Fujitsu and Sun Microsystems have launched new quad-core SPARC64 VII processors and are offering an updated memory controller for the SPARC Enterprise server line.
The companies claim that the new processors deliver up to 25% better performance than the previous generation. They further claim that the updated SPARC Enterprise servers with the Solaris Operating System (OS) are suitable platforms for consolidation and mission-critical enterprise applications including large-scale databases, BIDW, ERP and human capital management (HCM).
Running at 2.88GHz for the SPARC Enterprise M9000 and M8000 servers and 2.53GHz for SPARC Enterprise M5000 and M4000 servers, the new processors provide increased single-thread and overall system performance, while the enhanced memory controller in the SPARC Enterprise M8000 and M9000 servers improves throughput under memory-intensive workloads, the companies said.
Noriyuki Toyoki, corporate vice president of Fujitsu, said: With new processors and excellent virtualisation features built into SPARC Enterprise servers, we are confident customers will achieve dramatic increases in IT resource efficiency. They will also significantly extend the life of their server investment.
John Fowler, executive vice president of systems group at Sun Microsystems, said: Our SPARC Enterprise servers with the Solaris OS offer a compelling combination of mainframe class performance and reliability as well as virtualisation and consolidation capabilities in an open system.
“The update we’re announcing today makes it possible for customers to increase the performance of mission-critical enterprise applications while capitalising on existing infrastructure investments with upgrades at half the cost of IBM.
The companies added that the SPARC Enterprise servers have the ability to mix SPARC64 VI and VII processors in a single domain, enabling customers to add processing resources, without downtime and without requiring other hardware changes.
Additionally, the integration of Oracle Database with Solaris 10’s dynamic memory management enables an Oracle database running on these SPARC Enterprise servers to use the additional memory without service interruption.
