Intel Itanium 2 Versus Sun Sparc Server CPU Processor Comparison: Unlike SPARC-based servers, Itanium 2-based systems are being developed and supported by a large community of vendors. The architecture has proven itself in tens of thousands of mission-critical deployments; is being widely used across diverse operating environments (Linux, Windows, UNIX, OpenVMS and more); and is helping customers reduce their total costs by as much as 50 percent compared to comparable RISC-based solutions. Perhaps most importantly, Itanium 2-based solutions provide companies with a much broader choice of vendors, configurations, operating systems and applications, so they can scale and adapt their solutions more flexibly, and are better positioned for long-term, cost-effective growth.

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Introduction

“Traditional IT infrastructure has been a static, brittle and costly proposition for most enterprises.”— The Itanium® Solutions Alliance Brings Investment Protection to Enterprise Computing, by Matthew Eastwood, IDC Analyst, September 2005.

Ever since the dot com bust of 2000 and 2001, Sun has been challenged to keep pace with faster-moving competitors. Those challenges have grown with the emergence of Itanium® 2-based solutions, which provide more powerful, flexible and cost-effective alternatives for high-end enterprise and technical computing. Thousands of businesses are migrating mission-critical applications to Itanium 2-based systems to free themselves from the high costs and limitations of a RISC-based architecture that ties their infrastructure—and their business—to a single vendor. The scope of this migration can be seen in the marketplace, where Itanium 2-based solutions are rapidly gaining ground.

Unlike SPARC*-based servers, Itanium 2-based systems are being developed and supported by a large community of vendors. The architecture has proven itself in tens of thousands of mission-critical deployments; is being widely used across diverse operating environments (Linux, Windows, UNIX, OpenVMS and more); and is helping customers reduce their total costs by as much as 50 percent compared to comparable RISC-based solutions. Perhaps most importantly, Itanium 2-based solutions provide companies with a much broader choice of vendors, configurations, operating systems and applications, so they can scale and adapt their solutions more flexibly, and are better positioned for long-term, cost-effective growth.

This paper compares the two architectures, and outlines key reasons why Itanium 2-based solutions offer better value and lower risk than SPARC-based solutions across a wide range of business and IT environments.

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