Sun Ultra 20 Workstation FAQ

Sun Ultra 20 Workstation FAQ Sun Ultra 20 Workstation FAQ SunWIN Token # TBD Version May 9, 2005 This version supercedes all previous versions Please send all corrections to brian.huynh@sun.com The Sun Ultra 20 Workstation • What's new with the Sun Ultra 20 Workstation? The Sun Ultra 20 Workstation is a 2nd in a new line of x86 workstation from Sun. It is designed to complement and eventually replaces the Sun Java Workstation W1100z. The Sun Ultra 20 Workstation offers many new performance technologies and improvements over the Sun Java Workstation W1100z, as highlighted in the following table: Sun Java Workstation W1100z Sun Ultra 20 Workstation processor memory graphics AMD Opteron processor at speeds up to 2.4GHz Dual-channel registered PC3200 DDR400 ECC memory AGP Graphics NVIDIA Quadro NVS 280 NVIDIA Quadro FX500 NVIDIA Quadro FX1100 NVIDIA Quadro FX3000 NVIDIA Quadro FX 4000 Idle = 50dB Operating = 51dB 550W Sun Gigabit LAN 10/100/1000 by Broadcom Not available (80GB IDE only) Faster, Next-Generation Opteron processors at speeds up to 2.6GHz Dual-channel unbuffered PC3200 DDR400 memory with or without ECC PCI Express (x16) Graphics ATI Entry 2D, PCI NVIDIA NVS 280 PCI-E NVIDIA Quadro FX 1400, PCI-E NVIDIA Quadro FX 3450, (available October, 2005) new quiet fan technology with Pulse Width Modulation Fans 400W Integrated 10/100/1000 LAN (PCI-E) Integrated Serial ATA controller RAID 0 or 1 capable Up to 2* SATA drives, 500 GB max 80, 250 GB (7200 rpm) Ultra 320 SCSI controller/drives (opt) USB 2.0: 4 back, 2 front $895 to $2,995 acoustics power supply communications SATA drives SCSI drives I/O Connectors Price Range Not available USB 2.0: 3 back, 2 front $1,995 to $3,195 Sun Ultra 20 Workstation FAQ • Will I have to change my golden image on the new Sun Ultra 20 Workstation? Yes. The new Sun Ultra 20 Workstation is a completely new platform. Most of the system drivers are different than those used on the Sun Java Workstation W1100z, therefore our customers will have to create new golden images. • Why are you reusing Ultra name? The Sun Ultra line of workstations represent the highest-quality, highest-performing tools to Sun customers for the past 10 years. Sun Ultra 20 Workstations has enabled the talents of an engineer or programmer, allowing them to express themselves, their vision, and their skills to the greatest effect. Organizations employed the Sun Ultra workstations has gotten products to market more quickly, and with higher quality than organizations that employ lesser tools. Sun introduced the Sun Ultra 1 workstation in 1995 and it was widely considered to be the premier workstation of its time. Since then, Sun has introduced five more Sun Ultra Workstations (Models Ultra 1, 2, 5, 10, 60, and 80) and today there are more than 1 million Sun Ultra workstation in existence. The Sun Ultra 20 Workstation will continue this tradition • Will it confuse customers? No. Model 20 has never been used. Since the Sun Ultra 20 Workstation is intended to replace the Sun Java Workstation W1100z, is there a migration path for existing customers of the Sun Java Workstation W1100z? Protecting customers' investments - both through the ability to move easily to the latest technology as it emerges and at a fraction of the cost, is important to Sun and to our customers. In Q32005, Sun will offer customers to trade-in any Sun Workstation or any IBM, HP or Dell Workstation that is less than 5 years old and receive a percentage in trade in allowance off the list price of a Sun Ultra 20 Workstation. • • Is the floppy drive really not available on the new Sun Ultra 20 Workstation? Yes. For ultimate price flexibility and/or security concerns by many customers, Sun has been offering workstations for over 10 years without the floppy drive. With the advancement of new technologies like USB Disk Keys, bootable CD-ROMs/CDRW's, external storage, etc. the necessity of a floppy drive has really declined over the past few years and many customers simply don't need them anymore. • Are legacy IDE hard drives available on the new Sun Ultra 20 Workstation? What hard drives will be? No. The new chipset used in the Sun Ultra 20 Workstation Workstation does not support the legacy IDE (parallel ATA) hard drives. Instead, the Sun Ultra 20 Workstation has an integrated SATA controller for Serial ATA hard drives. We will offer the following SATA hard drives: 80GB and 250 GB (7200rpm) . • Does the new Sun Ultra 20 Workstation offer and support Serial ATA (SATA) hard drives? Yes. The Sun Ultra 20 Workstation has an integrated SATA controller for Serial ATA hard drives. Sun offers the following SATA hard drives: 80GB and 250GB (7200rpm). We also offer an optional Ultra 320 SCSI controller. We do not offer any Ultra 320 SCSI drives on the Sun Ultra 20Workstation. • Does the new Sun Ultra 20 Workstation support Serial ATA (SATA) RAID? Yes. The chipset used on the new Sun Ultra 20 Workstation has integrated SATA controller with RAID support for RAID 0 (striped) and RAID 1 (mirrored arrays). Customers can choose to have a high performance RAID 0 array of hard drives where data is striped across multiple hard drives (this RAID method greatly improves data access times and system performance), OR they can choose to have a highly reliable RAID 1 array of hard drives where data is