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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY /
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Systems/Enterprise:
GRID "BUILDING BLOCKS" REDUCE
COMPLEXITY
Sun announced the next phase of its Grid computing strategy that uses
"building blocks" to tailor Grids to the specific needs of customers. Sun's
Grid Everywhere initiative is driven by its High Performance and Technical
Computing group which supports the market that has led the way in Grid
Computing. The new building blocks provide an array of expertise, products,
technologies, alliances and services to design form-fitting Grid architectures
that help customers achieve higher utilization of their existing resources and
provide users with access to resources that they may not have within their
networks.
"Grid computing is about building local or global trade exchanges for
compute
capacity and data access," said Shahin Khan, Sun's vice president of high
performance and technical computing. "It is at the tipping point of moving
from grass-roots deployment to becoming a business imperative. As is often the
case, the science and engineering market place is the early adopter of
technology and a perfect proving ground for new technologies. Extensive HPTC
collaborations provide Sun with the required expertise and a unique
perspective on the readiness of such technologies for deployment in business
computing."
Building Block Approach
Sun's building blocks for Grid come in four categories: access, data,
computation and visualization.
Sun's "access software" enables efficient usage of resources regardless of
location and is provided through a new Grid Portal solution that relies on the
Sun Grid Engine Enterprise Edition software and the industry standard Globus
toolkit.
Sun's data Grid solutions rely on the Sun StorEdge Open SAN Architecture,
the
Sun StorEdge 3510 FC array, and Sun StorEdge SAM-FS and QFS software for
unprecedented speed, efficiency and flexibility. Data Grid solutions enable
the collection, management and protection of data regardless of user or data
location.
The Sun Fire Compute Grid family couples Sun Fire systems with a choice of
interconnect technologies. This approach provides excellent price-performance
with clusters of small systems as well as excellent price/productivity with
superclusters that utilize very large memory and simplified programming
environments. Interconnect choices range from as Gigabit Ethernet switches,
Myrinet, Infiniband, Quadrics or the Sun Fire Link interconnect.
Visualization Grids enable applications to perform graphics operations
using
local or remote graphics systems. Sun's Visual Grid platform is based on the
Sun Fire V880z, the XVR-4000 high-speed graphics subsystem and specialized
software based on the OpenGL industry standard.
Sun's Grid Reference Architecture provides a tested, tuned and documented
framework for the deployment of these building blocks. Sun's Customer Ready
Systems program integrates these building blocks and complementary third-party
hardware and software products into "ready-to-deploy" solutions that are built
in Sun factories, based on a customer's specifications. These are supported by
a global professional services practice focused on Grid deployments.
Grid Everywhere
Sun's Grid Everywhere initiative features a three-pronged approach to Grid
deployment based on building block components, extensive partnerships and
alliances. It focuses on the HPTC market as the early-adopters of technologies
that over time gain broad acceptance in business computing. Grid Everywhere is
led by Sun's HPTC business unit, which was formed six months ago to leverage
Sun's deep experience in HPTC and its broad portfolio of products and
solutions to grow Sun's stake in high performance technical computing.
As a pioneer in computing innovation, Sun aims to successfully convert its
leading-edge R&D into commercial products with broad market acceptance. Sun's
HPTC Group targets the early-adopter segments and seeks the opportunities that
can accelerate the development and deployment of technologies that hold
promise. A recent example of this is the DARPA partnership with Sun Labs to
research and develop technologies for innovative high productivity computing
systems capable of addressing Department of Defense high-performance
requirements.
About Sun Microsystems Inc
Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision -- "The Network is the
Computer" -- has propelled Sun Microsystems Inc 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 sun.com/.
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