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Dell Departs 8-way Server Market Segment Sun Exec Examines Dell's Motives, Finds Them Lacking Dell has stepped out of the batter's box on the 8-way server market, claiming that horizontally scaled entry-level servers will meet the needs of its customers and announcing that the company will focus on 2-way and 4-way systems that its customers can cluster. Souheil Saliba, vice president of Volume Server Product Marketing at Sun questions the assumption behind Dell's decision to leave the 8-way server market segment, asserting that there is a definite place for the 8-way server in commerce. Saliba concedes that horizontally scaled entry-level servers might do perfectly well as small, stateless and easily replicated systems performing as Web servers, firewalls and media streaming systems, especially since a farm of low-end servers can be had at attractive prices. He argues that enterprise databases and such applications as supply chain management systems call for the vertically scaled server system, however. He points out that the slower external interconnects in a horizontally scaled system cannot stand up to the high-speed internal interconnects of a vertically scaled system. The cache coherency necessary in enterprise settings is just not possible in a horizontally scaled configuration, Saliba insists. Even while Dell was an active player in the 8-processor server market, Saliba points out that their success was far from assured. The older Pentium III processor employed in the Dell 8-way server was, Saliba maintains, not a hardy competitor against the better engineered, faster processors that are part of the Sun FireTM V880 server. No surprise, then, Saliba contends, that "while Dell retreats, the Sun Fire V880 server continues to gain market share. Sun led the 8-processor server market segment, ending the first quarter of 2003 with 34.1 percent shipments market share, according to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker. The 8- to 15-processor server market segment continues to provide opportunity for growth. According to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Server Forecaster, IDC forecasts the compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) for 8-processor to 15-processor servers is expected to be 10.6 percent through 2007." Instead of Dell's "one-size-fits-all" approach, Saliba stresses the various server configurations available from Sun. According to Saliba, "...Sun offers customers a wide range of systems -- from our entry-level, x86-based Sun FireTM V60x server and Sun FireTM V65x server, to our innovative blade platform, to our extremely powerful 106-way Sun FireTM 15K server -- that allow you to scale out or scale up according to your needs. We also give you exceptional flexibility by providing solutions that run the 32-bit SolarisTM Operating System (Solaris OS) (x86 Platform Edition), the 64-bit Solaris OS, or various flavors of Linux. As a result, you can optimize your computing infrastructure by selecting the most appropriate server and operating system based on the unique requirements of your diverse enterprise applications." Saliba asks his readers to consider whether Dell left "...the growing 8-way server space because one size truly does fit all, or did it cut its losses after a series of missteps and expensive engineering failures? And perhaps even more importantly: Are you going to choose a vendor whose solutions box you in, or are you going to entrust your future success to Sun, a systems powerhouse that offers you exceptional choice and flexibility to maximize your investment protection and help minimize your total cost of ownership?" See the complete Saliba article at:
http://www.sun.com/executives/realitycheck/reality-082603.html
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Dell Departs 8-way Server Market Segment
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