duplicated to multiple hard drives at once (this RAID method essentially creates a backup copy of all your data in real time). • What SCSI drives and controllers are offered on the new Sun Ultra 20 Workstation? Sun does not offer any SCSI drives on the Sun Ultra 20Workstation. Sun does offer an optional full-featured PCI-X Ultra 320 SCSI controller with an external connector and HostRAID capability. • Does the new Sun Ultra 20 Workstation offer a SCSI RAID option? Yes. The new Sun Ultra 20 Workstation supports a SCSI RAID option via the Ultra 320 SCSI controller with an external connector and Optical Drive DVD-ROM DVD+RW/+R Speed 16x (reads +/-) DVD 16x/4x/12x CD 24x/10x/40x Memory Sun Ultra 20 Workstation FAQ • What memory is used on the new Sun Ultra 20 Workstation? Is it the same memory used on the Sun Java Workstation W1100z? The new Sun Ultra 20 Workstation uses new buffered memory technology. This memory is quite different than the registered memory used on the Sun Java Workstation W1100z. The memory used on the Sun Java Workstation W1100z is slower, more expensive and does not allow ECC to be optional. To achieve higher performance, lower cost, and optional ECC, unbuffered memory was used on the Sun Ultra 20Workstation. Unbuffered memory technology provides several benefits. First, the CAS latency for this memory technology is lower than that of registered memory, thus yielding higher performance. Second, unbuffered memory does not required additional “buffering” on the DIMM, hence is less than registered memory. Finally, unbuffered memory is available with ECC or without ECC, which will ultimately result less expensive DIMMs and higher performance. Given these benefits of unbuffered memory, it is clear to see that this will be the memory of choice for the next entry-level generations of Sun workstations. • Why do I sometimes see DDR-400 memory in terms of PC3200? How does this relate to memory bandwidth? Clock rate is directly proportional to memory bandwidth. The bandwidth of 400MHz DDR memory is calculated as 400MHz * 8 bytes per channel = 3,200 MB/s or 3.2GB/s so it is also referred to as PC3200 DDR memory. This nomenclature is the official designation from JEDEC, the leading developer of standards for the solid-state industry The memory bandwidth of the system is improved upon by implementing dual-channel memory architecture. Above, notice the factor "8 bytes per channel". By implementing two channels you can essentially double your bandwidth. Instead of a single DIMM working alone, a pair of DIMMs essentially works together to split up the data exchange to and from the rest of the system. On the new Sun Ultra 20 Workstation the dual channel memory architecture results in unprecedented memory bandwidths on a personal workstation. With PC3200 DDR (400MHz) memory, the system's memory bandwidth is an astounding 6.4GB/s. • Does the large DDR-400 memory bandwidth (6.4GB/s) drags system performance if the processor bandwidth is 8.0GB/s? No. Not all data is transferred between the processor and the system memory. For some tasks, system I/O and graphics pass data to the system memory. With the bandwidth headroom these tasks are carried out without interrupting the data flow between the memory and the processor. In benchmarks we've seen performance improvements as much as 11% resulting from the faster memory. In addition, this performance gain scales with the processor. So as the processors get faster the bandwidth benefit will become more important. • How does this memory bandwidth impact the Sun Ultra 20 Workstation system performance? Many technical applications require huge amounts of memory bandwidth, especially those that use 3D graphics or that have a large percentage of floating point calculations. These applications will benefit from the massive memory bandwidth provided by the new Sun Ultra 20 Workstation. Memory latency is another very important factor. At the highest level, Latency is a measure of how long it takes the memory subsystem to respond to a cache miss in the processor. The lower (shorter) the memory latency, the better the application performance, especially for applications that "thrash the cache." • Does the memory for the Sun Ultra 20 Workstation have to be ordered in pairs? What is the maximum memory configuration? No, but to take advantage of the dual-channel memory architecture memory must be installed in pairs; however, a single DIMM will work in the system (i.e. We offer a configuration with 1x256MB in the system). It is highly recommended that memory be added in pairs, as the performance benefit is substantial. The 1x256MB is the only single DIMM standard configuration (ready-to-ship) offered. All other configurations are offered in two-DIMM configuration only. When installing memory in the new Sun Ultra 20 Workstation, pairs must be matched in size and speed (i.e. 2x256MB/5333MHz, not 1x256MB/400, 1x512MB/533) and multiple pairs must be matched in speed. The new Sun Ultra 20 Workstation has 4 DIMM slots (2 dual-channels) and supports up to 4GB of physical memory. • Does the new Sun Ultra 20 Workstation offer ECC and non-ECC memory? If so, what speeds are offered? Yes. The new Sun Ultra 20 Workstation offers both ECC and non-ECC memory. The following table outlines memory availability: 128MB 256MB 512MB 1GB 2GB DDR-400MHz , ECC