Oracle forges Xeon E5 racks and blades Oracle has launched five new servers – three rackables and two blades – based on Intel's new Xeon E5-2600 two-socket server processors. HP and Dell tried to jump the gun and get ahead of Intel's launch of the Xeon E5-2600s with their respective ProLiant Gen8 and PowerEdge 12G machines. But Larry Ellison's Oracle, a relative …
So, Larry hasn't been racing to play catch-up with the tier1 x64 vendors?
"....But Larry Ellison's Oracle, a relative newcomer and admitted niche player in the server racket, laid back and waited until it was ready to ship products in volume .... Oracle's website had not quite caught up to its marketeering...." The two are contradictory - if Larry really had just been biding his time then his website would have been ready to switch the new webpages into place along with the rest of the marketting. To me, it looks more like Larry was actually desperately trying to look like Oracle wasn't a month behind hp, IBM and Dell.
Aw, look at the ickle down-voters, aren't they precious? Would any of them like to respond with a reason why Larry can be so late to market considering the new Xeon chips were held back by Intel for about six months (see http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/06/intel_xeon_2600_server_chip_launch/). I doubt it.
I downvoted you because your comments are based on bigotry.
"The two are contradictory - if Larry really had just been biding his time then his website would have been ready to switch the new webpages into place along with the rest of the marketting."
Not necessarily. Vendors often announce product and then don't turn on the spigot until later.
IBM, for example announced POWER VII well before is was available, or before it was documented on their website.
Oracle has constantly stated that they are not a commodity player. They want to release an integrated, polished product. They don't want to sell things one at a time. This seems very consistent with that policy.
"To me, it looks more like Larry was actually desperately trying to look like Oracle wasn't a month behind hp, IBM and Dell."
At least you acknowledge that this is just your opinion, unlike some others here that espouse opinion as fact and even make "I've heard..." statements to spread FUD. I'm not sure that I see much desperation here. HP, IBM, and DELL seem to have no problem selling systems one at a time. Oracle seems not so inclined.
Of course, all of the above is just my opinion...
That is basically what is happening with Oracle Database Appliance. They are chucking the four-sockets out there at a nominal cost, probably at a loss, to lock-in workgroup DBs... basically as an added incentive for SMB and workgroups within enterprises to not migrate M$.
@Nate The datasheet does say "Four 100/1000/10 Base-T Ethernet ports" for the X4270 M3 so if true, yes, this would be the first one.
For those wondering what this is about, 10Gbase-T is 10Gbit Ethernet ports that use somewhat traditional unshielded twisted pairs of copper (of the highest quality of course) for port to port communications rather than relying on plugin ports. The plugin ports permit you to use either special limited-length (less than 15 meters) prefabricated cables with integrated SFP+ (Small Form Pluggable +) adapters on either end, or a pair of SFP+ optical modules and fiber-optic cable between them.
10Gbase-T is an emergent standard that will ultimately replace almost all of the very expensive server-to-switch connections we are currently using. It's been a long time coming. It makes 10Gbps Ethernet much cheaper, as the special cables and SFP+ modules are quite expensive and the Cat6 or Cat6A cables are not. With Cat6A cables 10Gbase-T reach extends also to up to 100 meters which is also a pretty big deal.
What is Oracle trying to do with x86 gear? These systems are in no way optimized to run Oracle applications. They're just two socket Xeon boxes. Larry was just saying that he doesn't care if Sun's general purpose x86 business drops to zero because general purpose x86 is a low margin business for chumps that can't attach software.... I don't think Oracle has long term interest in competiting with HP and IBM in x86, but he is getting so much flack about Sun's hardware business tanking that he wants to throw something out there that they can actually sell, unlike Sparc based systems, to goose the revenue for Sun's hardware biz.... Either that or someone within Oracle has a completely different plan for servers than Larry.
I would call my dealer and ask "the industry's best x86 platform for Oracle applications." quote.
So, what is happening when one dare to buy better one from IBM/HP? Runs needless cycles? Lowers bandwidth? Will nobody ask them?
This "conflict of interest" triggered by sun purchase should have really bitten them.
Matt> down-voters... Would any of them like to respond with a reason why...
Matt's Bad Attitude.
Matt> ...Larry can be so late to market... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/06/intel_xeon_2600_server_chip_launch/
El-Reg> "El Reg will be digging into the details on the new Xeon E5-2600 processors in terms of performance and pricing, as well as looking at how server makers deploy these chips and chipsets in their machines. Stay tuned"
Matt shows Oracle was a next server vendor, 1 month after Intel chip announcement. Matt could not even find an article showing Larry was late in comparison to other server vendors.
Matt> down-voters... Would any of them like to respond with a reason why...
Matt's Self-Depreciation.
".....Matt could not even find an article showing Larry was late in comparison to other server vendors....." Oh, I'm sorry, did the news not get through to your alternate reality bubble? Did you miss all the other vendors' announcements? Have some links:
General Xeon e5 announcement March 19th (http://www.crn.com/slide-shows/data-center/232602830/intel-xeon-e5-2600-server-vendors-others-roll-out-red-carpet.htm;jsessionid=IAJ1qKcIlf8xvBk+GezIRA**.ecappj03), please note the vendors listed ("Acer, Cisco, Dell, Hitachi, HP, IBM, Penguin, SGI, and Supermicro") as having servers ready to go does not include Oracle.
HP previews Gen8 Proliants 14th Feb (http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2012/02/14/hp_proliant_gen8_preview/), launches them to general public on 22nd March (http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/419748/hp_launches_proliant_gen8_servers_/).
Dell announcement 28th February (http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/network-wifi/3340850/dell-announces-new-server-portfolio-ahead-of-xeon-e5-launch/).
IBM announcements 9th March (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/09/ibm_xeon_e5_server_lineup/)
Oracle finally makes an announcement - 10th April (http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2012/04/10/oracle_xeon_e5_servers/). Almost two months after hp and Dell, and at least a month after IBM.
Oracle was late to the x64 party again, and these are general x64 servers, not "specialised" platforms, so you can't use the excuse that Oracle needed extra time to try them with the Exawhatever stacks. It looks like trimming out all those engineers has made Oracle lag behind even the relatively minor vendors like Acer and Seamicro, simple as that.
Of course when the CEO of the company you are buying a product from says that he doesn't care about the product, could careless if anyone buys it, and is not at all committed to it, the merit increases. Come on, Oracle has been telling the Wall Street analysts that the only reason their HW numbers are down is that they are still getting rid of all this worthless x86 business.
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