Fowler removes a communications module from the back of the new SunrnBlade 8000 server. All the server’s components are hot-swappable,rnmeaning that they can be removed or replaced without shutting thernmachine down.

The Sun Blade 8000, code-named Andromeda, is 33.25-inch-tall blade server chassis that accommodates as many as 10 four-processor blade servers. It accepts Opteron blades now, and later it will accommodate blades with two models of Sun’s Sparc processors: the lower-end Niagara II and the higher-end Rock. Sun plans smaller blade-server chassis models in coming months.

Andy Bechtolsheim, a Sun cofounder and top designer of its x86-basedrnserver line, discusses Sun’s new X4500 “Thumper” storage-server hybridrnwith Fowler. The system, called StreamServe when it was underrndevelopment at Bechtolsheim’s start-up, Kealiea, was originally intendedrnas a media server. Sun canceled the system after acquiring Kealia inrn2004, but Fowler resurrected the design, which accommodates 48 hardrndrives and 500 terabytes of capacity.

The Sun Fire X4500, code-named Thumper, has dual Opteron processors and accommodates as many as 48 hard drives, for a total storage capacity of 24 terabytes.

Sun Chief Executive Jonathan Schwartz makes the case thatrngeneral-purpose servers, such as the array of Sun “Galaxy” models behindrnhim, are ultimately more cost-effective than special-purpose models.

The Sun Fire X4600, code-named Galaxy4, accommodates as many as eight of AMD’s Opteron processors. It’s designed to support not just today’s dual-core chips, but quad-core Opterons due in 2007.