unbound - the Azul Systems newsletter

Since breaking silence in September, we are constantly asked: “Why did you build your own microprocessor during a period where there is such a trend toward utilizing commoditized, industry standard components?” The simple answer is that building a revolutionary new class of server optimized to address the challenges datacenter operators face daily is not possible using off-the-shelf components. Let’s examine why.

The fundamental value our solution brings to customers is the elimination of capacity planning at the application level. We accomplish this by building a system whose compute and memory capacity is sufficiently large to dwarf the requirements of a given application. By being able to consolidate tens or hundreds of applications on a single Azul server, we substantially increase overall utilization and drive down operating costs.

Building such a high capacity server that can be practically deployed in datacenter environments is technically very challenging. Existing servers suffer from scalability, reliability, power, space, and cost problems. Today’s microprocessors have what we call “legacy inefficiency,” electronics to support code and functions that are irrelevant for applications that run on virtual machine, such as those in commercial business environments based on the Java platform or the .NET framework. For these reasons, we realized using off-the-shelf microprocessors for our compute appliances would have resulted in small, incremental improvements over existing servers.

What do Azul servers do that others don’t? Each compupte appliance includes up to 384 coherent processor cores and up to 256 GB of fully symmetric memory. Each 64-bit processor core is specifically designed and optimized for the execution of virtual machine based applications, with features like pauseless & scalable garbage collection, highly efficient lock synchronization, and many others to dramatically improve the efficiency of running object-oriented programming languages. And we’ve built this tremendous amount of compute capacity with unparalleled reliability, power, and floor space characteristics.

So does the world really need another new microprocessor? Absolutely! With Gartner predicting that 80 percent of all new e-business applications will be written for the Java platform or the .NET framework by 2008, we’ve built a revolutionary processor specifically designed to solve an increasingly critical real-world problem.

For more information about network attached processing, please visit www.azulsystems.com.

	In This Issue:
	•	President's Message - Stephen DeWitt, President & CEO
	•	Technology from 'Out of the Blue' - Scott Sellers , Vice President Hardware Engineering, CTO, and Co-founder

	President's Message By Stephen DeWitt, President & CEO
	Unbound Compute to Arrive in ‘05: Industry Experts Agree At the end of September, we launched Azul Systems by proclaiming that network attached processing heralded a new era of unbound compute. Just two months later, many others in our industry are validating the potential of what we’ve pioneered. On December 2nd, IDC offered its predictions for 2005 and included the arrival of Azul Systems and network attached processing as powerful indicators of both the future of high-end computing appliances and the shift toward “Dynamic IT,” or utility computing, solutions. The growing level of industry excitement around network attached processing has also been reflected in several industry events. One example is IDC’s recent Enterprise Forum on November 4th, where I had the pleasure of presenting along side Crawford Del Prete, Senior Vice President, Communications, Hardware, Services and Software Research, from IDC to a room full of analysts and technologists from across the industry. The response we received and the tremendous follow-up activity has been excellent. What’s important to us now is seeing our network attached processing solutions being tested and trialed within some of the most demanding and sophisticated customers around the globe. We look forward to sharing the feedback from these trials in the months ahead; as for now, customers are doing exactly what we’ve asked them to do – put Azul compute appliances through a rigorous testing process and help us ensure the product is everything we’ve promised. I want to look to the world-class engineering team at Azul for just a moment. Our progress to date is a direct result of the efforts of our talented engineering team. The systems that we have built will go a long way in eliminating the performance and management complexities associated with running Java and other virtual machine-based applications on general purpose systems. Azul Systems is on the verge of enabling companies to realize the benefits of on-demand computing without having to make wholesale changes to their datacenter environments. Thanks to the brilliance and dedication of our design engineering team, I’m very pleased to report that we remain on track to deliver the industry’s first network attached processing solution during the first half of 2005. As this exciting and eventful year draws to a close, I’d like to wish you a healthy and joyous holiday season from all of us at Azul Systems.

	Technology from 'Out of the Blue' By Scott Sellers , Vice President Hardware Engineering, CTO, and Co-founder
	Down to the Cores of Network Attached Processing Since breaking silence in September, we are constantly asked: “Why did you build your own microprocessor during a period where there is such a trend toward utilizing commoditized, industry standard components?” The simple answer is that building a revolutionary new class of server optimized to address the challenges datacenter operators face daily is not possible using off-the-shelf components. Let’s examine why. The fundamental value our solution brings to customers is the elimination of capacity planning at the application level. We accomplish this by building a system whose compute and memory capacity is sufficiently large to dwarf the requirements of a given application. By being able to consolidate tens or hundreds of applications on a single Azul server, we substantially increase overall utilization and drive down operating costs. Building such a high capacity server that can be practically deployed in datacenter environments is technically very challenging. Existing servers suffer from scalability, reliability, power, space, and cost problems. Today’s microprocessors have what we call “legacy inefficiency,” electronics to support code and functions that are irrelevant for applications that run on virtual machine, such as those in commercial business environments based on the Java platform or the .NET framework. For these reasons, we realized using off-the-shelf microprocessors for our compute appliances would have resulted in small, incremental improvements over existing servers. What do Azul servers do that others don’t? Each compupte appliance includes up to 384 coherent processor cores and up to 256 GB of fully symmetric memory. Each 64-bit processor core is specifically designed and optimized for the execution of virtual machine based applications, with features like pauseless & scalable garbage collection, highly efficient lock synchronization, and many others to dramatically improve the efficiency of running object-oriented programming languages. And we’ve built this tremendous amount of compute capacity with unparalleled reliability, power, and floor space characteristics. So does the world really need another new microprocessor? Absolutely! With Gartner predicting that 80 percent of all new e-business applications will be written for the Java platform or the .NET framework by 2008, we’ve built a revolutionary processor specifically designed to solve an increasingly critical real-world problem. For more information about network attached processing, please visit www.azulsystems.com.

		1600 Plymouth Street, Mountain View, CA 94043 T 650.230.6500 \| F 650.230.6600 \| www.azulsystems.com Copyright © 2004, Azul Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Azul Systems, Azul, and the Azul arch logo are trademarks of Azul Systems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Java and all Java based trademarks and logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and in other countries. Other marks are the property of their respective owners and are used here only for identification purposes.


	December 2004