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Sun Sets Records With UltraSPARC IV, AMD Opteron-Based Systems

During its second quarterly Network Computer '04 launch, Sun Microsystems Inc announced that every one of the new Solaris Operating System and UltraSPARC IV-based midrange and high-end systems has set a world-record or benchmark, bringing the total to 37 world- records to date. Additionally, Sun continues to power the Solaris OS and Linux applications faster than ever before with new "land-speed" records on its first AMD Opteron processor-based server, the Sun Fire V20z.

"Sun's systems strategy is focused on providing the best performance for our customers' real-world applications now and into the future," said David Yen, executive vice president of the Scalable Systems Group at Sun. "Whether they need the raw network processing power of our Opteron-based systems or the increased throughput of the new UltraSPARC IV-based enterprise servers, the tight integration between the Solaris OS, system architecture and Java is the key ingredient in our price/performance leadership."

Setting World Record Benchmarks With Sun

Sun continues to achieve record-breaking performance including:

  • The SPECjAppServer2002 world record for the Sun Fire V20z Server running Oracle Application Server 10g in the DualNode category for price/performance.
  • The two-tier SAP R/3 4.70 Standard Sales and Distribution benchmark on the Sun Fire E20K system.
  • The Manugistics NetWORKS Fulfillment v7.1 supply chain management benchmark on the Sun Fire E6900 system.
  • The NotesBench R6iNotes benchmark, using the Lotus Domino 6.0 Mail server.

The Sun Fire E2900 delivered world record price/performance of $18.18 per user and handled the most users per processor in the NotesBench R6iNotes benchmark, outperforming all competitors. The Sun Fire E2900, equipped with 12 dual-threaded, 1.2 GHz UltraSPARC IV processors (each with 16MB cache), ran 1.87 times faster than a similarly configured UltraSPARC III system, proving the increased scalability and power of these first generation throughput computing systems. In the NotesBench R6iNotes benchmark the Sun Fire E2900, running the Solaris OS, was 30 percent cheaper per user, with seven times faster response time compared to the IBM eServer Blade HS40.

For detailed results visit: www.notesbench.org/bench.nsf?OpenDatabase .

New Customers Line-Up For UltraSPARC IV-based Systems

Customer demand for the newest UltraSPARC IV-based systems running the Solaris OS continues to gain momentum. And thousands of customers are currently previewing Solaris 10 through Software Express, allowing them to implement technologies unavailable anywhere else in production environments today. For details, go to www.sun.com/softwareexpress . With productivity and performance enhancements starting at 50 percent improvement and catapulting beyond 100 percent for some customers, the UltraSPARC IV-based systems are appealing to new and existing Sun customers. Enterprise customers who have recently purchased the new Sun Fire E2900, E4900, E6900, E20K and E25K systems include: Boeing, Oregon State University, Siemens, Sabre Holdings, DaimlerChrysler, Vodafone and the National Research Council of Canada (NRC). The new UltraSPARC IV systems continue to demonstrate Sun's leadership in the UNIX market.

The NRC's Canadian Bioinformatics Resource (CBR) is an early adopter of the Sun Fire E20K enterprise system. The NRC-CBR has 1,200 users around the world and will be opening a new facility and datacenter this summer in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with the intention of expanding their computing resources to sites globally.

"We selected the Sun Fire E20K for its tremendous scalability and throughput computing potential," said Terry Dalton, manager of NRC Canadian Bioinformatics Resource. "The system will replace two older enterprise class systems and will give us the opportunity to add applications, projects and users to keep our datacenter world-class."

With Sun's commitment to binary compatibility, customers can deploy applications once and upgrade at any time with Sun's hot swap Dynamic Reconfiguration technology. The advantage is clear: no costly downtime or inconvenient disruption to business. This seamless upgrade path makes Sun systems a smarter investment over the long term as customers evolve their data centers to respond to changing business needs. Attractive offers from the Sun Upgrade Advantage Program have given customers strong incentive to stay with the SPARC and Solaris OS combination. For more information visit www.sun.com/ibb/tradeins/mid-frame.html .

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 http://sun.com/ .

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