Archive | March, 2005

Sun’s Leadership on Wall Street Paying Big Dividends

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW) today announced that New York-based JPMorgan, a leader in financial services, has chosen to work with Sun on a range of advanced IT projects, including grid computing, data archiving and virtualized data center solutions. Sun and JPMorgan will jointly develop several of these projects.

JPMorgan’s Investment Bank Technology team has chosen to develop applications using Solaris 10 Operating System (OS), Sun’s flagship operating system. Solaris 10 OS is the industry’s most robust operating system, delivering carrier-grade reliability and scalability, and military-grade security.

“JPMorgan is pleased to be working closely with Sun in implementing their newest technologies, including Solaris 10 OS,” said Adrian Kunzle, vice president and global co-head of Investment Bank Technology Architecture.

“The financial services industry is one of the most demanding on earth. Performance, reliability and security are not only business imperatives, but competitive differentiators,” said Jonathan Schwartz, president and COO, Sun Microsystems. “Working hand-in-hand with JPMorgan is absolutely critical to our success in the marketplace, and this alliance is the tip of the iceberg of what is to come. One need only look at the one million Solaris 10 OS licenses issued in a two-month period and the thousands of ISVs committing support, to see that our customers are winning by leveraging Sun’s products.”

The applications, which are now in testing and development, will utilize the multi-platform power of Solaris 10 OS on both SPARC(r) and x64 systems. Full ISV portfolio support to port applications to Solaris OS on x86 systems will also be available.

Select Projects Being Co-Developed by Sun and JPMorgan

Sun and JPMorgan are now involved in co-development activities that include work on data archiving and virtualized data center solutions. Sun will also join JPMorgan’s existing grid computing initiative. JPMorgan will be leveraging Sun’s Client Solutions group and other Sun groups for this expertise.

Sun’s Pilot Strategy Bears Fruit

In New York, London and Hong Kong the financial services firm has been conducting pilots with Sun over the last year, testing a variety of Sun products, including Solaris 10 OS and Sun’s new servers. The pilots include utility computing, provisioning and a trading data archive for use by JPMorgan and their clients.

JP Morgan has long used IT as its competitive weapon to gain market advantage. It has also been a Sun customer for over 20 years, and was an early adopter of Sun technology on Wall Street.

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, 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 US and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Sun Sets New World Record Results in SPEC OMPM2001 and SPEC JBB2000 Benchmarks

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq:SUNW) today announced the results of the latest series of benchmark tests using Sun’s Solaris 10 Operating System (OS), the Sun Studio 10 software and the highest performing Sun Fire servers. The company delivered world record results on the industry-standard SPEC OMPM2001 and SPEC JBB2000 benchmarks, further demonstrating the commitment to extend performance to the leading edge for the entire product line. A complete list of Solaris 10 benchmark records is located on the web at: http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/benchmarks.xml.

Sun Studio 10 Software: A Proven Track Record for Top Performance

Today Sun announced the new world record SPEC OMPM2001 results in the two- and four-thread categories, further showcasing the power of the Sun Studio 10 software and Solaris 10 OS duo coupled with the latest Sun Fire servers, which provide excellent deployment platforms for a number of high-performance and compute-intensive applications. For instance, the Sun Fire V40z server in a four CPU configuration, produced a peak result of 12,434, beating the 8,694 score reported with SuSe Linux and the leading commercially available compiler, by up to 43 percent(1).

Additionally, the latest performance advances in the Java 2 Platform Standard Edition (J2SE 5.0), which was compiled using Sun Studio 10 software, allow Sun to claim a new world record on the Sun Fire V40z server — the four-way, 64-bit SPEC JBB2000 result. The Sun Fire V40z server crossed the 110,000 JBB operations per second (JBBops/s) mark and set a new high watermark score of 116,142 JBBops/s. The newest record on the SPEC JBB2000 benchmark, which measures the implementation of the Java Virtual Machine, as well as the performance of the underlying operating system and the scalability of the system’s processors and memory, clearly demonstrates that Solaris 10 can deliver better results when used in combination with top-performing servers from Sun.

