back to article Oracle punts carrier-grade Sparc T4 servers

Sun Microsystems used to be the dot in dot-com, and sold billions and billions of dollars of Sparc/Solaris gear during the first waves of the commercial Internet build out. While Oracle cannot repeat that history, because of the advent of the commodity x86 servers and commercial Linux distros, Oracle nonetheless can sell …

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  1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Stop

    WHAT!

    "The ability to use DC as well as AC power supplies ... the DC power supply can take 48 volt or 60 volt power, while the AC unit can scale from 100 volts to 240 volts.

    Ok. Why don't "commodity" servers have that kind of extra option? Do only telecom-historical racks have DC? Doesn't DC reduce hardware bolt-ons? Or does it INCREASE hardware bolt-ons?

    "if you want redundancy. The DC supplies cost a couple grand extra."

    Why so expensive?

    "In this case a maximum of two 1,200 watters"

    Can one actually put more than a couple of those machines in the same rack without blowing the room's breakers? I can't imagine. The cooling effort must be tremendous, too.

    1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

      Telephone exchanges have used -48v supplies pretty much since the beginning. It's high enough to power several miles of cable, yet low enough not to be dangerous. It's the one power supply that you can guarantee to find in any telco rack.

      As to price, equipment that complies with NEBS Level 3 certification will never be cheap. It's specc'ed for fire resistance, earthquake survivability, lightning strikes, etc. It's not unknown for such equipment to still be functioning normally when the racks are lying on their side in a pile of rubble after the exchange building has collapsed on them. Try that with a standard PC! :)

      1. Jesper Frimann
        Pint

        NEBS

        Just cause things are NEBS L3, doesn't mean that it's better than other 'good' servers.

        What it does mean on the other hand is that it's expensive, as NEBS is a niche product.

        IMHO it's not worth it.

        I'd rather use my money on 'normal' better quality hardware.

        // Jesper

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      1200Watts isn't much, less than a kettle. At 240v it's only 5Amps, our test labs allow 120Amps per phase. True, if the A/C goes out we can hit 40C in a matter of minutes...

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Destroy all monsters

    "The cooling effort must be tremendous, too."

    Have you ever been in an exchange? Even a basic exchange for a small village is roasting and that's when the cooling systems are turned on.

    As for the voltage, the "50v" used by a lot of telecomms may not be particularly lethal - it still hurts like hell.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Exchange

      The one I worked in was cold enough to need a ski jacket and ear muffs... in August... in Dallas.

  3. Jon Massey
    Go

    You can indeed get commodity 48V DC PSUs for commodity servers

    For a lot less than a grand but as said above, they're not NEBS L3 certified. I've had a couple of Dell Poweredge 2950 boxes with their second PSU as hooked up to a big stack of forklift truck batteries in a particularly tricky power outage once (UPS running out, genny not behaving).

  4. Smartypantz
    Terminator

    Muarrharharharhar.. suckers

    Only companys run by lawyers would dream of buying this kind of snakeoil.

    everyday i am gratefull that i live in a country (DK), and work at a company where i am allowed to think for my self.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @smartypantz

      "everyday i am gratefull that i live in a country (DK), and work at a company where i am allowed to think for my self."

      And if you had to design build and run a large telephone exchange, network and backend systems you may if you're very lucky eventually rediscover why engineers have already done this settled on some carefully thought out industry standards. Though I suspect you're one of those IT 'experts' who wouldn't know an industry standard if it hit you in the face let alone appreciate the efforts of engineers better than you who were trying to make life easier for everyone else when they wrote the thing in the first place.

      I hope your shareholders don't rely on you to produce reliable robust systems meeting any sort of performance or legislative requirements.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I hope I never have to use services provided by a company with that attitude to service.

      Not everyone needs this sort of equipment, but when you need it, there's no alternative.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      re: Muarrharharharhar.. suckers

      Do you realize that you could be fined or imprisoned for "ridiculing or insulting" a religious community in DK? I'm glad you are allowed to think for yourself, but remember not to express those thoughts openly.

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