Archive | September, 2004

Sun’s Robust Ecosystem for Solaris on x86 Expands to Include 15 New Financial Services Applications

During its quarterly Network Computer ’04 launch today, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) announced the growth of the Solaris x86 Operating System (OS) ecosystem with more than 1,100 solutions currently available from more than 700 of Sun’s business application software partners, an increase of 17 percent in the last six months. Independent software vendors (ISVs) around the world have adopted the Solaris OS for Sun’s AMD Opteron and Intel Xeon processor-based systems. At an event in New York City today, Sun also announced it has added 15 new premier financial services application software partners to the Solaris ecosystem.

“The operating system is irrelevant if it lacks world-class ISV support. And a server without that OS is a doorstop,” said Jonathan Schwartz, president and COO at Sun Microsystems. “Unlike some of our competitors, Sun is making it easy for ISVs to qualify to our systems. We’re making every business-critical application our customers need available for Solaris on AMD Opteron processor-based systems so that customers benefit from the broadest possible range of choices.”

The application momentum underscores Sun’s successful strategy to provide the market’s most widely adopted UNIX(R) operating system – the Solaris OS – with its rock solid security and enterprise-class features, at highly competitive prices on a wide variety of Sun platforms.

“VERITAS’ decision to broaden its support of the Sun platform to include Solaris on x86 and Sun’s decision to expand its already significant commitment to VERITAS solutions represents a win for customers and a win for each company,” said Gary Bloom, chairman, president and CEO, VERITAS Software. “With the collective strength of our partnership and our established track record among the Global 2000, VERITAS and Sun are uniquely positioned to deliver customers a high-performance, scalable infrastructure while simultaneously lowering operating costs.”

ISVs spanning multiple industries worldwide have already committed to Sun as a partner. Today’s featured financial services partners include: BMC Software, Inc., Computer Associates International, Inc., EMC Legato Software, Hyperion Solutions, Mainsoft Corporation, Oracle, Rogue Wave Software, Stellent, Inc., Sybase, Inc., TIBCO Software, and VoiceGenie. Other application software partners include: Bright Software, ECnet Ltd., EcQuaria, Excellence Network Co., FatWire Corporation, iESLab, IMAZIC, Jaatayu Software, Lasersoft, Oracle, Neusoft, Runqian, Tarantella, Inc., Transversal e Networks Pvt. Ltd., UFSoft, Universal Defence, VERITAS Software Corporation, WizVision Pte Ltd., and many more.

Partner Support Paves the Way for Solaris 10

More than 100 of the most popular business application software partners have begun preparing and testing their applications to support Solaris 10. Additionally, Sun is providing new developer tools, programs, compilers and Java technology updates to help customers begin planning their migration to Solaris 10.

To help partners be successful, Sun has introduced the iForce(SM) Partner Program/Solaris 10 Early Adoption Program to provide ISVs, IHVs and development partners the opportunity to adopt the newest features and technologies in the Solaris OS. Over the last three years, more than 6,000 partners have joined the program. More information is available at: http://iforce.sun.com/partners/solaris.

Partners already preparing to support their applications on Solaris 10 include: Actuate Corporation, Advent Software, BEA Systems, Inc., BMC Software, Inc., Computer Associates International, Inc., Hyperion Solutions, Informatica Corporation, Jataayu Software, Oracle, RogueWave Software, Stellent, Inc., SunGard, Sybase, Inc., Tarantella, Inc., TIBCO Software, Transact Tools, UFSoft, UshaComm, VERITAS Software Corporation, and many more.

Tune to the NC04Q3 web experience at www.sun.com/nc to join a live web chat with Scott McNealy, Sun’s chairman and CEO, listen to Sun executives describe new innovations and detailed product information and view all press releases.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision — “The Network Is The Computer” — 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 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Solaris, iForce, and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries, exclusively licensed through X/Open Company, Ltd. All SPARC trademarks are used under license and are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

Sun Advances 4- and 8-way Server Leadership to Protect Customer Investments While Setting New Performance Records

Previews New Secure Networking Technology Innovation Designed to Improve Price/Performance and Utilization by 10

During its quarterly Network Computer ’04 launch today, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) introduced two new Solaris powered UltraSPARC(R) IV servers-the Sun Fire V490 and Sun Fire V890-powered by breakthrough Chip Multithreading (CMT) technology that can double application throughput in the same physical footprint as its predecessors while maintaining full binary compatibility. The new Sun Fire V890 server builds on Sun’s leadership in the 8-way market to help deliver the best price/performance starting at under $50K (U.S. list). The Sun Fire V890 is half the price of a similarly configured system from HP(1) and runs 10 times more ISV applications with a price tag that is 20 percent lower than IBM’s p570(2).

