Sun Microsystems Inc. in late 2005 introduced its first Sparc processors with multiple cores, code-named Niagara. That chip has eight cores, and each core operates with four independent threads, providing a total of 32 computing elements on a single chip. By midyear, Sun plans to introduce Niagara 2, which will remain eight cores but will have eight threads per core for a total of 64 execution threads. Sun also plans to introduce in mid-2008 its Rock processor, another Sparc-based design which will have 16 cores.

On the megacore front is Azul Systems Inc., which has been offering servers based on its 24-core Vega processor since 2005. In December, Azul introduced new servers that use its latest-generation Vega 2 processor, which has 48 cores.

Early multicore customers

CitiStreet LLC, a benefits outsourcer, is one of the first businesses to deploy the Vega 2-based Azul Compute Appliance servers. CitiStreet has seven of the servers, each with two 48-core processors. The systems are used across all production, disaster recovery, acceptance and test environments.

Barry Strasnick, CIO of CitiStreet, says the servers allow his company to quickly scale infrastructure to meet high growth demands while providing a 100 percent performance boost over the dual-core Xeon-based servers it had used previously.