The details are a little thin on the new machines, since Sun is not technically announcing them until today. But here is what we know. The Sun Fire V40z server is a four-way, rack-mounted server that will have an initial list price of $8,495. The machine will also be available through a special one-week special eBay auction on www.ebay.com/sun. Sun will have benchmark tests that demonstrate that its four-way V40z server can best a comparable server using Intel’s Xeon MP processors by 76% on the SPECweb99_SSL benchmark at a 40% lower price.
Sun will also announce two Opteron workstations, the Sun Java Workstation W1100z and the Sun Java Workstation W2100z. Both are similarly based on Opteron processors, have Nvidia graphics subsystems, and can support Solaris 9 for x86 or Linux. The W1100z is probably a uniprocessor workstation, and it has a starting price of $1,995. The W2100z is probably a dual-processor machine, and it has a starting price of $4,695. Both Opteron workstations come with the Java Desktop System preinstalled – that’s the Java part of the workstation’s name. But don’t be fooled. These will be real Unix workstations, and Sun will run a lot of benchmarks on them to prove their mettle in the technical workstation market.
On the Sun Fire V20z front, Sun is announcing a special bundle called the Enterprise Essentials Promotion, which has two different hardware configurations and licenses for services and support all bundled together. Sun is offering a three year license to Solaris 9 for these boxes (which still is running in 32-bit mode on the Opterons) plus Sun Silver Spectrum support for $492 per year. Sun is offering an entry-level machine under the Enterprise Essentials promotion that includes a V20z with a single 2GHz Opteron 244 processor, 512MB of main memory, and a 73GB disk for $1,495. A premium configuration with two Opteron 250 processors, 1GB of main memory, and 73GB of disk will sell for $4,995. The software and support is presumably added on top of this. Sun says that the combination of this hardware, software, and support pricing makes a Sun V20z box 40% less expensive than a Dell x86 box running Red Hat Linux.
Incidentally, Sun is also offering the 2.4GHz Opteron 250 in regular Sun Fire V20z servers, with a starting price of $2,795 for a base box with one CPU. A V20z machine with a single 2.2GHz Opteron 248 will have its price lowered by 33% to a mere $995.