Sun also continued to expand its systems portfolio to include AMD Opteron processor-based systems with the recently announced Sun Fire V40z server, Sun Java Workstation W1100z and Sun Java Workstation W2100z all running the Solaris Operating System (OS) and also capable of running Red Hat Linux, SUSE Linux or Microsoft Windows with Microsoft Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) certifications.

“Sun is taking the enterprise server market to an entirely new level with record-breaking performance, application throughput and system utilization,” said David Yen, executive vice president, Scalable Systems Group at Sun. “Today, we’re capping the first wave of our innovative SPARC/Solaris roadmap by doubling the application throughput of our midrange systems with UltraSPARC IV. This is just the beginning of the exponential performance gains that will be afforded by future generations of Sun’s Chip Multithreading technology powered by Solaris.”

Today, Sun also previewed an extension of the systems network architecture, with radically secure applications management technology that can significantly advance the security in network computing. The technology, which comes from Sun’s acquisition of Nauticus Networks, will add resource optimization capabilities in upcoming Sun systems, and is designed to improve price/performance and utilization in end-to-end service delivery by up to ten times.

Sun Sets New Performance Records on a Variety of Workloads

The new Sun Fire V490, Sun Fire V890 and Sun Fire V40z servers, Sun Java Workstation W1100z, and Sun Java Workstation W2100z deliver record-breaking throughput and world-record price/performance to tackle any datacenter workload.

• Throughput Performance and Investment Protection: The Sun Fire V490 and Sun Fire V890 are available today at starting prices of $30,995 (U.S. list) and $39,995 (U.S. list) respectively. The Sun Fire V490 and Sun Fire V890 servers deliver up to twice the application throughput of Sun’s previous midrange server systems, while driving unprecedented levels of utilization. The Sun Fire V490 and Sun Fire V890 servers have set world-record benchmarks for sub-$50K platforms, outperforming equivalent systems from HP and IBM in the 4- and 8-way space:
  • The Sun Fire V490 server achieved world record price/performance on the 1TB TPC-H benchmark, demonstrating the highest performance data warehousing and database architecture at this price point(3).
  • On the Lotus Domino R6iNotes benchmark, which simulates email users accessing their mailboxes through the web, the Sun Fire V890 server set a triple world-record in the 8 processor class of systems for best performance, highest number of users per CPU, and best price/performance, demonstrating outstanding processing power for a sub-$50K platform(4).
  • The Sun Fire V890 server also confirms Sun’s leadership in the High Performance Computing (HPC) marketplace by producing the best SPECompM2001 performance result for all 8-way servers. It eclipses the recent results posted by a similarly equipped HP AlphaServer ES80 system by up to 17 percent(5).
• World-record Price/Performance: Sun’s comprehensive line of x86-based servers was further enhanced with the introduction of the 4-way AMD Opteron processor-based Sun Fire V40z server. It delivers world-record price/performance for the most demanding 32- and 64-bit workloads, demonstrated by industry-leading benchmark results.
  • The combination of Sun Fire V20z and Sun Fire V40z servers running Sun’s Solaris OS delivered a world-record SPECjAppServer2002 MultipleNode benchmark result. At U.S. $82/TOPS@MultipleNode, this result sets a new price/performance record as well as demonstrates the ability to build the complete infrastructure solution based on industry-leading technologies(6).
  • On two-tier SAP(R) Sales and Distribution (SD) Standard Application Benchmark, which emulated typical business workloads, consisting of complete order and invoice processing, the Sun Fire V40z server posted a world-record result for 4-way systems on Linux. This result outperforms comparable NEC, Dell, Fujitsu Siemens and IBM servers configured with either Intel Xeon or Intel Itanium processors by up to 64 percent, and a comparable HP server configured with AMD Opteron processors by six percent. Results referenced are current as of September 13, 2004. The benchmarks fully comply with the SAP Benchmark Council regulations and have been audited and certified by SAP AG. For the latest results, visit www.sap.com/benchmark(7).

Sun’s new line of ultimate performance x86-based workstations feature simultaneous 32- and 64-bit computing, large memory support and record-breaking performance results for high-performance industry-recognized application suites:

• The Sun Java Workstation W2100z brings the real computing power to the desktop as demonstrated by the best SPECompM2001 performance result for all 2-way systems. The Sun Java Workstation W2100z is a development platform that provides a portable and scalable foundation for developing parallel applications(5).
• On the BLAST benchmark, the Sun Java Workstation W1100z running the Solaris 10 OS, achieved up to 61 percent better performance than the Dell Precision 650 workstation running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0(8).

