Target Market
The UltraSPARC T1 microprocessor is unique in its strength and weaknesses, and as such is targeted at specific markets. Rather than being used for high-end number-crunching and ultra-high performance applications, the chip is targeted at network-facing high-demand servers, such as high-traffic web servers, and mid-tier Java, ERP, and CRM application servers, which often utilize a large number of separate threads. One of the limitations of the T1 design is that a single floating point unit (FPU) is shared between all 8 cores, making the T1 unsuitable for applications performing a lot of floating point mathematics. However, since the processor's intended markets do not typically make much use of floating-point operations, Sun does not expect this to be a problem. Sun provides a tool for analysing an application's level of parallelism and use of floating point instructions to determine if it is suitable for use on a T1 or T2 platform.
In addition to web and application tier processing, the UltraSPARC T1 may be well suited for smaller database applications which have a large user count. One customer has published results showing that a MySQL application running on an UltraSPARC T1 server ran 13.5 times faster than on an AMD Opteron server.
Read more about this topic: Ultra SPARC T1
Famous quotes containing the words target and/or market:
“But this we know, the obstacle that checked
And tripped the body, shot the spirit on
Further than target ever showed or shone.”
—Robert Frost (18741963)
“A sentimentalist, my dear Darlington, is a man who sees an absurd value in everything, and doesnt know the market price of any single thing.”
—Oscar Wilde (18541900)