Sun Thumps Storage-Server Hybrid

Sun is taking the wraps off "Thumper," aka the Sun Fire SX4500, in what the company claims is the first in a series of hybrid server/storage devices.

Part of a multiproduct announcement from Sun's Systems Group anticipated for release today, the Sun Fire X4500 combines up to 24 Tbytes of SATA disk storage in a rack-mounted system that packs two dual-core AMD Opteron "x64" processors. The result, Sun claims, is a device that combines the computing power of Sun's "Galaxy" high-performance servers with high-density storage in a 7-inch rack-mount box.

Sun calls the X4500 a "data server" or "data analysis server," aiming it at customers looking to save on equipment costs for data warehousing or high-performance computing solutions.

"Customers can use this instead of multiple servers, switches, and arrays," says David Lawler, director of product definition and strategy for Sun's Systems Group. "This integrates and reduces power and cooling and raises the reliability level."

At least one customer appears to agree -- the Tokyo Institute of Technology (Titech) has been deploying 42 X4500s linked by 10-Gbit/s InfiniBand since April as part of its TSUBAME supercomputer installation. According to Satoshi Matsuoka, a professor at the institute, the approach is faster and more efficient than using SAN or NAS."[We] have designed a network which integrates the Thumpers as if they are also compute nodes," writes Matsuoka in an email. "Having a separate SAN is rather a waste of money since SAN switches are separate and very expensive and have very low performance [4 Gbit/s instead of 10 Gbit/s], not to mention that they are duplicate investments." NAS equipment, he says, would require more CPUs per disk and call for greater space, power consumption, and cost outlay.

A question remains about how the X4500 compares with another storage product, "Honeycomb," which Sun has described in early promotions as a storage device that can execute application code. (See Sun Signals Say 'Storage'.) Since Honeycomb, like Thumper, was part of the Systems Group work of Andreas "Andy" Bechtolsheim, it seemed likely to be part of this announcement, but Sun does not have a date for release of Honeycomb. Should users simply wait for that product?

One analyst thinks Honeycomb and Thumper will meet different needs. According to Jonathan Eunice, principal IT advisor for consultancy Illuminata, the X4500 will chiefly appeal to the channel, those VARs and integrators who've been looking for a kind of "blank slate" system that can be configured for specific applications. Honeycomb, in contrast, will compete against EMC's Centera. It will appeal to customers who are looking for a storage system with built-in high-level services like identity management and policy capabilities, and who don't mind being tied to a specific vendor's storage and APIs.

From Eunice's view, the chief advantage of the X4500 is its packaging. "This is really a hybrid between processing and storage. We have a lot of examples of computers with storage or storage with extra computing power," he says. But while other vendors have talked about this type of approach, most notably IBM, so far Sun is first to deliver, Eunice says.

There are some potential drawbacks. So far, the X4500 does not support 750-Gbyte SATA drives. Also, despite its small size, it weighs 170 pounds, or 77 kilograms.Nonetheless, Sun sees the product as the start of something bigger. Lawler says an "appliance level" solution may come at some point.

The X4500, set for general availability in August, runs under Solaris 10 with Sun's ZFS filing system. Windows and Linux compatibility is set for availability this fall. The X4500 comes with four gigabit Ethernet ports and two PCI slots. A configuration with 24 Tbytes of storage in 48 500-Gbyte drives will cost roughly $32,500.

Mary Jander, Site Editor, Byte and Switch