Sun Radically Shifts the Economics of Availability With New Midframe
Servers New UltraSPARC(TM) III Technology-Based Sun Fire(TM) Servers, Plus
Software and Services, Deliver Mainframe-Class Capabilities at Midrange Prices
NEW YORK, Mar 21, 2001 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- In one of the largest
technology unveilings in its history, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW),
answers the "availability is everything" call by introducing the
highly-anticipated Sun Fire servers. The new systems redefine the profile of
traditional midrange servers and challenge the conventional economics of uptime
with prices that start below $75,000. With this new arsenal of systems, Sun
increases the competitive pressure on HP, IBM and Compaq and is poised to widen
its existing marketshare gap and capture more of the $60 billion server market.
Called Midframe servers because they incorporate features from the traditional
mainframe -- long known for robust features that made it highly reliable, but
extremely expensive -- the four new systems, available now, rewrite the rules
for this class of system. Extending Sun's current family of industry-leading
systems, the new Sun Fire servers are designed to deliver unprecedented levels
of system availability, real-world application performance, flexibility and
investment protection in a server line. The new servers are the cornerstone of
Sun's systems, software and new availability environment that will help
customers take advantage of the economic benefits of the worldwide build out of
the Internet infrastructure.
The foundation for these Midframe systems is breakthrough technology and a
next-generation, balanced system design that delivers mainframe-class
functionality. Design innovations such as redundant component interconnection
technology, the ability to dynamically split one system into multiple systems,
duplicate hardware components, and "on-the-fly" processor upgrades -- once
unheard of in this class of system -- are standard features. At their core are
the award-winning UltraSPARC III processor, Sun's third-generation 64-bit chip,
and industry-leading Solaris 8 Operating Environment.
Scott McNealy, Sun Microsystems chairman and CEO said, "It's more bad news for
the competition. After a year in which IBM and HP threw everything they could at
us, including old products with new names and new products with "super" names,
we still took marketshare away from them. This time we're tearing into what
those re-branded mainframe makers thought was their safe haven -- continuous up
time, round-the-clock availability, and investment protection -- and bringing it
to customers who understand the value of a dollar."
"It's all about availability," said John Shoemaker, executive vice president of
Sun's System Products Group. "Starting now, the new measures of midrange
computing performance include availability for real world applications and
return on investment. The new Sun Fire Midframe is just what customers need to
leverage higher returns from their information technology investments."
The Difference is Uptime
The Sun Fire servers include several innovations -- new to this class of system
-- designed to deliver a balanced array of performance measures tuned to the
needs of network computing along with superior levels of availability.
At the core of the servers' unprecedented availability levels is the Sun
Fireplane interconnection or backplane. This fully-redundant backplane -- a
design "first" for this class of system -- enables fault-isolated partitioning
and dynamic partitioning in a full production environment. This ability to split
the computer into separate domains enables customers the ability to design
midrange systems with unprecedented levels of security, fault tolerance, uptime
and flexibility in accommodating system growth or varying service demands.
Its cable-free design gives the Sun Fireplane interconnect greater bandwidth for
more predictable performance and lower latency, which results in higher
application performance. At 9.6 GB/sec sustained performance, the Sun Fireplane
interconnect offers nearly five times the throughput of IBM's P680 system.
The Sun Fire systems are the only servers in this new class to offer online
upgradability, which further contributes to maximum uptime. "Hot" CPU upgrades,
I/O and memory upgrades, and the ability to modify core components of the
Solaris Operating Environment will create shorter maintenance windows, which
lead to higher uptime and service levels. In addition, the systems allow for
concurrent maintenance, enabling repairs while the system -- and applications --
are up and running. This is the equivalent of a car that can have its oil
changed and engine tuned while running down the freeway at high speed.
As a complement to the redundant interconnect, all hardware components -- from
data and memory paths, system controller and power, to cooling and even the
clock -- are fully redundant, in effect delivering systems with no single point
of hardware failure. Comparatively, if something as simple as the clock fails in
a million-dollar HP Superdome or an IBM P680, the system dies.
