Ultra

Developer	Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Manufacturer	Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Released	1995; 31 years ago (1995)
Lifespan	1995–2001, 2005–2010
Discontinued	2010 (2010)
CPU	UltraSPARC AMD Opteron Intel Core 2 Intel Xeon

TheSun Ultra is a discontinued line ofworkstation andserver computers developed and sold bySun Microsystems, comprising two distinct generations. The original line was introduced in 1995 and discontinued in 2001. This generation was partially replaced by theSun Blade in 2000 and that line was in itself replaced by theSun Java Workstation—anAMD Opteron system—in 2004. In sync with the transition tox86-64-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.

The original Ultra workstations and theUltra Enterprise (later, "Sun Enterprise") servers wereUltraSPARC-based systems produced from 1995 to 2001, replacing the earlierSPARCstation and SPARCcenter/SPARCserver series respectively. This introduced the64-bit UltraSPARC processor and in later versions, lower-cost PC-derived technology, such as thePCI andATA buses (the initial Ultra 1 and 2 models retained theSBus of their predecessors). The original Ultra range were sold during thedot-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.

The Ultra brand was revived in 2005 with the launch of the Ultra 20 and Ultra 40 withx86-64-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.

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 theSun Blade workstation andSun Fire server ranges.

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

• = available as upgrade option only

In the intervening time gap, Sun workstations were namedSun Blade andSun Java Workstation.

The A60 Ultra 3 mobile workstation rebadged theTadpole SPARCle (550 and 650 MHz) and Viper (1.2 GHz) laptops. The A61 Ultra 3 was physically different and was based on the Naturetech 888P (550/650 MHz) and Mesostation 999 (1.28 GHz). The two lines are unrelated systems otherwise.

• Oracle Legacy Product Documentation: Workstations at theWayback Machine (archived January 22, 2012)
• Sun System Handbook at theWayback Machine (archived December 30, 2006)
• Sun Field Engineer Handbook, 20th edition at theWayback Machine (archived July 15, 2007)
• Sun graphics cards

• Sun servers
• Sun workstations
• Computer-related introductions in 1995
• SPARC microprocessor products
• 64-bit computers

• Pages using the EasyTimeline extension
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Webarchive template wayback links