Since their introduction, Sun’s range of x64 systems with the AMD Opteron processors continue to outperform comparably configured IBM and HP servers equipped with Power5 and Alpha processors, respectively. The Sun Fire V40z server, in a two-way configuration(2), outruns the two-way Power5-based IBM eServer OpenPower 710 server by more than 32 percent using half the number of parallel threads(3) and in a four-way configuration it beats the HP AlphaServer GS1280 7/1300 by up to 51 percent(4).

Most importantly, Sun’s customers now can reap the performance benefits of the Sun Studio 10 software compiler, which provided an 11 percent performance boost on the same hardware configuration, when compared with the previous top SPECompM2001 result obtained under Linux using the third-party, award-winning compiler suite(5).

The SPEC OMPM2001 benchmark is a test of the performance of 11 High Performance Computing (HPC) applications. All C and FORTRAN applications in this suite use the OpenMP programming model and were compiled using the Sun Studio 10 software.

OpenMP is a specification for a set of compiler directives, library routines and environment variables that can be used to specify shared memory parallelism in FORTRAN and C/C++ programs. In addition to the parallelization controls, the programmer also has to declare the scope of many of the variables used in a parallel region.

Dieter an Mey, high-performance computing team lead at RWTH Aachen University, has reported that this variable scoping is generally the most tedious and error-prone aspect of using OpenMP to parallelize programs. an Mey’s team worked with Sun to add a unique autoscoping extension to Sun Studio 10’s FORTRAN compiler. With the Sun Studio 10 product, FORTRAN developers can now further increase their productivity by asking the compiler to utilize data dependence analysis to automatically determine the scope of their variables within parallel regions.

Sun Microsystems is a corporate sponsor of IWOMP 2005, the First International Workshop on OpenMP to be held in Eugene, Oregon on June 1-4, 2005. On the Net: http://www.nic.uoregon.edu/iwomp2005/.

About the Sun Studio 10 Environment

The Sun Studio 10 software — now available in English, Japanese and Simplified Chinese — helps deliver outstanding performance when developing C, C++ and FORTRAN applications for the Solaris 10 OS. The product provides a comprehensive, productive environment for developing scalable 32- and 64-bit applications on Sun’s newest UltraSPARC(R), Intel and AMD processor-based systems. An enhanced graphical user interface increases ease-of-use, reduces turnaround time for fixes and delivers greater debugging productivity — plus the world’s first debugger to seamlessly debug applications comprised of FORTRAN, C, C++ and Java programming language source code.

Pricing and Availability

Sun Studio 10 software is priced at $2,995 (USD) for a new license or $1,000 (USD) for an upgrade from a previous version or other commercially available competitive products. (U.S. List price. All prices quoted are in U.S. Dollars.) Discounted pricing is available for multi-RTU (right to use) licenses and University ScholarPacks. Developers using prior versions of Forte(TM) software and Sun Studio products can reap the benefits of their binary compatibility, smoothing the transition of application development from these prior versions to Sun Studio 10 software. The product is available for download at http://www.sun.com/software/products/studio.

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, Java, J2SE, Sun Fire, Forte, and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, 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.

SPEC and the benchmark names SPEComp and SPECjbb are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Competitive benchmark results reflect data published as of 03/21/05. For the latest benchmark results, visit http://www.spec.org/. The 2-way and 2 CPU systems have two cores. The 4-way and 4 CPU systems have four cores. 64-bit systems have 64-bit capable implementation of the operating system and Java Virtual Machine. All new results have been submitted to SPEC.

(1)The Sun Fire V40z server (4xAMD Opteron Model 852, Solaris 10, Sun Studio 10 compiler): SPECompM2001 – 12,434 (4 cores, 4 chips, 4 threads). The Sun Fire V40z server (4xAMD Opteron Model 850, SuSe Linux 9, PGI compiler): SPECompM2001 – 8,694 (4 cores, 4 chips, 4 threads)

(5)The Sun Fire V40z server (4xAMD Opteron Model 852, Solaris 10, Sun Studio 10 compiler): SPECompM2001 – 12,434 (4 cores, 4 chips, 4 threads). The Sun Fire V40z server (4xAMD Opteron Model 852, SLES 9, PathScale compiler): SPECompM2001 – 11,223 (4 cores, 4 chips, 4 threads)

Solaris 10 Sets Fourteen New World-Record Benchmarks

Underscoring the tremendous demand for the most-advanced operating system in the industry, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today announced that it has distributed more than one million registered licenses for the Solaris 10 Operating System (OS) since Jan. 31, when the software became available on Sun’s Web site. Sun also announced that the Solaris 10 OS has set fourteen world-record benchmarks in this same timeframe and demonstrated application performance improvements greater than 50 times that of previous versions of Solaris.