The Sun servers also feature end-to-end ECC (error checking correction code) for
parity checking on data, address and external cache.
The Sun Fire servers ship with Sun(TM) Management Center software, a rich,
powerful and efficient web-based management tool that provides a central point
for managing and monitoring all aspects of Sun servers. In addition to
increasing efficiency, Sun Management Center software assists the customer by
providing sophisticated system analysis, instrumentation and configuration
management.
The Application Performance Leadership Champion of the Real World
A balanced system design and advances within the UltraSPARC III processor are
central to the systems' outstanding and predictable performance. For example,
the memory controller, usually a separate chip, is now integrated into the CPU,
making the system inherently faster and more reliable. In addition, separate
address and data paths on the interconnect dedicate bandwidth to data transfers,
vastly speeding internal data handling, resulting in higher system performance.
The results of such advances are "industry bests" for real world business,
technical and high performance computing applications, including:
--a new world-record benchmark for Oracle Applications
--a new industry record for Peoplesoft Financials
--industry-leading Java(TM) application performance on the SPECjbb 2000
benchmark
Unparalleled Investment Protection
Like the successful Sun Enterprise(TM) mid-range servers, all of the Sun Fire
systems share a common system architecture and have interchangeable components
-- from system boards to power supplies -- a design innovation still unmatched
in the industry. This common component approach gives customers the ability to
redistribute capacity across different servers for flexible and efficient
utilization of resources, while providing unparalleled investment protection.
Sun extends this investment protection even further by allowing customers to
upgrade from an 8-way Sun Fire 3800, for example, by simply moving all major
components to a larger Sun Fire chassis. Sun also offers a flexible array of
acquisition options, including a "capacity on demand" purchase option and an
aggressive trade-in and upgrade program. The systems' modular design assists
customers as they upgrade to newer, higher-performance processing, I/O,
networking and storage options. Further, the new Sun Fire servers provide
support for mixed-speed CPUs, something HP's Superdome or IBM's P680 cannot.
Unlike migration migraines faced by users signing up to transition to unproven
Merced, McKinley or Monterey technologies, Sun continues to protect the
investment of its installed base, not only maintaining the 100 percent binary
compatibility for Solaris Operating Environment-based applications, but backing
this up by offering an application guarantee with the Solaris 8 Operating
Environment. Finally, Sun is focused solely on providing completely scalable,
complementary systems ranging in price from $995 to $10 million or more.
Pricing and Availability
Starting prices for the new Sun Fire server family are as follows:
-- A Sun Fire 3800 server with 2-CPUs (750MHz), 2GBytes of memory
US$73,195.
-- A Sun Fire 4800 server with 2 CPUs(750MHz), 2GBytes of memory
US$129,995.
-- A Sun Fire 4810 rackable server with 2 CPUs(750MHz), 2GBytes of memory
US$129,995.
-- A Sun Fire 6800 with 2 CPUs(750MHz), 2GBytes of memory US$250,995.
All Sun servers come standard with the Solaris Operating Environment. The
systems are shipping today.
For a complete online press kit, please go to
sun.com .
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 take their businesses to the
nth. With $19.2 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 Fire, Sun Fireplane, Solaris, Sun
Enterprise, Java 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 licenses and are trademarks or registered
trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. in the United States and other
countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture
developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Press announcements and other information about Sun Microsystems are available
on the Internet via the World WideWeb at sun.com at the URL prompt.
CONTACT: Lisa Ganier, 650-786-8088, or lisa.ganier@sun.com, or Larry Lettieri,
650-786-8152, or larry.lettieri@sun.com, both of Sun Microsystems, Inc.
SOURCE Sun Microsystems, Inc.
CONTACT: Lisa Ganier, 650-786-8088, or lisa.ganier@sun.com, or
Larry Lettieri, 650-786-8152, or larry.lettieri@sun.com, both of Sun
Microsystems, Inc.
URL: sun.com
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