not available not available available not available available DDR-400MHz , non-ECC not available available not available not available not available • What is ECC memory? Why is ECC memory important? "ECC" stands for Error Correcting Code or Error Checking and Correction memory depending on which resource you refer to. ECC memory modules have an extra chip that performs a comparison of the data that is read in and written out. This chip has the capability of detecting single and multiple bit errors and correcting single bit errors on the fly. If this extra chip detects a single bit error it will correct the discrepancy and the system will continue to function without any interruption. If a multiple bit error (which is extremely uncommon) is detected, the memory module will issue a non-maskable interrupt (NMI) which will shutdown the system avoiding any data corruption in the system. Single and multiple bit data errors can go undetected without ECC memory. Data integrity is always important, but when you are designing an airplane or automobile part, under a tight deadline on your customer's TV commercial production, analyzing population densities for domestic policy reform, or managing your clients' financial portfolios of millions of dollars, data integrity is absolutely vital. And in today's cut-throat competitive environment, work flow efficiency and utilization rates are also crucial. Sun workstations, including the new Sun Ultra 20 Workstation, offer ECC memory which provides an extra level of data integrity, reliability, and greater system uptime. • How do I order memory on the new Sun Ultra 20 Workstation? Given the complexity of the memory situation (with multiple speeds, single channel, dual channel, ECC and non-ECC) predefined memory configurations will be defined and made available. This greatly simplifies the ordering process for internal and external customers. The following table outlines the "menu" of memory configurations available: Memory Product Number 512MB (2x256) DDR-400 non-ECC unbuffered 1GB (2x512) DDR-400 ECC unbuffered 2GB (2x1GB) DDR-400 ECC unbuffered AMD64 Technology Sun Ultra 20 Workstation FAQ AMD64 Technology is currently available on the Sun Java Workstation W2100z, Sun Java Workstation W1100z, and will be on the Sun Ultra 20 Workstation • How will I benefit from AMD64 Technology? With the new AMD64 Technology, you will be able to support larger than 4GB of addressable memory space to aid in the design and manipulation of large data sets or models. This enhancement to AMD's processor portfolio will provide workstation customers with a "friendly" transition path from 32-bit to 64bit computing since support for both 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems is planned. 32-bit applications should run at full performance on architecture capable of also supporting 64-bit operating systems and applications. • What value does AMD64 Technology bring to personal workstations? Today's 32-bit operating systems limit users to 32-bits (4GB) of memory address space. This limits the type and amount of I/O (input/output) and physical, configurable memory. I/O cards with on-board memory (e.g. graphics) and the system memory both consume the same address space. When I/O cards with large memory are present, this leaves less addressable space, thus limiting the amount of physical memory one can effectively put in a system. Some examples can be shown where physical system memory is actually limited to less than 3GB. A 64-bit architecture will expand addressable memory space from 4GB to 16TB. This should allow the large I/O to work in harmony with 4GB (on the Sun Ultra 20 Workstation), and above, physical memory. • Why has Sun chosen to add AMD64 Technology to their product line? Sun constantly monitors the industry for, or invents, new technologies that could benefit our customers. AMD64 Technology is a new technology that has shown great promise in meeting our customers' needs. We've chosen to add this technology to our workstation product line to provide our customers increased flexibility when choosing their workstation solutions. • If I don't need 64-bit today, why would I consider moving to a Sun Workstation enabled with a new AMD processor with AMD64 Technology? AMD64 Technology is not a special architecture just for users with 64-bit addressing needs. This technology is the an inherent ingredient on all AMD processors. Buying an AMD64 Technology enabled workstation should provide leading performance for 32-bit applications and the flexibility to change to a 64-bit operating system later on the same workstation, should your computing needs change. • What types of applications does Sun expect to take advantage of the AMD64 Technology enabled processors? At this time, Sun expects applications that require large memory (greater than 4GB) to benefit from this new architecture, including applications specifically for MCAD and EDA. As AMD64 is merely an extension of the existing pervasive 32-bit architectures, extensive porting assistance should not be required. Sun plans to continue assisting ISVs interesting in porting to AMD64 Technology. • What should set Sun Workstations enabled with AMD64 Technology apart from others' workstations? Sun is leading the industry to industry-standard 64-bit computing. Sun has been developing 64-bit