“The interest in Solaris 10 has exceeded our highest expectations – this is a significant milestone for Sun,” said Tom Goguen, vice president, Operating Platforms Group, Sun Microsystems. “We’re seeing approximately one download per second and our Solaris 10 customers and partners are achieving huge performance gains when leveraging powerful new features like Dynamic Tracing and Containers.”

Performance Continues To Spur Demand For Solaris 10

Earning 14 world-record performance results to date, Solaris 10 is delivering breakthrough performance and price/performance for customers across vertical market segments from financial services to telecommunications. With technology advances such as enhancements to the network stack and special optimizations for multithreaded SPARC(R) processors and x64/x86 architectures, Solaris 10 is powering enterprise applications at record speeds on Sun Fire systems and Sun Java Workstations.

The newest 2-way 64-bit Java Virtual Machine (JVM) world record on the SPECjbb2000 benchmark, which measures the implementation of the JVM software, as well as the performance of the underlying operating system and the scalability of the system’s processors and memory, demonstrates that Solaris 10 can deliver better results than Linux. The SPECjbb2000 testing was performed on a Sun Fire V20z server, one of a range of systems available from Sun which are powered by the latest AMD Opteron processors, Model 252 with Direct Connect Architecture.(1) The results were achieved using the new Sun Studio 10 compiler software, which also delivers outstanding performance when developing C, C++ and FORTRAN applications for Solaris 10.

Additionally, Sun and BEA achieved new world record performance of 4220.39 TOPS@DualNode on the industry-standard SPECjAppServer2002 benchmark. This result on the powerful 24-way Sun Fire E6900 servers with UltraSPARC IV 1.2GHz processors delivered more than twice the performance of the proprietary HP Itanium result in this category. The SPECjAppServer benchmark is designed to test Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) that is often used as a standard platform for development of portable, scalable, multi-tier enterprise applications. Additional Solaris 10 benchmarks can be viewed at sun.com/solaris/benchmarks.(1)

Additional Solaris 10 benchmarks can be viewed on the Net: www.sun.com/solaris/benchmarks

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, Sun Fire, Java, JVM,and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.

(1) SPEC(r), SPECjbb(r), & SPECjAppServer are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Results published on www.spec.org as of 03/16/05. Visit www.spec.org/osg/jbb2000 for latest results. Sun Fire V20z server (2-way AMD Opteron processors Model 252, SLES9): 63743 JBBops/s. Sun Fire V20z server (2-way AMD Opteron processors Model 252, Solaris 10): 65840 JBBops/s SPECjAppServer2002 DualNode category: 2 Sun Fire E6900, each 24 1.2 GHz UltraSPARC IV, 4220.39 TOPS@DualNode, $834.98 US$/TOPS@DualNode. 2 HP Rx4640, each 4 1.6 GHz Itanium 2, 1710.23 TOPS@DualNode, $115.73 US$/TOPS@DualNode. For the latest results see http://www.spec.org/jAppServer2002/results/

Lenovo, Ulticom, Veraz Networks, VoiceGenie Lead List of Global Partners Building Next Gen Telecommunications Systems

Underscoring its leadership in the telecommunications industry, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today announced that 34 Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) have agreed to port a range of telecom applications to the Solaris 10 Operating System (OS). Solaris 10 will enable the 34 partners, including Lenovo, Ulticom, Veraz Networks, VoiceGenie and leading companies from around the globe, to deliver software and systems that enable carriers to improve network operations environments, reduce costs and quickly implement new secure IP-based services.

“With in-kernel support for the Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), and unique features such as Solaris Containers and Predictive Self-Healing, Solaris 10 is the ideal platform for telecoms applications,” said Tom Goguen, Vice President, Operating Platforms Group, Sun Microsystems, Inc. “Today we welcome 34 partners who are building next generation systems.”

