Another NC Event come and gone. Thought I'd share some thought about it...

So we've got 3 new servers (X2100,X4100, and X4200), 1 new networking device (N1000 App Switch), 2 new tape offerings (C2 Autoloader and C4 library), a NAS gateway and a new array. Storage first, cause thats just my style.

When I first say that 3320 I wondered how this differentiated itself from 3310, both are SCSI LVD, both basically just SCSI versions of the 3510. Looks like the only diffrence is that the 3310 was SCSI Ultra160 whereas the new 3320 is SCSI Ultra320. Otherwise I'm not seeing a diffrence. I don't see pricing on the unit yet but the 3310 with 1.7TB (12x146GB Drives) and redundant controllers rolls in at $26,500... I would hope that there would be little to no price diffrence between the two.

The two new tape offerings are pretty nice really. Looks like they are avalible in white or purple depending on what gear you want to match (based on the keynote). Both can go LTO3 or SDLT600 (but who would buy SDLT I have no idea beyond backward compatability). While the units look diffrent, the specs look more like a "small" and "large" compliment. C2 has a single drive and up to 16 slot, whereas the C4 has up to 2 drives and as many as 38slots (which in 4U is pretty damned good). Both are LVD SCSI but the C4 has a Fibre Channel option (read: bridge). The C2 with LTO3 rolls in at $9,695 (with both magazines) and the C4 comes right behind at $15,990 for 1 LTO3 drive and 38 slots. Of course, when you sit down and think about really rolling out a C4 the cost when you include the second LTO3 drive, 3 years of Silver support, 40 LTO3 barcoded tapes, and an extra magazine for quick loading brings the grand total to $38,263, not including the fibre bridge. But, all in all, thats not so bad considering what you get and that your support is paid up for 3 years. In comparison, Dell's equivelent is the PowerVault 132T library, with similar specs is only $21,248 (again, including tapes, labels, service, the works), however the Dell has a maximum capacity of 24 slots, which hurts. One thing I don't understand though is that Dell adds in $3,000 for the second drive, whereas Sun adds in $11,000. Sun's cost seems right to me... how is Dell selling LTO3 drives for $3,000? Looks like Dell's drives are UltraWide SCSI2 (80MB/s) versus Sun's drives which are Ultra320. I'd like to see the two side-by-side.

And so we come to the NAS Gateway StorEdge 5310. I'll be honest, when I see "NAS" and "Sun" in the same sentance I get suspicious. I think it was caused by all those years of Sun putting an UltraSPARC box on top of a StorEdge array and then super-glueing the chasis together and calling it a NAS solution. And, from the looks of it this is no diffrent. Immediately I noted two things: 1) it starts at $54,995, and 2) I don't hear anything about iSCSI. So I'm buying a Xeon powered server with a webgui on it to server out storage and paying more than $55,000 for the privelege? No thanks. That makes NetApp look even more affordable since that $55,000 doesn't include disk... and honestly, when you look at a NetApp system the cost of the software (OnTap/WAFL and the RTU) is about that, the hardware itself is fairly inexpensive. If you wanna feel better about paying too much for your NetApp, the 5310 will make you happy, but personally I'd say put your money into something far more powerful and useful such as a Maranti CoreStor. I mean I understand that its price according to the competition, but its still obscene.

App switches... I liked it when we called 'em "load balancers". I think there still have to be people in the market that haven't make the mental switch. The N1000 definately has a nice 1U form factor, and the pricing in the mid to low $20,000's is competative against other players such as NetScaler. But, when it comes to App Switches I'm really interested in what that interface looks and feels like and I don't see any demos.

Now to the servers. Holy shit. What can you say? AMD64 power. Sun engineering. SAS drives (w00t!), with lots of IO. What isn't to love? The Galaxy line is lining up to be just what we needed. And the pricing model is amazing. One thing that stands out to me is the quad-Gigabit ethernet. Finally, a vendor that understands that in the enterprise world 1+1=1 due to redundant root disks and networking. The decision to use 2.5" drives is, imho, a bold move but a neccisary one I think. The mainboard definately has some serious IO capability but due to the 1U and 2U form factors I can't see all those slots being accessable, so I'd like to see one in person.

