For the most part, the Oracle Sun Fire X4170 found favor with the reviewer for V3.co.uk, Alan Stevens, who pronounced the server " ... A good choice for companies looking for maximum performance from a 1U package," and a prime candidate for virtualization service. The X4170 compares quite favorably with its chief competition, the HP ProLiant DL360 G6 and the Dell PowerEdge R610. Stevens gives the Oracle Sun product such high marks in part because " ... it's a dual-processor server capable of accommodating the same range of dual-core and quad-core Xeon 5500 Nehalem chips."

Anyone interested in an integrated open-source software solution for Linux-based high-performance computing (HPC) clusters running on Sun hardware may want to read the Sun BluePrints article "Using Sun Ops Center with Sun HPC Software, Linux 2.0." Authors Mike Berg and Zhiqi Tao describe how to set up a Sun Ops Center server, provision the HPC cluster nodes (head node, Luster file system servers, and compute nodes), and configure system services.

Get more details on the September announced new release Sun Ops Center 2.5, which introduces several new features involving Solaris Zones, Logical Domains (LDoms), Storage Library Management, Oracle Enterprise Linux, Windows patching, Live Upgrade, installation and deployment, smart groups, Enterprise Controller, enhanced upgrade experience, and more browser support.