Sun has a strong and successful history in the telecommunications industry and with Solaris 10, carriers, service providers and network equipment providers can benefit from dramatic improvements in performance and security, and increased service levels. Additionally, Solaris 10 supports current IPv6 specifications and APIs, paving the way for the development of next generation IP-based services. Partners and customers will also benefit from increased platform choice as Solaris 10 supports a broad range of SPARC(R) and x86/x64 processor-based systems. Sun platforms and Solaris 10 offer great performance for the many types of workloads important to the Telco industry. In a recent SPECjAppServer(TM) 2002 benchmark, Sun and BEA achieved new world record performance of 4220.39 TOPS@DualNode on the powerful 24-way Sun Fire(TM) E6900 servers with UltraSPARC(R) IV 1.2GHz processors. The SPECjAppserver benchmark is designed to test Java(TM) 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE(TM)) that is often used as a standard platform for development of portable, scalable, multi-tier enterprise applications. Additional Solaris 10 benchmarks can be viewed at www.sun.com/solaris/benchmarks.(1)

At CTIA Wireless 2005, Sun announced agreements with 34 telecom partners to support Solaris 10, including Adax, Appium, AsiaInfo, BOCO, Cntomorrow, DigitalChina, Flextronics Software Systems (FSS), Hurray, Infozech, JnetX, Lenovo, Longshine, Metarnet, Mpathix, Neusoft, Object Computing, Inc., Open Cloud, Poson, Pronto Networks, Runway, Shanghai Ideal, Sleepycat Software, Sures, Syndesis, TransNexus, Ubiquity, Ulticom, Veraz Networks, VoiceGenie, Wayout, Xbell, ZCXC, Zhongyin-Unihub and Zznode. These partners provide solutions that include VoIP, multimedia VPN, Web-based collaboration, business operation support systems (BOSS), customer relationship management (CRM), voice recognition, and more. Since the launch of Solaris 10 in November 2004, more than 500 partners have joined Sun’s “10 Moves Ahead” partner initiative and are porting more than 800 applications to Solaris 10. Information on Sun’s partner program is available at http://sun.com/partners/10moves.

Adax

“Sun and Adax share a vision for the telecom market that encompasses convergence and the creation and delivery of new IP-based services. Combined, Sun’s new Solaris 10 OS and Adax’s superior SS7/IP signaling solutions create a scalable platform for building revenue-generating services,” said Barry Zuckerman, CEO, Adax, Inc.

Infozech

“By deploying our Rating Engine product, i-Rater on Solaris 10, we will help customers manage their applications independently, control resource utilization based on their business needs, isolate faults and ensure security between multiple applications,” said Ankur Lal, CEO, Infozech. “That’s our promise to the market, and Solaris 10 helps us deliver.”

Ulticom

“Ulticom is pleased to offer carrier-grade SS7, SIGTRAN and SIP signaling with our Signalware platform on Solaris 10. Ulticom has had a long history of providing carrier-grade signaling on the telco industry-leading Solaris operating system. Solaris 10 raises the bar in terms of performance and reliability,” said Osman Duman, Vice President of Marketing, Ulticom.

Veraz Networks

“Veraz and Sun have long held a shared philosophy of open standards that is highlighted by Solaris 10’s new integrated support for SCTP and SIP open standard Telco IP protocols. Sun dominates the market for carrier-grade telecommunications infrastructure equipment due to its outstanding reputation for reliability,” said R. Paul Singh, Vice President of Business Development, Veraz Networks.

Join Sun Microsystems at CTIA Wireless (Booth #1370) to hear from customers and partners that are benefiting from telecom industry solutions provided by Sun. Visit our online press kit (http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/presskits/ctia2005/index.html) to view all press release, presentation schedules, white papers and product backgrounders. To learn more about the Solaris 10 OS for the telecommunications industry, visit: www.sun.com/solutions/landing/industry/telecom.xml.

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, Solari, Java, J2EE, 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 US and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.

(1) SPEC and the benchmark names SPECjAppServer, SPECjbb are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Competitive benchmark results reflect data published as of 03/01/05. For the latest benchmark results, visit http://www.spec.org/.