Doesn't the X2100 just scream OpenMOSIX? I think it would be absolutely awesome if Sun donated 6 X2100's to the OpenMOSIX project. The PR would be great and they'd love 'em!

Speaking of the X2100, Anandtech has a full review online.

It was good to see a new Sun Ray Server Software version. I think that Sun Ray is still somewhat ahead of its time. Frankly, JavaStation, Sun Ray, JDS, and Linux desktop replacement in the enterprise space have all suffered from a similar problem: continuing to run existing Win32 applications. Several solutions have arisen such as Citrix, Wine, and various commercially marketed varients such as CodeWeavers CrossOver, but they've never made much of a dent toward wide-scale desktop replacement. I'm hoping that Sun's aquision of Tarantella will finally be the hook Sun Ray has needed. But we'll see.

All in all, a very good NC event. Looks like systems won't ship till October, despite Scott saying that systems are "shipping in volume now". If they are shipping I'm not sure who they are shipping too. Never the less, Octobers good.

I have some words reguarding the keynote though:

Firstly, the keynote seemed burried on the NC site, not being called a keynote but "Watch Encore", which I simply ignored untill I'd gone through everything else and wondered what it was. In the future labeling the keynote webcast for what it is might be more useful.

Secondly, some words reguarding Mr. John Fowlers keynote. The jokes weren't funny, they just fell flat. In my experience Sun keynote crowds, in fact keynote crowds in general, are hard to get laughing so the jokes just don't fly. The presentation didn't seem smooth and directed at all, and it was all together too light-hearted. In otherwords, the presentation wasn't professional. The first time Jonathan was corrected it was called for, he did misstate a fact, however following that it was more so done in jest that just didn't work. Further, saying seemingly light hearted things like "I'm not interested in the consumer space" made my skin crawl. You might not, but don't say that. Now, granted, it turned out that you were talking about putting iPod skins on a rack (or "Pod") but for about 60 seconds I didn't know that and started fuming. Don't make jokes about your pay check, don't comment about who you'd rather work for, don't try to tell jokes.

One last minor note reguarding the keynote... it would have been nice to get more than a single sentance from the panel members. I'd have liked to hear more from MySQL, more from Oracle, and possible more from Red Hat. I know time was short and you'd already gone an hour, but 5 minutes more wouldn't have hurt. Perhaps some other panel discussion happened during the event that wasn't webcast, and I know this is just how these things go, its more of a photo op than a panel discussion, but just a bit more would have been nice.

The one thing missing from the whole NC event that I expected (and I don't think I'm alone) was some word on Niagara. In fact, word about UltraSPARC in general was missing. Sliding in UltraSPARC and SunFire here and there wouldn't have hurt. Perhaps put some V1280's on stage with the new systems just to get a pretty picture of a full Sun rollout. And pointing out the strengths of Opteron as compared to UltraSPARC and explaining why the two are such a natural fit would be really good too. I don't see seperate product offerings, but I still see them being sold that way, there are two chip lines in a unified product offering, and we shouldn't allow people to continue to see such diverse technology rifts occur when I don't think they truely exist. But, anyway, I was hoping we'd possiblity get Galaxy's with Niagara to make this a sort of wholistic UltraSPARC/Opteron rollout but I guess I was wrong...but they'd definately be kickass. Hopefully the Galaxy systems stick around for awhile unlike the previous X86 systems, and the fact that Sun actually designed them is some hope that they will. Low cost UltraSPARC Galaxy would be pretty sweet, but then, thats what Opteron is all about right? :)

So, in the end I walk away with really two take-aways: 1) I'm feeling better about the StorageTek acquisition thanks to Jonathan's keynote, and 2) All Hail Andy! Welcome home!

BTW, I know your a big MaryMary reader already, but in case you haven't looked lately she's got tons of awesome behind the scenes footage including a great picture of Sun at NASDAQ.

toshia (Email) (URL) - 12 June '06 - 21:12

velma (Email) (URL) - 12 June '06 - 23:03

yelena (Email) (URL) - 13 June '06 - 00:26

Chuke (Email) (URL) - 13 June '06 - 14:59

genevive (Email) (URL) - 13 June '06 - 18:18

jenny (Email) (URL) - 14 June '06 - 01:41