[Info-vax] OT: news from the trenches (re: Solaris)

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On Wed, 11 Mar 2015 10:27:48 -0400
Stephen Hoffman via Info-vax <info-vax at rbnsn.com> wrote:

> On 2015-03-11 11:06:57 +0000, seasoned_geek said:
> 
> > Sadly, putting VMS on x86 will ensure it a market life of minutes, not 
> > years. It is a special OS and needs a special kick booty chip. The 
> > earlier comments in this thread about Solaris running faster and better 
> > on SPARC T5 should provide a guiding light, but it won't. By all 
> > accounts Solaris should have been long gone from the market by now, 
> > but, a certain segment of the market cannot make do with Wal-mart 
> > quality chips so Solaris continues.
> > 
> > VMS also serves a market segment which cannot make do with Wal-mart 
> > quality chips. Porting VMS to Wal-mart quality chips ensures its 
> > demise. Porting VMS to the Wal-mart quality x86 line is like feeding 
> > chocolate to dogs. They beg for it, but for them it is fatal.
> 
> What's your alternative to x86-64 here?   How much will the "special 
> kick booty chip" cost to produce and integrate?

There's a lot more wrong with Intel than can ever be fixed. I agree a good
processor would be nice from a programmer's POV and from a healthy market
POV.

SPARC is an open design. I don't know who's fabbing them today but if it
isn't Oracle itself than there's no R&D cost in using SPARC chips. They're
very good and they have some great features but they are not as fast as the
fastest Intel chips. If that doesn't matter than SPARC is a great design
with a lot going for it.

> As for SPARC and Solaris, Oracle's business is apparently contracting — 
> they're profitable and variously more profitable than they've been, but 
> that's over fewer customers, per one of the more recent financial 
> reports.

There has been some discussion on various Solaris mailing lists about all
this. What you wrote is entirely intentional on Oracle's part. I would seem
there is great ego involved and getting the bish fish with killer deals and
ignoring small-mid sized companies is what it is all about now.

Oracle no longer markets or views SPARC as a general platform, it's only
used as an appliance engine for EXA-boxes (Oracle database appliances, etc.)
Solaris will eventually probably go away because of this "strategy." 

A shame, because Solaris is a nice OS and the servers are very well
thought out and well made. OpenBoot is great. SPARC is a great platform.
And Solaris really does run better on it than on X86. You can feel it.

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