SUN and Oracle Set New World Record ForJAVA™ Based Application Performance Benchmark

SANTA CLARA and REDWOOD SHORES, CA
July 16, 2002


Combined Technology Outperforms IBM and HP/BEA Systems in J2EE™ Performance

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW) and Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ:ORCL), achieved record-breaking ECperf benchmark results with Oracle9i Application Server (Oracle9iAS) on Sun Fire[tm] 3800 Midframe servers, surpassing IBM and HP/BEA Systems configurations.[1] The Oracle9iAS and Sun Fire 3800 ECperf performance benchmark testing result is 39 percent better than the top result for IBM WebSphere on an IBM platform, and 63 percent better than the BEA WebLogic on an HP platform.

Sun Fire Servers and Oracle9iAS Deliver the Industry’s Best Performance

The ECperf top performance result for the Sun and Oracle configuration achieved 61,862 BBops/min@Std with a price performance metric of $28/BBops/min@Std. Testing results can be found at http://ecperf.theserverside.com. This certified benchmark was conducted by Sun with three Sun Fire 3800 servers, configured with 24 UltraSPARC® III 900 MHz processors, running on the Solaris[tm] Operating Environment and Oracle9i Application Server Release 2. This winning combination beats IBM’s 12 Application Servers running WebSphere, configured with a total of 24 processors, published best result of 44,294.97 BBops/min@Std and HP’s Application Servers running WebLogic, configured with 16 processors for a published best result of 37,791 BBops/min@Std. Together, Sun Fire servers and Oracle9iAS demonstrate performance leadership, and deliver a highly scalable and cost-effective infrastructure for the development and deployment of business applications and Web services.

About the Sun Fire 3800 Midframe Servers

With rock-solid availability and hot-swappable components that are common to the entire Sun Fire Midframe and high-end family of servers, the Sun Fire 3800 server helps maximize application service levels with mainframe-class availability features such as full hardware redundancy, Dynamic System Domains, Dynamic Reconfiguration, Hot CPU upgrades, hot-swappable components and end-to-end data integrity. Sun Fire Midframe servers are the perfect platform for server consolidation, and as a general purpose application and data server for mission-critical applications.

About Oracle9i Application Server

Oracle solves the IT challenge of integrating fragmented middleware products to run an e-business by providing one product that can replace more than 12 separate point products from other vendors. Oracle9i Application Server features full J2EE support, built-in enterprise portal software, high-speed caching, business intelligence, rapid application development, application and business integration, Web services and more, all in one package. Oracle’s extensive investment in application server research and development has enabled the company to deliver a lightweight J2EE based engine and extended caching capabilities that allow companies to save on infrastructure costs by scaling with software instead of hardware.

About the ECperf Benchmark

ECperf is a benchmark of application servers utilizing the Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE), which are used extensively today to power critical business applications and Web services. The ECperf benchmark is representative of real-world business applications including customer orders, inventory, manufacturing, and supply chain management. The ECperf performance benchmark measures how quickly a specific system configuration delivers output. For more information on ECperf go to http://java.sun.com/j2ee/ecperf.

[1] As of July 9, 2002. IBM, $23/BBops/min@Std. BEA on HP, $36/BBops/min@Std. For more information, please visit, http://ecperf.theserverside.com

About Oracle

Oracle is the world’s largest enterprise software company. For more information about Oracle, visit our Web site at www.oracle.com.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision — “The Network Is The Computer[tm]” — has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that make the Net work. Sun can be found in more than 170 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Solaris, Sun Fire, Java, J2EE, Sun ONE and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All SPARC trademarks are used under license and are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation.

ECperf is a trademark of Sun Microsystems Inc.