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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY /
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Breaking News -
Platforms:
Sun Attacks Computing Cost,
Complexity With New x86 Blade
Sun Microsystems Inc announced it has expanded its x86 Blade and Netra
system
portfolio. Sun's new x86 systems with Solaris or Linux offer customers a lower
cost "out-of-the-box" alternative, delivering up to 13 times lower acquisition
costs over Microsoft Windows 2003 while leveraging the uncompromising security
and reliability of the worldwide market-leading UNIX operating system.
"The clear message from customers today is that they want reliable,
low-cost
solutions that are easy to implement," said Neil Knox, executive vice
president of Volume Systems Products at Sun. "Sun is once again breaking new
ground in providing scalable end-to-end solutions at lower price points than
our competitors and simultaneously improving system reliability."
At today's Network Computing quarterly launch at SunNetwork Berlin, Sun
unveiled the first multi-architecture blade computing platform, available with
UltraSPARC, x86, SSL Proxy and content load balancing blades. Sun also
announced its first Netra rack system utilising the UltraSPARC IIIi processor
and the first Netra blade server supporting PICMG 2.16 standards. The new
systems allow customers to choose between the following platforms for running
their business-critical applications:
- Solaris OS (x86 Platform Edition): By providing the No. 1 UNIX, Solaris
OS,
on the x86 platform, Sun continues to provide customers with choice and
flexibility. With increased partner support and continuous OS innovation, the
Solaris 9 OS (x86 Platform Edition) is experiencing rapid adoption with more
than 375,000 registered licenses since January 2003. BEA, Sybase and other
partners have recently announced that they are porting their applications to
Solaris OS (x86 Platform Edition). In addition, Sun's Java Enterprise System
available on the Solaris OS (x86 Platform Edition) helps to provide customers
with rock solid, high performance web service applications, such as the Secure
Web Infrastructure Server.
- Linux OS: Support for Red Hat's RHEL 3.0 and SuSE's SLES 8.0 enables
enterprise computing on open source technology. Typical horizontal
applications supported by Red Hat and SuSE include core infrastructure
solutions such as web, application and e-mail servers, or compute farms, Grid
computing and others.
New Blade Servers Lower Operational Costs And Increase Serviceability
Customers can now build flexible and horizontally scalable IT
infrastructures
that utilise compute resources efficiently, with the availability of a new
x86-based blade, which can be deployed as part of the industry's first
multi-architecture blade platform. With this new addition, the Sun Fire B1600
Blade Platform enables maximum flexibility to customers by mixing, matching
and managing Solaris and Linux operating systems, SPARC and x86 architectures,
and special function blades all in the same chassis.
The Sun Fire B100x is a single processor x86 blade server that utilises
AMD's
Mobile Athlon XP 1800+ processor at 1.53 GHz and one or two gigabytes of DDR
memory options -- double the memory available in some competitors' systems.
The x86 blade server supports the Solaris 9 Operating System (x86 Platform
Edition) and standard Linux distributions from Sun. The entry price point for
the B100x is $1795.
The Sun Fire B10p SSL Proxy blade server, when combined with the Sun Fire
B10n
Content Load Balancing blade server, can enable better utilisation from server
resources, as well as deliver fast, reliable responses to Web requests at low
costs. The Sun Fire B10p blade server also provides SSL encryption and
decryption services when combined with the Sun Fire B10n blade server. The
B10p SSL Proxy blade server lists at $13,800.
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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