Saturday, September 24, 2011

Time for x64 on Sparc?

Will we ever see an x86/64 OS emulated on the Sparc architecture?  Currently we can virtualize the cpu, memory, hard disk and even the network.  What would be the benefit?  Choice for the customer, flexibility and leveraging the benefits of any chosen OS.

Projects such as Bochs and WABI have attempted x86 on Sparc before but performance was terrible.  With the next generation of T4 servers on the horizon do we now have the horsepower to emulate/virtualize Windows on Sparc?  A common argument is why would you want to run Microsoft on Sparc?  Love it or hate it Windows is still the most widely used OS in the world.  

As a customer, as much as I love Sparc, I love flexibility even more. Offer me a Sparc machine in which I can run OVM for Sparc and any x86/64 OS of my choice at near native speed and I am sold.  Maybe this is just a pipe dream or maybe someone is currently working on this.

(These are my own personal opinions and in no way reflect the opinions of my employer.)  

 

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