Devoted to hardware, software, IT issues, and information technology management

I just ran across a post from Paul Mah on TechRepublic, "Sun previews four-socket, quad-core server measuring just 2U" that describes Sun Microsystems (NasdaqGS: JAVA) preview on September 5th of the the first four-socket, 2U, quad-core server from a tier-one vendor, powered by the Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor 7300 series that Intel announced separately that same day.

Intel's announcement also included the following, which is sure to give Sun a boost in its competition with Linux:

"Intel also endorsed the Solaris Operating System (OS) as the only mission-critical UNIX operating system for the Intel Xeon processor, recommending that OEMs and systems builders show support for the Solaris OS on Xeon-based platforms."

The full announcement can be found here.

There are other tier-one vendors that make four-socket, quad-core, rack-mount servers, but nothing that is available in just 2U.  For those of you not that familiar with this measurement; 1U is equal to 1.75" of vertical space within a server rack and most of the other four-socket, quad-core servers have a chassis that is 4U in height and considering that rack space is at a premium in most data centers, this is a big deal.

This same processor has found its way into HP's c-Class blade servers with their September 6th announcement of the ProLiant BL680c Server Blade and I expect we'll see adoption of the processor with Dell & IBM soon.

I have yet to meet any of my peers that are using Intel-based x86/x64 servers from Sun or any other vendor to support the x86 version of the Solaris OS.  If you're out there and care to comment, please do so.