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Academic Institutions Worldwide Choose Sun
Microsystems's Sun Ray 1 Enterprise Appliance
Nearly 100 Institutions Using the Sun Ray Systems
PALO ALTO, Calif.Providing a reliable, budget-friendly alternative to the personal computer, SunMicrosystems, Inc. today announced that nearly 100 academic institutions worldwide are using Sun's popular Sun Ray 1 enterprise appliance.
Among the leading institutions that are taking advantage of Sun's appliance to provide easy-to-use, affordable and reliable access to the network and Internet, as well as to deliver curriculum and administrative content efficiently, are Stanford University, The University of Western Ontario (Canada), Universitat de Barcelona in Spain, and the Carrollton School System in Carrollton, Georgia, among others.
Introduced in September 1999, the Sun Ray appliance, with its Sun HotDesk technology, is a simple, low-cost networked
device.
Unlike personal computers which require an operating system and applications running locally on the desktop, the SunRay systems allow for instant access to existing applications and resources on the network, regardless of the underlying platform -- including Sun's Solaris(TM) Operating Environment, Java(TM) technology-based, multimedia or Windows NT applications.
"The Sun Ray appliance allows for instant, constant, and simple access to all of one's applications, with minimal desktop administration costs or resources used," said Gene Banman, vice president and general manager, Internet Appliances and Webtop, Sun Microsystems.
This computing model significantly lowers the total cost of ownership and provides an alternative to costly, high-maintenance desktop PCs for the education marketplace, where IT budgets and resources can be severely limited.
According to Kim Jones, vice president, Global Education and Research for Sun Microsystems,"We've reached a significant
milestone with the Sun Ray system because many large educational institutions have now tried it and found that it helps them deliver anytime, anywhere, learning opportunities to their constituents. The stage is set for 2000 to be the year of widespread deployment of Sun Ray systems throughout the education community worldwide."
Stanford University
On the Stanford University campus, Sun Ray technology has been deployed to help run its Nanofabrication Facility. Nearly 25 Sun Ray appliances have been installed for use by a large number of researchers using the facility. The laboratory is a large, shared facility that consists of approximately 75 pieces of equipment used for the fabrication of advanced micro- and nanostructures.
Custom Java software running on the Sun Ray server allows users to reserve equipment, automatically generate equipment
usage records for accounting purposes, and to report problems with lab equipment.
Sun's HotDesk technology allows laboratory users to maintain a stable computing environment including e-mail, browser bookmarks, on-line record keeping, and access to laboratory databases, while they move from station to station throughout the lab.
"The Stanford Nanofabrication Facility is very pleased with the performance of the Sun Ray architecture," said John Shott,associate director of the Stanford Nanofabrication Facility.
"The HotDesk architecture is a big win in this environment, particularly when you consider the fact that we get the mobility advantages of the Sun Ray architecture, while only having to administer a single server. We believe that we will see further benefits as a result of the high-performance private network when we begin to deploy streaming video training materials throughout our laboratory."
University of Western Ontario
The University of Western Ontario has been one of the early adopters of the Sun Ray technology. A small pilot program
conducted in the fall of 1999 was met with such extremely positive results and reception by the library staff and users that the institution has installed 250 Sun Ray systems throughout the campus for access to library services and resources.
"For us, the Sun Ray appliance has been very successful in running our most important library applications and has been a great match for our environment from an IT perspective," said Joyce Garnett, director of libraries for The University of Western Ontario."Users and staff members have found the interface very familiar and easy to use for across-campus communications and access to library resources."
Universitat de Barcelona
At Universitat de Barcelona in Spain, 30 Sun Ray systems have been deployed in the institution's Electronic Engineering Computer-Aided Design (CAD) Lab. <b?The systems are being used by instructors to provide students with hands-on experience in the intricacies of electronic integrated circuit design and modeling.
"The Sun Ray systems have given us the flexibility to bring real-world design challenges into the lab for our students to experience first hand," said Professor Josep Samitier, deputy head of Electronic Engineering."In the past, our ability to provide our students with practical hands-on experience was severely limited by the cost of acquiring and maintaining technology."
Carrollton Schools
The Carrollton City School System, comprising three schools of approximately 3,500 students in Carrollton, Georgia, just
outside of Atlanta, has 20 Sun Ray systems connected to a Sun Enterprise 450 server in its elementary school. The Sun Ray appliances are being used in the school system's 5th Grade classrooms as direct connections to the Internet and for accessing a suite of StarOffice(TM) software applications.
"The Sun Ray systems are helping us to realize our vision of making technology a transparent tool for students and educators,"said Dr. O.P. Cooper, assistant superintendent of technology, Carrollton City School System.
"The Sun Ray platform and its Hot Desk technology enable us to deploy and service hardware and applications more quickly and more cost-efficiently, without interfering with or hampering the learning process"
Sun In Education
Sun is a leading provider of open network computing solutions to colleges and universities around the world, powering academic, research and high performance computing systems, campus administration, digital libraries and student instruction systems.
In addition, Sun is committed to connecting the world's students to the Internet, beginning with primary and secondary schools and extending to all levels of higher education. For information about Sun in Education, please visit:
sun.com. |
