Sun Server Sets New Performance Record on Manugistics Benchmark

Results Showcase Sun Fire E20K Server and Solaris 10 Speed, Consolidation and Price/Performance Leadership

SANTA CLARA, Calif
May 31 , 2005

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today announced that Sun’s Enterprise class UltraSPARC(R) IV-based Sun Fire E20K system running Solaris 10 Operating System (OS) has set a new Manugistics Fulfillment v7.1 benchmark world record. Sun demonstrates industry-leading performance and price/performance on the 36-way Sun Fire E20K server (1) by beating IBM’s newest 32-way Power5 server, the IBM P5-590 by 23 percent, with a 45 percent price/performance advantage based on hardware category pricing.

Many of the world’s largest retailers use Manugistics solutions to reduce costs and improve customer service by replenishment planning at the store level. The Manugistics applications are built on open standards and architected to the Java2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE). The Manugistics NetWORKS Fulfillment 7.1 benchmark measures throughput results for real world complex retail supply chain management systems and workloads. These results demonstrate Sun’s ability to run complex workloads efficiently and effectively, and also showcase Sun’s chip multithreading innovation with the 1.35 GHz UltraSPARC IV processors running 10 percent faster than IBM’s 1.65 GHz POWER5 processors.

In order to achieve this record, both database and application servers were on a single system, demonstrating the server consolidation capabilities of Sun Fire servers. In addition, the superior batch processing capability of the Sun Fire E20K server that balances I/O, memory, and CPU processing power, as well as its ability to scale near linearly as processor are added, played an instrumental role in delivering unbeatable performance on real world supply chain workloads. The performance of the 36-way Sun Fire E20K server was 3 times faster than the 12-way Sun Fire E4900 server on the same size workload (with a third of the processors).

About Manugistics Group, Inc.

Manugistics powers the synchronized supply chain. Clients depend on Manugistics to position them one step ahead of demand. With Manugistics’ unparalleled supply chain and revenue management solutions, clients achieve improved forecast and inventory accuracy, leverage industry leading pricing and yield management solutions to maximize profits while ensuring constant supply for constantly changing demand. Its clients include industry leaders such as AT&T, BMW, Boeing, Caesars Entertainment, Canadian Tire, Cingular, Circuit City, Coca-Cola Bottling, Coty International, Delta Air Lines, DHL, Diageo, Dixons, DuPont, Eurostar Ltd., Georgia-Pacific, Great North Eastern Railway (GNER), Harley-Davidson, Harrah’s Entertainment, H.J. Heinz, John Deere, LL Bean, Limited Brands, Kraft Foods, Marriott, McCormick, Nestle, Nissan, RadioShack, The Scotts Company, Sears, Sinotrans, Unilever and Wickes Building Supplies. For more information, go to www.manugistics.com.

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

NetWORKS is a registered trademark of Manugistics Group Inc.

1. Manugistics Fulfillment v7.1 Sun Fire E20K 47,349,823 SKUs/hr, 36 1.35 GHz USIV, StorEdge 3510/6120, Solaris 10, Oracle9i Database Release 2 More info www.manugistics.com.

NOTE: Previous World Record results posted by IBM included a comparison to an outdated Sun result obtained on a three year old system (SF6800) when a more recent result on a Sun E6900 was publicly available.