Oracle launches SPARC-based Exalogic, updates Solaris
Oracle today delivered on its commitment to the SPARC platform, announcing a SPARC Solaris-based model of its Exalogic Elastic cloud system, the so-called cloud-in-the-box system that was announced earlier this year at Oracle OpenWorld.
The company also announced a complete refresh of the SPARC server line and a new version of Solaris. 
At an event on the Sun Microsystems campus in Silicon Valley, the company played up the theme of the sunrise, a project that involves integration of Sun's assets into the Oracle technologies.
On stage, company CEO Larry Ellison said, "For all of the competitors who have been enjoying their sundowns and sunsets, this is the sunrise."
The new Exalogic model is optimized for multi-threaded applications, the company said, playing up how it offers in-depth analysis of the hardware so that it can detect failures before they occur.
Ellison gave some props to Apple for showing how successful a model can be by engineering both hardware and software and said that that's what Oracle's goal is, as well. "It's clear to me and clear in marketplace, that by engineering" both the hardware and software together, the customer can have world record performance, the lowest TCO, best reliability and security.
Ellison praised IBM for making good products but talked about how Oracle hates to have its own records broken, which IBM did months ago. The SPARC SuperCluster announced today has taken that throne back by processing 30 million transactions per minute, well above IBM's 10 million and not even in the ballpark as HP's 4 million.
Yes, the whipping boy was HP, which Ellison called slow and vulnerable in the marketplace. He said: "We have better products than them. They are way behind... We think they're vulnerable and we're going after them."
updated:
An HP rep sent over a statement from a company spokesperson Friday afternoon. That statement read:
HP is the No. 1 provider of enterprise servers in the world. We are focused on our customers, and those customers continue to be won over by our combination of technology, product performance, and pricing. The numbers prove it – our Enterprise Storage and Servers segment saw 25% revenue growth year over year during Q4 FY2010, and HP was the only major UNIX vendor that reported server growth. Larry Ellison bought a money-losing business that had steady market share declines for years, and which still ranks at the bottom of the market. Customers aren’t fooled by outdated benchmarks, no matter what Oracle says. HP’s market share results prove it. Sun customers are running to HP in droves because they recognize we deliver superior technology, performance and pricing.
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