systems and operating systems for 20+ years. Sun has an understanding of customer needs, operating systems, applications, and hardware that is unmatched in the industry. • Why is Sun only offering x64 workstations with AMD processors and not Intel processors? First things first, we chosed AMD as a partner because, unlike Intel, AMD does not compete with its customers. For the past 10 years, Intel has produced numerous workstation building blocks (chipsets, motherboards), marketed it widely. These actions have lowered the barrier to entry to Sun's competitors, commoditized the workstation category, and undermined Sun's UltraSPARC-based workstation business. AMD produces strictly CPUs and leave the value-added engineering to Sun. Second, we chosed the AMD64 architecture over Intel Architecture because it is the best CPU architeture for x64 workstations. From • Are there plans to offer x64 workstations with Intel processors? Sun has an open relationship with AMD. We regularly remind AMD that we are not in monogamous relationship with them and they are fully cognizantof that fact. As a service to our shareholders, we constantly look to expand our workstation portfolio by evaluating new technology. Intel has an unparalleled portfolio of CPUs that could benefit Sun in some areas that AMD is inherently not strong at. Sun will introduce an Intel-based workstation when it becomes clear that AMD cannot offer a comparable solution. Until then, Sun remains focused on the AMD roadmap and do not dilute our resources across two CPU product lines like HP or IBM. Dual-Core Technology Sun Ultra 20 Workstation FAQ • What is Multi-Core Technology? Faster clock speeds are an important way to deliver more computing power, but clock speed is only half the story. The other route to higher performance is to accomplish more work on each clock cycle, and that's where Dual-Core Technology comes in. Dual-Core Technology enables the processor to utilize its execution resources more efficiently, delivering performance increases and improving user productivity. Dual-Core Technology presents the AMD Opteron processor to modern operating systems and applications as two processors that can work on two sets of chores simultaneously. The benefits of this technology include: • • • Support for multi-threaded code and multi-tasking operations through better utilization of processor resources. Multiple threads/tasks running simultaneously to increase the number of transactions that can be executed. Improved reaction and response times for end users. For more detailed information visit AMD's Dual Core site at: http://multicore.amd.com/ • Is Dual-Core Technology available on the Sun Ultra 20 Workstation? Dual-Core Technology will be available on the Sun Ultra 20 Workstation in Q4 2005. • Is Dual-Core Technology something I can retrofit into my older Single-Core workstation from Sun? No. Sun does not recommend end-users to retrofit Dual-Core processors into older workstations from Sun. To maximize Dual-core technology, Sun has architected new platforms with improved I/O and BIOS optimizations. Dual-Core workstations from Sun will be available starting in Q4 2005 with the Sun Ultra 20workstation. • Does Dual-Core Technology improve performance in all situations? Not in all situations. Dual-Core Technology is beneficial in many circumstances, but in some cases it can actually hurt the performance of the system if older operating systems does not support it. However, with newer operating systems (Solaris 10, Windows XP Professional) the system can really take advantage of the Dual-Core Technology. Dual Core can really improve system performance when multi-tasking (running several applications at once) or when running multi-threaded applications. Most workstation applications are multi-threaded to take advantage of multiple processors. As a result, Dual-Core technology plays very well into the technical computing environment. • When should customers consider Dual-Core versus Single-core? Customers should ustomers should transition to dual core workstations if their workstation software applications are multi-threaded – programs that run multiple tasks (threads). The benefits are obvious: the workload finishes quicker because the tasks are run in parallel. The benefits are less obvious if the software is not multi-threaded. However, dual core workstations are still meaningful if the customer workload requires running multiple applications at the same time. Dual core workstations give users the ability to keep working even while running the most processor intensive tasks in the background, like mathematical analysis. Cutomers should remain on single-core workstations if all their current and future workload is strictly single-task. Single-core CPUs are always have higher Ghz than dual-core CPUs. • What operating systems take advantage of Dual Core Technology? Solaris 10 and Windows XP Professional takes advantage of Dual-Core Technology. Some Linux distributions also support Dual-Core Technology but not all of them. Older operating systems (Windows NT, etc) may not work with Dual-Core. Graphics • Will the new Sun Workstations Sun Ultra 20 Workstation support the AGP 8X graphics? No. The chipset in the new Sun Ultra 20 Workstation does not support the AGP interface. Instead, a new PCI Express (x16) graphics slot