Executives Review Oracle-Sun Product Strategies
Oracle is hiring 2,000 salespeople and engineers to sell not just software but hardware, now that Oracle’s acquisition of Sun, which was completed on Jan. 27, transforms it from a software company to a systems company. In a five-hour event, Oracle executives assured the IT industry it will accelerate the investment in Sun’s SPARC/Solaris server and storage hardware.
It Doesn’t Have to Be Complicated
The Sun BluePrints paper “Taking Advantage of Wire-Speed Cryptography” provides an overview of how to off-load application security functions that include cryptographic operations in conjunction with Oracle WebLogic Server and Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE platform) application environments in order to accelerate performance while minimizing compromises.
Most Powerful Supercomputer on the Continent
When the South African government launched its largest (both in South Africa and the continent as a whole) supercomputer at CHPC in Cape Town, Marc Hamilton, Sun VP of Americas Systems Practice was there to interview Naledi Pandor, South African Minister of Science and Technology, on the system and the Sun technology at its core - the second generation Sun Constellation System.
Finding and Fixing Bottlenecks Quickly
A Sun case study focuses on its CMT series, including the UltraSPARC T1, T2 and T2 Plus processors. Author Wynne Wang looks at how a slip in the performance of a non-CMT platform might become a bottleneck in the CMT environment and the possible solutions that could alleviate these type of data center issues.
One-page Timeline on Processors Anticipated Release 
The Register’s Timothy Prickett Morgan reports on a Sun generated roadmap for the SPARC processors that was reportedly produced in June for some of Sun’s largest customers. Since Sun is in the midst of being acquired by Oracle, Morgan points out that readers should understand it is by no means the ultimate roadmap that Oracle will use to pilot the Sun server business once it has been acquired. It is, however, a hint at where Sun would expect the SPARC processors to develop and be released.
Scalable Virtualized Platform Built to Serve Ten Million Users
A provider of web services security to the Western European market and the U.S., the French company Symeos has opted for an online identity management platform with open-source Sun solutions that have cut its development costs by 60%. The virtualized platform, called EGO, features Sun Blade servers using the UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor that have cut power costs by 10% and energy consumption across the entire platform by around 20%.
Additional Co-processor Cards, Special Licensing, Network Appliances Are Unnecessary
The Sun BluePrints Online paper “Accelerating IBM HTTP Server Cryptographic Operations Using Sun Servers with CoolThreads Technology” provides an overview of how to offload cryptographic operations onto Sun servers with CoolThreads technology to accelerate IBM HTTP Server (IHS) performance. For Sun servers with UltraSPARC T1, T2 or T2 Plus processors, on-chip cryptographic acceleration eliminates the need for additional co-processor cards, special licensing, network appliances or power hungry add-on components.
With Sun CMT Family of Systems
Record-breaking performance of the chip multi-threaded Sun SPARC Enterprise systems with newly released 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 and T2 Plus processors have many bloggers examining the reported results and dissecting the numbers. The new processors were tested in the Sun CMT family of systems, including the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120, T5220, T5240, T5440 servers and the Sun Blade T6320 server module. Testings considered include SPECint_rate2006, SPECfp_rate2006, SPECjbb2005, SPECjAppServer2004, SAP Standard Sales and Distribution (SD) Benchmark, Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (BI EE) and Zeus ZXTM HTTPThroughput.
Also, Sun T5440 with 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 Plus Delivers Record Performance on Oracle BI EE
Oracle and Sun set a world record four-processor result on the two-tier SAP Sales and Distribution (SD) Standard Application Benchmark running the SAP Enhancement Pack 4 for the SAP ERP 6.0 application (Unicode). The system configuration was comprised of a Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server equipped with four 1.6 GHz Sun UltraSPARC T2 Plus processors and the Oracle Database running on Solaris 10 for a result of 4,720 SAP SD Benchmark users.
Short Items of Interest to Solaris Users