Sun Provides Early Glimpse of Tomorrow’s Networking Technology

Sun also revealed select capabilities of new networking technology – from its acquisition of Nauticus Networks – designed for integration in future Sun systems to add additional virtualization and resource optimization capabilities. In preliminary tests, Sun’s secure applications management technology showed a ten-fold price/performance improvement over existing service delivery offerings, achieving world-record capabilities such as 10,000 SSL connections per second and 2Gbps of cryptographic throughput.

“Sun is upping the ante once again on the competition. We’re delivering a comprehensive set of technologies for the datacenter that IBM, HP and Dell can’t match,” said John Fowler, executive vice president, Network Systems Group at Sun. “We offer customers system combinations to handle every conceivable datacenter task, big or small, with SPARC and Opteron processors running Solaris in addition to supporting Red Hat Linux, SUSE Linux and Windows. What’s more, with the Nauticus acquisition, we are adding highly secure applications management to our server product line, with dramatic price/performance value for our customers.”

Tune to the NC04Q3 web experience at www.sun.com/nc to join a live web chat with Scott McNealy, Sun’s chairman and CEO, listen to Sun executives describe new innovations and detailed product information and view all press releases.

1. Sun Fire V890 configured with 2 x USIV, 8GB Memory, 6x73GB HDD, OS License, 90 Software Support , DVD-RAM & 3 year warranty coverage for $39,995. IBM p570 configured with 2 x p5, 8GB Memory, 6x73GB HDD, DVD-RAM, AIX 5L V5.2 Express & 1 year SWMA for AIX with a total cost of $43,307. 2 year warranty extension to make a total of 3 years coverage costs $5,280, making the total cost $48,587. Pricing Source: UNIX Server Pricing & Configuration. Monitor, DH Brown Associates Inc, August 13th , 2004 IBM ISV Source: http://www.developer.ibm.com/solutions/isv/igssg.nsf/searchgui, August 13th 2004
2. Sun Fire V890 configured with 4x Dual Core 1.2GHz USIV, 16GB Memory, 6x73GB HDD, 1xGB Ethernet port, DVD and 3 year warranty coverage costing $75,995. HP rp7420-16 configured with 4 x Dual Core 1GHz PA-8800, 16GB Memory, 2x146GB HDD, 1xGB Ethernet port, DVD and 3 year warranty coverage costing $180,143. Pricing Source: UNIX Server Pricing & Configuration. Monitor, DH Brown Associates Inc, August 13th , 2004
3. The Sun Fire V490 server delivered 2,958 QphH@1000GB at a price performance of US$52/QphH@1000GB, and with a scheduled availability of 01/16/05. TPC-H, QphH and $/QphH are trademarks of the Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC). Additional information on the TPC-H benchmark can be found at www.tpc.org/.
4. The Sun Fire V890 server configured with 8 UltraSPARC IV processors, running the Solaris OS and Lotus(R)Domino 6.5.1 when configured in four partitions achieved 14,000 users at $13.38 per user, 11890 NotesMark tpm, and 99 ms average response time. The benchmark results stated above reflect results published on http:/www.notesbench.org as of 09/13/04.
5. The Sun Fire V890 server produced SPECompM2001 score of 14789.The Sun Java Workstation W2100z produced SPECompM2001 score of 5085. These results have been submitted to SPEC. SPEC and the benchmark name SPEComp are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. HP AlphaServer ES80 7/1150 server produced SPECompM2001 score of 12289. Comparisons are based upon published results as of 09/13/04. For the latest SPEC OMP benchmark results, visit http://www.spec.org/omp/results/.
6. As of September 14, 2004: Two Sun Fire V20z application servers, each equipped with two AMD Opteron Model 250 2.4 GHz processors, and a Sun Fire V40z database server, equipped with four AMD Opteron Model 850 2.4 GHz processors, delivered a result of 1363.88 TOPS@MultipleNode with a price/performance of US$82.74/TOPS@MultipleNode for the SPECjAppServer2002 benchmark. The comparison presented above is based on the MultipleNode category. For the latest results see http://www.spec.org.
7. The results of each of the two-tier SAP SD Standard Application Benchmarks mentioned are as follows: NEC Express 5800 Model 140Rc-4 server supported 499 SAP SD Benchmark users and was configured with four Intel XEONprocessors, 4 GB RAM, Microsoft SQL Server 2000, Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition, running SAP R/3® Enterprise Release 4.70 solution, SAP certification number 2003059. Dell PowerEdge 7250 server supported 615 SAP SD Benchmark users and was configured with four Intel Itanium 2 processors, 16 GB RAM, Microsoft SQL Server 2000, Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition, running SAP R/3 Enterprise 4.70, SAP certification number 2004056. Fujitsu Siemens Computers Primergy Model RXI600 server supported 685 SAP SD Benchmark users and was configured with four Intel Itanium 2 processors, 16 GB RAM, Microsoft SQL Server 2000, Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition, running SAP R/3 Enterprise 4.70, SAP certification number 2003048. IBM xSeries 365 Model 88626RXserver supported 720 SAP SD Benchmark users and was configured with four Intel XEON processors, 8 GB RAM, IBM DB2 UDB 8.1, Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition, running SAP R/3 Enterprise 4.70, SAP certification number 2004019.HP ProLiant Model DL585 server supported 770 SAP SD Benchmark users and was configured with four AMD Opteron 850 series processors, 32 GB RAM, Microsoft SQL Server 2000, Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition, running SAP R/3 Enterprise 4.70, SAP certification number 2004024. Sun Fire V40z server supported 820 SAP SD Benchmark users and was configured with four AMD Opteron 850 series processors, 32 GB RAM, Oracle 9i, SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 (64-bit), running SAP R/3 Enterprise 4.70, SAP certification number 2004044.
8. The BLAST benchmark was provided by the National Center for Biotechnology Information. The Sun Java Workstation W1100z with a AMD Opteron processor Model 150 running Solaris 10 operating system, achieved up to 61 percent better performance than Dell 650 workstation with one 3.2 GHz Xeon processor running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0. More information on the BLAST 2.2.9 benchmark can be found at http://www.ncbi.nih.gov/blast.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision — “The Network Is The Computer” — 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 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun Logo, Sun Fire, Solaris, Java 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. UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries exclusively licensed through X/Open Company, Ltd.

