Sun Ships Record 1.6 Petabytes of Fibre Channel Storage for Enterprise Class
Extends Lead in Fibre Channel Storage Area Network Solutions With Delivery Of
Microsoft Windows NT Support for Sun StorEdge A5000 Array
PALO ALTO, Calif., Nov. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Further solidifying its fibre channel and storage area network (SAN) leadership, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW), today announced it has shipped 1.6 petabytes (PB) of Sun StorEdge(TM) A5000 array fibre channel storage since the product's introduction one year ago. The company also announced its Sun StorEdge A5000 array is now interoperable with Microsoft Windows NT operating environments, making it the most popular fibre channel storage solution in the industry.
As a central building block of Sun's Intelligent Storage Network (TM) (ISN), the Sun StorEdge(TM) A5000 arrays enable customers to specifically tailor their storage needs to applications that require high availability and performance within the enterprise. The Sun StorEdge A5000 arrays allow customers to build and deploy a storage infrastructure over distances spanning 500 meters when used with Sun's fibre channel hubs. Later this year Sun plans to increase the distance to 10 kilometers via a SAN architecture enabling incremental data consolidation, improved disaster recovery and freedom from the space constraints of the data center. Such flexibility, along with exceptional availability and performance, have made the Sun StorEdge A5000 array the industry's most popular full-fibre, second-generation solution for network storage applications such as data warehousing, where high bandwidth is key to application performance, and disaster recovery and business continuance.
"Sun is leading the disk storage industry with end-to-end fibre channel shipments. Its second-generation fibre channel romp is a proof-point for how explosive, pervasive, and important fibre channel and storage networks will become. Our latest research forecasts a 100% CAGR (compound annual growth rate) for fibre channel based storage networks between now and 2002, culminating in a 2002 market revenue of over $2.3 billion," said Robert Gray, Research Analyst for International Data Corporation.
Large configurations of multiple Sun StorEdge(TM) A5000 arrays scale to more than one gigabyte (GB)/sec with zero-downtime expansion capabilities for mission-critical availability and virtually unlimited scalability. In the future, Sun plans to provide fibre channel switches which will further increase the connectivity options and distance capabilities of Sun's ISN. Now with full Windows NT support, the Sun StorEdge A5000 array allows for the implementation of heterogeneous fibre channel storage within the enterprise.
"Sun's industry lead with the Sun Enterprise 10000 servers coupled with clustered Sun StorEdge A5000 arrays deliver the best, highly available fibre channel based solution in the industry," said Jeff Allen, senior director of marketing for Sun Network Storage. "We are continuing to deliver the key connectivity and functionality requirements to successfully match storage solutions with specific enterprise applications."
Recent benchmark success underscores the Sun StorEdge A5000 array's industry leadership by matching large-scale storage feature, functionality and connectivity with specific application needs. The world record TPC-D 1 TB (SE1000) benchmark with a single Sun Enterprise (TM) 10000 server -- running the highly robust Solaris Operating Environment(TM) software and Oracle8i database -- showcased Sun StorEdge A5000 array's enormous bandwidth with extremely high I/O per second response, giving customers faster access to massive amounts of data. The recent world-record online transaction processing (OLTP) Transaction Processing Performance Council Benchmark C (TPC-C) included the Sun StorEdge A5000 array, the mid-range Sun Enterprise (TM) 6500 server running Sybase ASE and the new Solaris(TM) 7 software environment. It successfully simulated an order-entry environment for enterprise warehouse operations such as airline reservation and inventory control environments.
"With the Sun StorEdge A5000 storage system, we can easily scale up capacity and we don't have to buy sophisticated RAID devices that can introduce another source of downtime. The system has no single point of failure, so it gives us the mission-critical support, quick response time and accessibility we need," said Marc Hansen, Vice President Systems Architecture, J.Crew.
Intelligent Storage Network
Sun's Intelligent Storage Network combines all the traditional attributes of high-quality storage systems -- reliability, availability, performance, and manageability -- with all the connectivity, flexibility and distributed access benefits of network computing. The result of such an intelligent storage network architecture integrates technology from many areas, not just traditional storage subsystems, but servers, networking technologies, system and application software, and services.
Sun's Fibre Channel Leadership
Sun began working with fibre channel standards in 1989 and in 1993 co-founded the Fibre Channel Systems Initiative (FCSI) in conjunction with Hewlett-Packard and IBM. Sun began shipping its first fibre channel product, the SPARCstorage(TM) Array, in 1994 and since that time has shipped more than three million gigabytes (three petabytes) of fibre channel storage while garnering support from many industry-leading vendors. Sun's early leadership in fibre channel technology is winning new customers who want the same availability, scalability, and performance advantages Sun customers have been getting from the company's fibre channel arrays for years. By leveraging Sun's fibre channel storage arrays, as well as their tight integration with Sun's industry-leading Sun Enterprise server line, customers are voting for proven, high performance technology rather than relying on unproven technology from other vendors.
Pricing and Availability
The Sun StorEdge (TM) A5000 array lists at $35,000* for an entry-level configuration. The Sun fibre channel hub, which is included with rack mounted configurations of the Sun StorEdge A5000 array, lists at $2,300* and is supported by Sun only with the Sun StorEdge A5000 array. Both products are available in volume today for the Solaris and Microsoft Windows NT operating environments.
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 high quality hardware, software and services for establishing enterprise-wide intranets and expanding the power of the Internet. With more than $10 billion in annual revenues, Sun can be found in more than 150 countries and on the World Wide Web at sun.com.
* Pricing is in U.S. dollars and is subject to change.
NOTE: Sun, the Sun logo, Sun Microsystems, Sun StorEdge, Solaris, Sun Enterprise, Intelligent Storage Network, 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.
Press announcements and other information about Sun Microsystems are available on the Internet via the World Wide Web using a tool such as Netscape Navigator or Sun's HotJava(TM). Type sun.com at the URL prompt.
SOURCE Sun Microsystems, Inc.
CO: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
ST: California
IN: CPR
SU:
11/17/98 06:02 EST prnewswire.com
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