Sun Plans to Scale T2+ Servers to Four Sockets, Maybe More
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Last week, Sun Microsystems began shipments of its first two-socket variants of its 'Niagara' family of servers, marking a new phase in scalability for its multicore Sparc server product line. While Sun still sells plenty of big iron, much of it is too big and too expensive for the huge installed base of customers using machinery based on UltraSparc-II and UltraSparc-III processors, which date from the late 1990s and the early 2000s, respectively. The answer, of course, is to make more scalable Niagara servers using the Sparc T family of chips. READ MORE >

And Then There Was One: The New and Improved Power 570
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Two weeks ago, at the COMMON midrange user group in Nashville, Tennessee, IBM formally merged the System i and System p brands, creating a single Power Systems product line with the Power 520 and Power 550 servers while also launching i 6.1 (formerly known as i5/OS V6R1) on them. And last week, the company delivered the top-end 64-core Power 595 server, and then did a little product cleanup by merging the formerly distinct System i and System p versions of the 570. READ MORE >

Sundry Power Systems Announcements
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

As is always the case when IBM revamps a server line, there are a lot of little details and announcements that are overshadowed by the new servers and systems software. In this Power6 revamp of the former System i line, which is now but one platform on the unified Power Systems platform, IBM has staggered the operating system and hardware announcements throughout early 2008. And last week, there were still some loose ends to tie up. READ MORE >

As I See It: Goldilocks and the Zen of IT
by Victor Rozek

All right kids, grab your blankies and pillows, get comfy, and I'll tell you the story of Goldilocks, the IT Zen masters, and the three migration options. Once upon a time, there was a CEO everyone called Goldilocks because she had curly blond hair and the people in her company suffered from a paucity of imagination. Goldilocks had a problem. Her enterprise system was toooo old, her employees were toooo inefficient; and, if things didn't change soon, her annual bonus was going to be toooo small. READ MORE >