will be available. Graphics card vendors are launching a whole new line of graphics cards that will be compatible with the new PCI Express interface. • Will I be able to plug my AGP graphics cards into the new Sun Ultra 20 Workstation? No. AGP and PCI Express are completely different interfaces. An AGP card will not plug into a PCI Express slot, nor will a PCI Express card plug into an AGP slot. • What's the advantage of PCI Express for graphics? What are the differences? PCI Express is the next generation interface not only for graphics cards, but also for I/O cards. PCI Express is a scalable interface, and depending on the chipset the system can have multiple PCI Express connections with various bandwidths. For graphics cards, the defined standard is "by sixteen" (or x16). This implementation of PCI Express provides twice the unidirectional bandwidth and four times the peak bandwidth as AGP 8X. The PCI Express specification also allows for 75W from the motherboard to the graphics cards. This is three times as much power as the standard AGP 8X specification. • What graphics cards are/will be available on the new Sun Ultra 20 Workstation? The new Sun Ultra 20Workstations supports Entry 2D up through our High-end 3D graphics cards. The following table outlines the integrated graphics cards that are/will be available on each system. Sun Ultra 20 Workstation Notes ATI Entry 2D VGA only. No DVI. Carries Entry 2D no ISV certification Professional 2D NVIDIA NVS 280 Dual DVI Entry 3D None Mid-range 3D NVIDIA Quadro FX 1400 Dual DVI NVIDIA Quadro FX 3450 Dual DVI. Available in Q4 High-end 3D 2005. All graphics cards are PCI-E unless otherwise noted. NVIDIA Quadro FX 3450 will be available in Q4 2005. ISV Certifications • What is the ISV Certification plan for the new Sun Ultra 20 Workstation? Sun has very strong relationships with independent software vendors (ISV's). The software vendors recognize that Sun is a critical partner in the industry, not only as a hardware OEM, but as a marketing and support partner. Sun, in many cases, has engineering personnel located full-time on site at these software vendors' location providing technical support, application performance tuning, and graphics driver optimization. ISV certification is a critical aspect of the workstation value proposition. Workstation customers are running very complicated, highend, technical applications and reliability and stability are an absolute requirement. The entry workstation is targeted at specific technical applications, many of which were listed above. The following table outlines the applications that are critical for ISV certification for the Sun Ultra 20workstation. Table 1. Primary hardware and applications certifications planned for the Sun Ultra 20 Workstation Sun Ultra 20 Workstation FAQ SW Development Oracle BEA Systems IBM Borland MCAD/MCAE UGS PTC ProE Dassault MSC Fluent LSTC Computational Dynamics ESI EDA Cadence Design Systems Synopsys Mentor Graphics Operating Systems Microsoft Windows • What Operating Systems will be preinstalled on the new Sun Ultra 20workstation? Will dual OS preload be an option? The Sun Ultra 20 Workstation is currently available with Solaris 10 preloaded only. Windows XP Professional, Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS, and SuSE Linux Enterprise Server will also be available as qualified operating systems only, not pre-loaded. Dual OS preload will not be offered. • Is Windows 2000 supported on the new Sun Ultra 20Workstation? No. Sun will not support customers who wish to run Windows 2000 on their new Sun Ultra 20 Workstation. Microsoft has discontinued OEM sales of Windows 2000 from OEMs. Since then they've also reduced their level of technical support for the aging operating system. Many of the new technologies in the Sun Ultra 20Workstation is not even available or technically feasible on the Windows 2000 operating system. . • Is Windows NT supported on the new Sun Ultra 20 Workstation? No. Windows NT is not supported on the new Sun Ultra 20Workstations. Microsoft discontinued OEM sales of Windows NT from OEMs on June 30, 2002. Since then they've also reduced their level of technical support for the aging operating system. Many of the new technologies in the new Sun Workstations are not even available or technically feasible on the Windows NT operating system. • Will Microsoft be supporting the Intel AMD64 enabled workstations? Yes. Microsoft has publicly announced their support for the Windows 64-bit extended operating system. • Will all Windows applications that run on current Sun Personal Workstations today run on the new Intel AMD64 enabled workstations? Current 32-bit applications should run on AMD64 enabled workstations under 32-bit operating systems. On 64-bit operating systems, there may be some exceptions where 32-bit applications may need 64-bit updates. Linux • Do the new Sun Ultra 20 Workstation support Linux? Yes! The new Sun Ultra 20Workstations will be qualified for Red Hat Enterprise Linux or SuSE Linux Enterprise Server. • Which version of Linux does the Sun Ultra 20 Workstation be qualified for ? The new Sun Ultra 20Workstations will be qualified for Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS v3 and v4, 32-bit and 64-bit. Additionally, The new Sun Ultra 20Workstations will be qualified for SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 (SLES 9) • Does the Sun Ultra 20 Workstation support Community Linux? No. • Why is Sun supporting Linux on workstations? Sun's technical workstation markets and customers heavily rely upon the Solaris operating environment, both in their infrastructure and the applications that they use. Linux on personal workstations is a very viable and attractive Solaris alternative that many of these customers are considering. In addition, many OEM's are turning to Linux as a cost effective open source operating system for many different applications. We see the Linux desktop emerging quickly as more and more applications on Linux become available. This is especially true in the EDA , Oil & Gas, OEM, and some MCAD markets. Offering Sun Workstations with Linux is part of Sun's overall multi-OS strategy which provides Solaris, Linux and Windows solutions to customers. Sun Ultra 20 Workstation FAQ Manageability • What manageability features are available on Sun Ultra 20Workstation? Solaris 10 helps you simplify management of our workstations and reduce total ownership costs. These integrated solutions are a result of extensive customer studies. Solaris 10 is pre-installed standard with the Sun Ultra 20workstation. It allows you to centrally track, monitor and manage the hardware aspects of the Sun Ultra 20workstation. Other benefits include: • • • • • • • Ability to get valuable hardware information such as CPU, memory, video and security settings Monitor system health to fix problems before they occur Install drivers and BIOs updates without visiting each workstation Remotely configure BIOS and security settings Automate processes to quickly resolve hardware problems Local recovery What other manageability SW is available on the Sun Ultra 20Workstation? PC-Check is a preloaded utility which performs over 500 tests on the Sun Ultra 20Workstation to confirm reliable hardware. Tests including customer favorites: PXE Network Boot, SMART hard drive testing, Memory Microtopology Locality Testing. PC-Check, available only on the Sun Ultra 20Workstation, can help save both time and money and increase overall productivity. For more information on the PC Check, go to: http://www.eurosoft-uk.com/pc_check.htm Options • What options are available for the new Sun Ultra 20Workstation? For a complete list of all options for the Sun Workstations, please go to: http://www.sun.com Warranty and support • What is the warranty and support for Sun Workstations with Solaris? The standard warranty for the Sun x64 Workstations is 1-year next business day on-site. The Solaris OS warranty is 90 days, defective media replacement. • What is the warranty and support for Sun Workstations with Linux? The warranty for Sun Workstations with Linux is 1-year next business day on-site. Linux OS warranty is not provided by Sun unless one of the standard Linux packages is purchased from Sun. • Will Sun stand behind Linux when I have problems? Sun is your first choice for global support and local expertise for the standard Linux packages. Sun offers a hardware warranty upgrade and software service plans are also available for purchase if you need extended coverage. • Why should you use Sun support instead of LinuxCare or Red Hat? Sun Linux support services are available on a global basis. Sun offers predictable multi-platform expertise providing you with a single vendor who can effectively support Linux and Windows environments. Sun has leveraged its proven support processes and extensive UNIX expertise to open source environments. Sun offers a full portfolio of Linux services, ranging form phone-in assistance through proactive and mission critical services. In addition, a global education, installation and integration services and multi-vendor network services are available to meet Linux and multi-platform support Why Choose the Sun Ultra 20 Workstation instead of a PC? • Why should I choose the Sun Ultra 20 Workstation and not a desktop PC? The Sun Ultra 20 Workstation technology is different from that of a desktop PC; these differences generally allow professionals to get more from their IT investment. This includes higher levels of reliability, performance and applications support. • Please explain more Professionals prefer to use the highest-quality, highest-performing tools. Such tools best enable the talents of an engineer or programmer, allowing them to express themselves, their vision, and their skills to the greatest effect. Organizations employing these tools get products to market more quickly, and with higher quality than organizations that employ lesser tools. A desktop PC is a general-purpose machine, designed for a broad range of tasks, such as running word-processing, spread sheets, presentation. The Sun Ultra 20 Workstation has been designed for a specific set of tasks, such as software development, design and simulation in engineering and manufacturing • Please tell me the key differences of the Sun Ultra 20 Workstation versus a PC The Sun Ultra 20 Workstation has higher overall system reliability, higher overall application stability, and has been engineered to have higher overall performance. The Sun Ultra 20 Workstation uses professional graphics, not gaming graphics. The Sun Ultra 20 Workstation has greater expandability. Buy the Sun Ultra 20 Workstation to