Sun 'lets down' users with UltraSPARC IIIi+ delay

Serrano still not cooked

By Ashlee Vance in Mountain View • Get more from this author

Posted in Servers, 7th July 2006 22:31 GMT

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It seems we missed a few details during yesterday's dig into Sun's upcoming server launch. Thankfully, our dear readers were here to help.

We talked about the upcoming Sun Fire V215 and V445 servers but left out the V245 system. All three of these boxes will replace systems (the V210, V240 and V440) running on the UltraSPARC IIIi processor. The problem is that Sun planned to outfit the new gear with the UltraSPARC IIIi+ - aka Serrano – chip. Some supply issues seem to have impacted that agenda with Sun now just planning to requalify the lower-end V215 and V245 servers with the 1.59GHz chip currently in the V240.

"Another typical letdown for the stalwart Sun customer," barked one user.

"There have been problems getting the UltraSPARC IIIi+ processors, so the new systems will be released with the current chips," noted another customer. "The main difference will be consolidation into the Bechtolsheim cases that the Opteron- and UltraSPARC T1-based systems use, PCI-E/PCI-X and a couple other upgrades.

The US-IIIi+ won't come until later this year."

That's a huge blow for Sun customers that have been waiting and waiting for the UltraSPARC IIIi+ chip. Sun had planned to ship the product in 2005, only to delay it in the hopes of getting the UltraSPARC T1 out the door faster.

Back to the x86 front, we've solved yesterday's blade chassis conundrum. The Sun Blade x8000 is indeed 19U, while the actual blade systems take up 10U of space. Sun will fill out the rest of the chassis with fans, networking and management server options. ®

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