Plans To Introduce Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture Line; Netra 440AC Enters Market; Competitive Win With Telecom New Zealand

The leader in network infrastructure for telecommunications providers, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today announced its intention to launch an Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture (AdvancedTCA)-compliant product family supporting both the Solaris operating system (OS) and Carrier-Grade Linux operating systems. Sun also today unveiled the AC version of its UltraSPARC processor and Solaris OS-based Netra 440 system, the lowest priced 4-way carrier- grade server on the market.

As the telecommunications industry regains momentum, Sun has been able to capitalize with its Solaris OS based Netra servers and maintain its position as a leading provider. According to Gartner’s recent report “Worldwide Server Market Continues Strong Growth in 2Q04,”1 Sun posted the highest growth rate overall among top-tier vendors in worldwide server shipments, much of which can be attributed to strong demand for Netra systems from telecom providers.

Sun’s leadership in delivering best-of-breed products and solutions to the telecommunications market is demonstrated through a recent multi-million dollar commitment from Telecom New Zealand. “Sun’s products, from Throughput Computing and Solaris 10 through to the Java Enterprise System, are a good fit for our business now and into the future,” said Greg Patchell, Telecom New Zealand’s General Manager Technology Strategy & Capability. “Sun has proven a real commitment to helping us maintain a competitive edge through technology innovation. This partnership promises to be good for us in the long-term and for our customers as well.”

“Telecommunications companies such as Telecom New Zealand are key to making network computing pervasive in everyday life,” said David Yen, Executive Vice President, Scalable Systems Group, Sun Microsystems. “This market has historically been, and will remain, a key priority for Sun. We understand the competitive pressures they face and are committed to delivering the most innovative technology to help them derive value from their business.”

AdvancedTCA Family

AdvancedTCA is one of the latest industry standards (PICMG) specification for next generation carrier-grade blade servers. Sun’s Netra AdvancedTCA systems will include UltraSPARC and AMD Opteron-based processor technologies with support for Solaris and Carrier-Grade (CG) Linux. Network equipment providers and carriers will be able to optimize throughput and cost effectiveness for 3G network applications, including GGSN, SGSN and RNC, using these new technologies. Only Sun will be delivering ATCA Systems which support the two of the most popular carrier-grade operating systems, Solaris and CG Linux.

Netra 440 AC Server

Following the launch of the Netra 440 DC server in June 2004, Sun today unveiled the Netra 440 AC at 75 percent less than the competitive 4 processor NEBS certified server from HP. Designed to meet the needs of telecom, defense and OEM customers, the Netra 440 AC is now the lowest-priced option on the market.

Starting at $13,995 (U.S. list price) – over 40 percent less than HP’s rx4640 Itanium server and almost 75 percent less than HP’s rp5470 PA-RISC carrier-grade servers – Sun’s Netra 440 server delivers unprecedented price performance. The Netra 440 also offers telecom customers the best compute density (4P/5U) of any comparable server on the market today, enabling them to deploy more capacity and capability in a single rack.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision — “The Network Is The Computer” — 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 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun Logo, Netra, Solaris 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.