improve your productivity and increase return on investment. The Sun Ultra 20 Workstation provides higher levels of stability, performance and expandability. A PC is a lowercost system designed for a variety of home and standard business tasks. • Please explain the usage differences between the Sun Ultra 20 Workstation and a desktop PC Sun workstation buyers uses their tools differently than PC buyers. This usage model directly influences the technology Sun uses as the basis for the product. Design and simulation in engineering and manufacturing: MCAD, MCAE, and EDA. SW Development: The planning for a major SW project is usually carried out with the help of workstations such that clients and engineers alike. These users require professional graphics solutions, large memory and disk capacity, and a high degree of reliability. All of these applications demand the highest levels of performance, reliability and flexibility from a platform. Users of these applications insist on a high level of support and expertise from their IT departments, equipment suppliers and applications software vendors. • What are the product features differences between the Sun Ultra 20 Workstation and a desktop PC? PC features focus on providing the appropriate level of performance for the user’s tasks while ensuring the lowest price. They are optimized to ensure a reliable day-to-day performance, and have a fairly long upgrade cycle because of a user preference for mature and stable technology (new system releases every 12 to 18 months). The Sun Ultra 20 Workstation features are tailored to users who require the highest levels of reliability and functionality to get products to market before the competition or require quick turnaround of computational results. The Sun Ultra 20 Workstation uses proven innovative technology to keep pace with the demands of users and extract the best performance from their applications. Sun workstation technology refresh cycle is every 3 to 6 months for processors, and every 9 to 18 months for new systems, depending on the underlying workstation architecture. • Why is the CPU differfent betweenteh Sun Ultra 20 Workstation and a desktop PC? Processing Power Computational demands of professional users, high-end processors are supported on workstations as soon as they are released. The tough demands of the workstation business means that processors not often seen on business desktops, such as the AMD Opteron processor, which supports dual processing. • Why is memory different? Abundant memory is important to ensure the balance between application, data, and operating system requirements. For example, large physical memory is required to work interactively with larger models or to "render to RAM" for a fast preview of a movie frame or model. Workstations typically support Error Checking and Correction (ECC) memory, a serverlike feature that provides protection against soft errors in the memory that could lead to process and application failures. Higher end workstations also support registered DDR-SDRAM1. Registered memory ensures higher accuracy in data transfers from memory modules by buffering the clocksignals to minimize the possibility of an error when accessing data. • Sun Ultra 20 Workstation FAQ • Why is I/O different? Because of files that they often generate. Many workstations use hard drives with higher rotational speeds—this reduces latency and increases data transfer bandwidth.Workstations also use higher performance interfaces, for example Serial ATA (SATA). Workstations can manage a large number of connected devices and, in some cases, have highbandwidth buses to ensure the fastest data transfer rates.Workstations usually have a large complement of PCI slots and standard I/O ports (such as Gigabit Ethernet, Firewire 800 and USB 2). Since these standard ports are often on the main system board, PCI slots are freed for other purposes such as expansion cards used in non-linear video editing or RAID disk controllers. Other I/O benefits include the high-performance enhancement of PCI-Express to the conventional PCI specifications. This allows additional bandwidth and dedicated performance buses (up to 1GB/s) to address the higher demands of high-bandwidth hardware such as Gigabit Ethernet, Fibre Channel, Firewire 800 and Ultra320 SCSI. • Why is Graphics different? A PC or business desktop is often supported with an integrated graphics chipset or a low- to midrange commercial graphics card. These cards, while fine for everyday 2D tasks or gaming, do not have the hardware power and drivers that differentiate a professional graphics card. The graphics card plays a large part in defining the role of a workstation. Workstations are designed to support the most powerful graphics cards. For example, these cards may offer more than 128 MB of fast memory, have additional graphics pipelines and engines, or support higher graphics processing unit clock speeds. Workstations are able to support the additional power and cooling requirements of these cards. • What else is different on graphics? Sun combines its graphics expertise with available products to provide the industry's most expansive, fast, and flexible set of graphics solutions. Strategic partnerships/ISV certification Feature and performance leadership Broad product portfolio with a single point of support Sun