SUNW is my largest holding but NTAP is my second largest. I am interested in the comments of others on this news. I feel that both EMC and SUNW entering the NAS market is a validation of NAS and should place more focus on this market. Your thoughts?
Sun Microsystems Storms Network Attached Storage Market With Introduction Of the
Industry's Most Scalable Filer Family New Sun StorEdge(TM) N8000 Filer Family's
Entry System Beats Network Appliance F720 With Better Performance, Price and
Scalability
PALO ALTO, Calif., May 30, 2000 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Sun Microsystems,
Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today introduced the Sun StorEdge(TM) N8000 filer product
family, the industry's most scalable family of Network Attached Storage (NAS)
systems. The high-performance, high-availability product line debuts with the
entry-level Sun StorEdge(TM) N8200 filer, which offers capacity of up to 800 GB
gigabytes (GB) and the best price-to-performance in its class of NAS products.
Higher capacity Sun StorEdge N8000 filer models are in development and planned
for release this year.
"The NAS market has emerged out of the need for reliable, high-performance
storage solutions that are simple and affordable to install, yet can be expanded
quickly and easily as needs grow," said Denise Shiffman, vice president of
marketing for Sun Network Storage. "Until now however, most NAS offerings have
failed to fully meet the needs of the exploding Net economy. We are introducing
a whole new range of scalability to the NAS market in a high performing product
line that is based upon proven Sun technology and provides the advantages of an
end-to-end single vendor solution."
"Sun originated the Network File System protocol and is now responding to the
demands for higher scalability and performance in the NAS market," said Dan
Tanner, senior analyst, Storage and Storage Management, for Aberdeen Group, Inc.
"The scalability, performance and ease-of-use of the Sun StorEdge N8200 filer,
the first product in the Sun StorEdge N8000 filer product line, is likely to
make it quite attractive to a wide audience."
"We are evaluating the Sun StorEdge N8200 filer and are pleased with the
performance, competitive pricing and ease-of-use of the product," said Chris
Eidler, vice president of engineering for StorageWay, a San Jose,
California-based storage service provider (SSP). "Sun's reputation as a leading
provider of solutions for the dot-com environment, combined with the scalability
the company plans to introduce into their NAS product line in the coming year
should be well received by the market."
Sun StorEdge N8000 Filer Product Family Delivers Ease-of-Use, Performance and
Scalability
The easy to implement Sun StorEdge N8000 filer product family is ideal for
dot-com companies, service providers and workgroups with rapidly expanding
storage environments that require high performance, high availability and
seamless scalability. The first filer in the product line is the
economically-priced, entry-level Sun StorEdge N8200 filer, which offers capacity
from 200 to 800 GB. Additional Sun StorEdge N8000 filer models planned for
release include the Sun StorEdge(TM) N8400 filer, which will offer capacity to
six terabytes (TB) and the Sun StorEdge(TM) N8600 filer, which will scale as
high as 10 TB, well beyond the present scalability of the Network Appliance line
of filer products.
The Sun StorEdge N8200 filer is designed for the needs of the Net economy. Some
of the key system features include:
-- The Sun StorEdge N8200 filer is optimized for low latency and peak
-- file system performance so that it outperforms competitive offerings.
-- Designed to streamline installation, the preconfigured system can be
installed in less than 10 minutes.
-- The system allows file sharing in heterogeneous environments with NFS
and CIFS support.
-- The Sun StorEdge N8200 filer gives customers the flexibility to scale
vertically or horizontally -- adding more storage to a filer or more
filers to a network. This flexible "pay-as-you-grow" architecture
enables customers to install storage at an affordable cost and expand
capacity quickly and easily as needed without impacting data
availability.
-- Browser-based management allows administrators to easily manage and
monitor storage.
-- A mirrored bootdisk provides data protection by ensuring the system's
storage won't be brought down in the event of a bootdisk failure.
Availability, Pricing and Support
The Sun StorEdge N8200 Filer is now available in the U.S. The system is targeted
for availability to international customers beginning July 31, 2000. List
pricing for a 200 GB configuration starts at $54,000. Pricing and availability
are subject to change without notice.
The Sun StorEdge N8200 Filer is backed by Sun's three-year second day on sire
warranty. SunSpectrum(TM) support is available for an additional charge.
About Sun Network Storage
Sun Network Storage was formed by Sun Microsystems in July 1998, and is a
recognized multi-billion dollar industry leader in the UNIX(R) and open systems
storage market. Sun is changing the rules in network storage by delivering
software and hardware written to an open network architecture. Sun's commitment
to standards enables timely availability of new technology, investment
protection for existing technology, and a thriving partner community. The
comprehensive Sun StorEdge family of products enables customers to match storage
to the application while providing scalable capacity and performance in a
"pay-as-you-grow" architecture.
Sun offers customers a complete family of network storage systems and storage
management software. The Sun StorEdge line of disk storage, tape backup,
management software and data services address workgroup to enterprise
requirements with solutions for server-attached storage, consolidated storage
networks and storage area networks. The products offer exceptional reliability,
availability, scalability, manageability and performance. During the coming
months, Sun storage systems and management software will introduce support for
Jiro(TM) technology. Based on the Java (TM) 2 platform, Jiro technology reduces
interoperability issues between storage systems, management software and network
devices, and is seen as an important enabler of next generation storage
networks.
About Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision -- The Network Is The
Computer(TM) -- has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc., to its position as a
leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that
power the Internet and allow companies worldwide to dot-com their businesses.
With $14.2 billion in annual revenues, Sun can be found in more than 170
countries and on the World Wide Web at sun.com .
NOTE: Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Sun StorEdge, SunSpectrum, Java, Jiro
and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun
Microsystems, Inc., in the United States and other countries. UNIX is a
registered trademark in the United States and other countries, exclusively
licensed through X/Open Company Ltd.
CONTACT: Suzanne Eaton of Sun Microsystems, Inc., 510-574-9394, or
suzanne.eaton@ebay.sun.com; or Corey Oiesen of Dovetail Public Relations,
408-395-3600, or corey@dovetailpr.com, for Sun Microsystems, Inc.
SOURCE Sun Microsystems, Inc.
CONTACT: Suzanne Eaton of Sun Microsystems, Inc., 510-574-9394, or
suzanne.eaton@ebay.sun.com; or Corey Oiesen of Dovetail Public Relations,
408-395-3600, or corey@dovetailpr.com, for Sun Microsystems, Inc.
URL: sun.com
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