Well, you've got hand it to Jonathan Schwarz (Sun CTO), when he says "free server", he means "free server".

A while back I decided to apply for this "free server" promotion that Sun Microsystems is running. You get a free server if you can run some benchmarks and if you blog about it. It seemed way too good to be true, but hey, I'll try anything once. So off I went to their online application form, filled out the details, and thought; "there's no way they'll go for a micro-ISV!"

But they did — I got a call from Sun a while back and was told it was on. A Sun reseller, Horizon Open Systems, are looking after the details. I still can't quite believe it! Way to go Sun. I know Sun bashing is a bit of a sport, and they have done some silly things, but I doubt you'll find a opportunity like this with any other vendor.

Here are the benchmarks I'm going to be running: CSV Manager Performance Report, and XML Manager performance report. Let's just say I expect significant speed increases.

So what is the server anyway? It's a Sun Fire T2000. Here's a picture of the box. It sure is purty. It has a 4-core ULTRASparc T1 Processor, 4Gb of memory and two 73Gb SAS disks. And that's just the starter kit. Makes you want to cry if you've been living in x86-land.

There is one tiny fly in the ointment though. Sun sort of forgot to pack an RJ-45 to DB9 adapter, which you need to access the machine controller, so that you can actually boot Solaris. Oops. So at the moment it just a big lump of metal and silicon sitting in my office. The Frustration! Anyway, Horizon are getting me sorted with the cable, so we should be up and running next week. It's gonna be a long weekend.