more details at /nc/05q2/home/eh_index.jsp Q: What is the status/progress of BEA WebLogic on Solaris x86? A: WebLogic has been supported on Solaris OS for x86 since June. Q: What window managers will be supported? A: I suppose you mean in Solaris 10 OS. We're moving to GNOME as the standard window manager for Solaris, but we will also continue to support CDE for some time. Sun will also provide Java Desktop System on both Solaris and Linux environments, and that will be GNOME-based, too. A: The Solaris OS in 32-bit mode has to segment single address spaces because of the 32-bit addressing limit, even if the total system size can be much larger than 4GB. This does introduce performance impacts. In general, these are the kinds of applications that benefit from running on a 64-bit OS. In terms of comparing 64-bit operating systems, it's hard to compare with Windows right now due to the state of it, but the SuSE and Red Hat Linux versions are very similar. The Solaris 10-64 OS, when it becomes available, will outperform either of these on virtually any workload due to technical features in the Solaris OS from a decade of refinement in 64 bit. Q: Will I be able to port apps running on SPARC platforms? A: Yes, especially as we move to the Solaris 10 OS. We'll have the same OS source code running on both architectures. The API will be identical, and this should greatly simplify the "porting" effort. In might not be just a simple re-compile, but it should be very close. The Solaris 10 OS is due out at the end of this year and is available through Solaris Express this fall. A: Yes. Oracle 10g is being certified today on the Solaris 9 OS on AMD Opteron processor-based systems and will also be certified on Solaris 10 OS for both SPARC and AMD Opteron processors. Q: Will future AMD Opteron systems support the OBP, either in addition to, or instead of the BIOS? A: Our current AMD Opteron processor-based systems use industry standard BIOS so that we can support a broad base of operating systems. In the future, we will continue to design our systems to support multiple operating systems, including Solaris OS, Linux, and Windows. A: We support Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 on our systems. A: We already support the broad range of open-source tools on Solaris OS that people commonly use on Linux. Also, the Solaris 10 OS will offer binary compatibility with Red Hat and SuSE applications so that you can run any application built for these environments. The Solaris 10 OS will also include drivers optimized for nVIDIA. A: Yes, Studio 9 is optimized for x86 architectures in general. We are in the process of developing a revision that has specific support for AMD64 and has exceptional performance. We are also using this compiler and toolset for our own operating system work. All of the debugging features you get with Studio will be available on AMD64, and they work today in Studio 9 in 32-bit as well. Q: When will OpenGL be fully supported on Solaris 10 OS on AMD Opteron processor-based systems? A: In the first update to Solaris 10 OS, around March 2005. Q: Will open-source packages be supported? A: Yes. On an operating system level we support Solaris OS, Red Hat Linux, and SuSE Linux. All of these operating systems support a wide variety of open source software such as GNU CC, Apache, etc. A: Today, Oracle 9i release 2.0 runs on the V20z and V40z, using either Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 3 or SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8. Oracle 10g running on the Solaris x86 10 OS is expected in the not too distant future. Oracle specifies exactly what version of certain packages they support in various Linux distributions, so please refer to the Oracle Web site for more details on their Linux support. Q: What are you doing to win back the MCAD desktop seats that have been lost over the years? A: Several Things. We have updated our SPARC Sun Blade products and have future performance improvements coming later this year. We're also talking to all the ISVs about Solaris x86 and our new Sun Java workstations, and we're seeing excitement here. Our new boxes are WHQL certified — they run windows, and we're talking with ISVs about qualifying their Windows code on our Sun Java workstation platforms.
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