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Oracle shifting to single chip architecture

with new Sparc systems
Oracle's two Unix server families set to converge onto
its Sparc processor design
By James Niccolai, 27 March 13

Oracle has announced a batch of servers based on new Sparc processors and in the process
has begun an expected shift toward converging its two families of Unix servers onto a single
chip architecture.
Oracle sells two lines of Unix servers, the T-series, based on the Sparc processors it designs
in-house, and the higher-end M-series, which have traditionally been built by Fujitsu and
resold by Oracle, and which run on Fujitsu's Sparc64 chips.
On Tuesday, along with a clutch of new T-series boxes, Oracle announced the first M-series
server designed by Oracle and based on one of its own Sparc processors, rather than
Fujitsu's Sparc64 chip. "This is all Oracle IP," said Marshall Choy, Oracle's director of systems
solutions and business planning, in an interview.
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Observers have long expected Oracle to converge the two systems lines onto a single chip
architecture, a move that could reduce its development costs for both hardware and
software, at a time when sales from its hardware business are declining.
"This is really the first instance of them delivering on this promise," said industry analyst
Nathan Brookwood of Insight64.
Oracle announced five new T-series servers on Tuesday. They're mid-range systems based on
its new Sparc T5 processor, which doubles the core count over the Sparc T4, from eight
cores to 16, and boosts the clock-speed, I/O bandwidth and memory bandwidth.
They include a single-socket blade system, and rackmount servers with two, four and eight
processor sockets. Oracle says they'll give a big performance boost for databases, Java
middleware and business applications.
The new M-series server, called the M5-32, is a high-end SMP (symmetric multiprocessing)
machine that Oracle will position against IBM's Power 795 Unix server, its biggest. It
supports up to 32TB of system memory -- a huge amount -- and runs on a new, six-core
Oracle processor called the Sparc M5, which shares the same core as the Sparc T5 chip also
announced Tuesday.
The difference between the T5 and M5 processors is that Oracle has removed some of the
cores on the M5, which aren't as useful in SMP systems, and added a much bigger Level 2
cache memory -- six times bigger, Choy said -- and other features suited to such high-end
machines.
It's a similar strategy that Intel pursues with its x86 cores, Brookwood noted, which is to
develop one processor core and adjust the cores per chip, cache size and other features to
suit larger and smaller servers.
Oracle says its new servers will be highly competitive with IBM's Power systems on a cost
and performance basis, and it plans to release benchmark results Tuesday intended to show
that.
Despite the release of the M-series server on Tuesday, Choy would not confirm whether
Oracle plans to move all or most of its SMP systems over to its own Sparc chip. "We're
focused on the systems we're announcing on Tuesday," he said.

But analysts say it's been Oracle's plan for a long time. "They've been saying they would do
this for years," Brookwood said.
It fits with Oracle's strategy of designing entire systems, from the chips to the operating
system, database and applications, in-house. Oracle argues it can build higher-performance
systems this way, though it also ties customers to an all-Oracle stack of hardware and
software.
"I think it's the right strategy for them; what they're really selling is integration," said analyst
Joe Clabby, president of Clabby Analytics.
But he also wondered how much longer it will be economically viable for Oracle to keep
developing its own microprocessors. Sales of its Unix hardware have been declining, and last
quarter were at about half the level they were when Oracle bought Sun Microsystems three
years ago.
"They just came off a bad quarter, how much longer can they keep investing in this?" Clabby
asked.
Brookwood said the cost savings from moving to a single chip design will enable Oracle to
invest in future Sparc generations. "Don't forget too that Oracle still sells a lot of software
wrapped around these systems, the same as HP does around Itanium systems," he said.
The new systems announced Tuesday will start to be rolled out this month, Marshall said.
Pricing wasn't immediately available.
The servers are all general-purpose machines, and Oracle isn't saying yet when the T5 will
find its way into its pre-integrated systems, such as the Exadata Database machine and Sparc
SuperCluster.
For now at least, Oracle continues to resell Fujitsu's SMP servers, but the question is whether
it will introduce new models in the future or design its own, as it did with the M5-32.
Oracle also continues to sell servers based on x86 processors, though CEO Larry Ellison has
made it clear he's not interested in the high-volume server business.

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