[CentOS] [OT] SPARC platforms -- WAS: Hot swap CPU

[Peter Arremann]

Bryan J. Smith b.j.smith at ieee.org  wrote:
>Not only that, but people forget that SPARC is not sold by just Sun.
>SPARC is an IEEE standard licensed under "fair and non-discriminatory"
>terms.  The SPARC ISA and most architectural details are freely
>available.
Yep - but what is your point with bringing that up?

>The _majority_ of my Solaris/SPARC experience in more recent years has
>been on Fujitsu/HAL solutions.  I not only prefer the Fujitsu/HAL
>products over Sun, I not only prefer Fujitsu's "openness" to support
>SPARC solutions with non-Fijitsu networking, storage, etc... attached
>(whereas Sun likes 100% Sun equipment from a support perspective)
Sun will very willingly support all certified solutions (including EMC, netApp 
or Hitachi for storage) as well as provide some support with uncertified 
hardware for us... no issues... 

> but 
>Fujitsu has taken over packaging design and fabrication of SPARCs for
>Sun itself. I.e., Sun used to design their own SPARC packages and TI 
>was their foundary, but Fujitsu has almost always designed their own
>SPARC modules/ daughtercards, and fabbed them themselves.
Yep - but how is that a benefit if your stuff works? NVidia is fabless i.e. 
and you surely don't want to tell me they aren't good at what they do... 
Having your own fab or not has very little influence...

>Sun even 
>sells Fujitsu PRIMEPOWER products on their site now.
They don't - they had info for it a while ago but even that has been removed.

>sun4u (UltraSPARC) is planned through UltraSPARC V
US-V has been canceled... 

>, with UltraSPARC III 
>(and lightweight IIIi) and IV available today.  The 1-2 way UltraSPARC
>IIIi is more comparable to the cost/design of the Pentium III and IV, as
>well as the Xeon.  
US-IIIi is up to 4 way...

>The UltraSPARC III and IV, and their platform, are 
>_clearly_superior_ to even OEM proprietary NUMA Xeon implementations
Yep

>(you really have to start looking at proprietary IA-64/Itanium II to get
>a good comparison).
>
>But the design of the Opteron is why Sun is moving forth with it's move.
>The typical UltraSPARC NUMA/SBUS server architecture really doesn't
>offer much over Opteron in a 2-8 way.  
Sbus ???? Now you're talking US-I/II again - and that is absolutely no match 
for an opteron box... 

>And to be honest, Solaris is 
>probably the most "mature" OS for Opteron 200/800 right now, given its
>experience on partial mesh interconnected systems.  
Based on what? The Implementation of Solaris for AMD dates back to SE b68 or 
69... that's mid 2004... Compare that to an OS that already ran on the 
software emulator before silicon was even out there... Solaris 10 on AMD64 is 
definitely less stable that Centos 4 on the same v40z... Running the same 
apps we had 0 crashes with Linux vs. 2 explained and patched, 1 explained 
still unpatched and 1 unexplained crash on Solaris10... 

>Linux will get 
>there, but it takes time and experience on a platform like SPARC
>(Windows never well, not even thanx to SGI's past, although brief,
>donations).
Why would you need to run on sparc to produce a stable OS for an opteron box?

Peter.