Sun Ultra series


The Sun Ultra series is a discontinued line of workstation and server computers developed and sold by Sun Microsystems, comprising two distinct generations. The original line was introduced in 1995 and discontinued in 2001. This generation was partially replaced by the Sun Blade in 2000 and that line was in itself replaced by the Sun Java Workstation—an AMD Opteron system—in 2004. In sync with the transition to x86-64-architecture processors, in 2005 the Ultra brand was later revived with the launch of the Ultra 20 and Ultra 40, albeit to some confusion, since they were no longer based on UltraSPARC processors.

History

Original Model

The original Ultra workstations and the Ultra Enterprise servers were UltraSPARC-based systems produced from 1995 to 2001, replacing the earlier SPARCstation and SPARCcenter/SPARCserver series respectively. This introduced the 64-bit UltraSPARC processor and in later versions, lower-cost PC-derived technology, such as the PCI and ATA buses. The original Ultra range were sold during the dot com boom, and became one of the biggest selling series of computers ever developed by Sun Microsystems, with many companies and organisations—including Sun itself—relying on Sun Ultra products for years after their successor products were released.

Brand Revival

The Ultra brand was revived in 2005 with the launch of the Ultra 20 and Ultra 40 with x86-64-architecture.
x64-based Ultra systems remained in the Sun portfolio for five more years; the last one, the Intel Xeon-based Ultra 27, was retired in June 2010, thereby concluding the history of Sun as a workstation vendor.

Late SPARC models

The SPARC-based Ultra 3 Mobile Workstation laptop was released in 2005 as well, but it would prove to be a short-lived design and was retired the next year. Its release did not coincide with the rest of the line as most of the brand had already moved on to x86.
Additionally, new Ultra 25 and Ultra 45 desktop UltraSPARC IIIi-based systems were introduced in 2006.
In October 2008, Sun discontinued all these, effectively ending the production of SPARC architecture workstations.
The original Ultra/Enterprise series itself was later replaced by the Sun Blade workstation and Sun Fire server ranges.

Sun Ultra models

Ultra workstations (1995-2001)

ModelCodeCodenameProcessorProcessor MHzExpansion Buses/SlotsIntroduced
Ultra 1A11NeutronUltraSPARC I143, 1673 SBus; SCSI1995
Ultra 1EA12ElectronUltraSPARC I143, 167, 2002 SBus, 1 UPA ; SCSI1995
Ultra 2A14PulsarUp to two UltraSPARC I or II143, 167, 200, 300, 4004 SBus, 1 UPA; SCSI1995
Ultra 3000A17DuraflameUp to six UltraSPARC I or II167, 250, 336, 4001996
Ultra 4000A18CampfireUp to 14 UltraSPARC I or II167, 250, 336, 4001996
Ultra 30A16QuarkUltraSPARC II250, 3001997
Ultra 450A20TazmoUp to 4 UltraSPARC II4001997
Ultra 5A21OtterUltraSPARC IIi270, 333, 360, 400 3 PCI; EIDE1998
Ultra 10A22Sea LionUltraSPARC IIi300, 333, 360, 4404 PCI, 1 UPA; EIDE1998
Ultra 60A23DeuteriumUp to two UltraSPARC II300, 360 or 450 4 PCI, 2 UPA; SCSI1998
Ultra 80A27QuasarUp to 4 UltraSPARC II4501999

Ultra Enterprise/Enterprise servers

Entry-level

Note: the Enterprise 220R is an Ultra 60 motherboard in a rack-mountable server chassis with hot-swappable power supplies. Similarly, the Enterprise 420R is an Ultra 80 motherboard in a server chassis.

Mid-range and high-end

In the intervening time gap, Sun workstations were named Sun Blade and Sun Java Workstation.

UltraSPARC

The A60 Ultra-3 rebadged the Tadpole SPARCle and Viper laptops. The A61 Ultra-3 was physically different and was based on the Naturetech 888P and Mesostation 999. The two lines are unrelated systems otherwise.
ModelCodeCodenameProcessorProcessor freq.Maximum RAM
Ultra 3A60/A61?UltraSPARC IIi or IIIi550 MHz, 650 MHz, 1.28 GHz2 GB
Ultra 45A70ChicagoUp to two UltraSPARC IIIi1.6 GHz16 GB
Ultra 25A89South SideUltraSPARC IIIi1.34 GHz8 GB

x86