has consolidated many of its graphics tests into a certification test suite. This test suite is distributed to graphics vendors for incorporation into their test plan. This has a noticeable increase in reliability and stability of industry-standard graphics products. Professional workstation-class graphics cards offer options that no low-end card can easily match, such as Dual-Link DVI and multimonitor support for up to four monitors Why is chassis design different? The workstation chassis must accommodate more and more powerful I/O cards, larger memory and disk capacities, and higher-performing (hotter) processors. Better security, ease of serviceability and upgradeability. As an example of a packaging feature not found in PCs, the Ultra 20 Workstation has a cover lock that prevents access to the internal components Better expandability The Ultra 20 workstation has seven slots Better acoustics and thermal management. Active fan control technology that optimizes the fan speed for each system. The fans will adjust to actual power load, ambient air temperature, and CPU temperature to find the quietest fan setting with adequate cooling. This ensures that more demanding environments get all of the cooling required to keep the system running reliably. Larger power supplies than that of business PCs This increases reliability as well as eases upgradeability. How is it more reliable? Although product features are an important part of the decision to buy a workstation over a PC, product reliability, application availability and support, and vendor service and support are equally important. eliability is critical to organizations supporting professional users. In worst cases, design cycles and deadlines could be put at risk by systems that are anything less than solidly stable. Sun qualifies specific applications and thoroughly tests hardware, firmware, and operating systemcombinations. If a new graphics card is added to our SOD, users can be sure that it has been thoroughly qualified in Sun labs and software drivers fully tested. Sun reliability and compatibility testing adheres to rigorous, comprehensive, and elaborate test processes. These include shaking, vibration, temperature, drop tests, display hinge tests, and keyboard tests. Other tests include: Dust: Fine dust is sprinkled into components, which are then subjected to rigorous reliability tests. Shock: Computers are subjected to electric shock and then booted to test for damage or degradation. Humidity: Humidity chambers simulate potential storage conditions, such as three months storage in a humid chamber and followed by deployment in a 70-degree airconditioned environment. Every system must pass these tests, ensuring that each system will arrive in working order with the internal cards and components seated firmly and properly in their intended locations. How is application support different? ISV certification is a critical factor that distinguishes a desktop from a • • • workstation, and is a key reason to purchase a workstation instead of a high-end desktop. Sun teams up with leading ISVs to work closely with them, often with Sun personnel on-site at the vendor. Sun engineers are often on-site at leading ISVs to ensure that their workstations will pass the most rigorous tests. For example, some application regression tests may require as many as 10,000 iterations to ensure completeness. This work has two goals—the first is to ensure that an ISV’s application is certified on the workstation—passing a battery of tests to ensure that the possibility of any software/hardware conflicts are minimized. The second is to achieve the best application performance possible on HP Workstations. ISV certification delivers a high degree of compatibility of the application on the HP hardware, and promotes the maximum possible application performance. In addition to the ISV performance testing, industry-standard or publicly available benchmark tests are used to measure actual application performance in an environment as close as possible to what the user will experience. Optimization of subsystems and BIOS settings enables the compatibility of some applications and hardware solutions. All of this effort provides a highlevel of assurance to the user that the application will run at top performance on the HP workstation. • How is service and support differnet? Sun offers industry-leading proactive, flexible support services that enable workstation customers to have a worry-free experience not only with their HP equipment, but also with other vendors applications and products. This ensures that businesses will stay up and running and that data will be available and protected. Sun provides a support hotline that routes calls to a workstation-specific support team. This team is intimately familiar with the HP workstation product line, as well as the kinds of issues that workstation users face. Tell me more abou tyour keyboard problem • if you could also include detail in your Product Intro regarding the fact that this is a temporary solution and we'll go back to providing country kits for Marrakesh in the December timeframe I think we can also help educate the field and minimize the confusion. We can also include this information on the internal product pages as well as the onestop web page to try to help minimize any confusion.