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The data center of many enterprises contains a heterogeneous mix of both proprietary and open systems platforms. The open systems servers, many of them less than three years old, usually are based on Intel's x86 architecture and consist of a mix of servers based upon Intel Xeon processors or AMD Opteron. Many of these systems could be classified as infrastructure servers, running under Microsoft Windows or a variant of Linux. These servers typically were used a few years ago as file, print, and web servers, but now have found their way into database, ERP, and business intelligence processes.
Some open systems servers now are used for more mission- or business-critical roles, but many of these have been served by older, proprietary application servers, which for decades have been running some variant of the UNIX operating system on a RISC1 platform. The ma-jority of these would include servers based on Sun SPARC technology, HP PA-RISC, or IBM POWER architecture. All of these date back over 20 years, with many data centers still using platforms at least three years old.
HP, IBM, and Sun continue to maintain and support the platforms built around their RISC architectures. However, many of them, including HP PA-RISC, Alpha, and MIPS, have reach-ed end-of-life status and should be considered obsolete, with no new development or manufac-turing planned2. IBM continues to develop new POWER servers for their AIX operating system, with more performance and more scalability, but the news does not look as promising for SPARC.
Much of the news surrounding Sun recently had been grim, ending with the announcement of an acquisition by Oracle. The future for SPARC is uncertain, at best. Fujitsu, the only significant SPARC development partner for Sun, has already indicated that while they will continue to support their SPARC customers, all new developments will be based on Intel's Xeon microprocessor. As yet, Oracle's plans for SPARC-based servers are unclear.
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