Hopefully you've already seen our press release this week announcing new Sun Fire and Sun Blade systems powered by Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors.

For more info, check out this short video. You can also go to the Web site for customer success stories, video walk-thrus and product tours.

Look Out World - Open Storage is Under Way... and it's not just me saying it.

Well, the world changed a little this week... did you feel it? The Open Storage movement continues to roll on, or as Jason Williams  of Digitar put it in his blog (http://blogs.digitar.com/jjww/index.php?blogid=3), the democratization of storage, is upon us.

It's about time...it's also about money.

Williams is tired of paying for stuff he doesn't need - he says that the support of a community of likeminded folks also suits him fine.

Partners like Nexenta and others are also participating, create new storage appliances based on open source software that further build momentum. Read more here: http://neotactics.com/blog/technology/storage-storage-storage

But, momentum doesn't happen in a bubble... it happens across the industry. Just ask Dell in their Inside IT blog:

(and I quote): "Is Sun giving up or changing the game?Tue. Apr. 29, 2008Sun, the perennial also ran in the storage business is making a very bold move. If they succeed, it could change the storage industry forever." Out of fairness,  lot more to it, but that's the part I thought was interesting

Or ask Marc Farley in Dell's future of storage blog:

(still quoting) "Today, Sun announced that they were going to make a collection of storage software available as open source product. This could be a game changer or a last-gasp effort (or something in-between) for Sun and storage. This will get Sun a lotta love from the open source community and cast a nice glow over the company for awhile."

Short answer: We're not giving up, we're just changing the game forever.

In case you missed this little gem from AnandTech, the facts don't lie -- the Sun Fire X4450, based on the Intel Xeon processor, delivers the best performance per watt -- besting even IBM's new JS22 blade with dual-core Power6 chips. And today Sun is doing one better and disclosing actual power consumption of the Sun Fire X4450 on VMmark, a free tool from VMware for comparing virtualized systems.

The Sun Fire X4450 server, running VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3 software, posted one of the best scores among all 16 core results – 12.23 @ 8 tiles, with an average power consumption of only 830W measured during the steady state of the benchmark. The Sun server is up to 60% more power efficient than comparably equipped Dell PowerEdge R900 and HP ProLiant  DL580 G5 systems.(1)  And did I mention, the Sun X4450 server did it in half the space of those systems?

 More information on the VMmark result is available here.

(1) Calculations are based on the specifications referenced in the VMmark disclosure and were done with Dell's Datacenter Capacity Planner and HP's power calculator

 

Sun's been busy at NAB in Las Vegas this week. Not only have we made two announcements here -- one about expanding the Sun Streaming System and the other announcing the Sun Media Advisory Board (MAB) -- but Sun's John Gage also headed up an NAB "super session" on social networking. See highlights from the session here.

For more information on Sun's activities at the show, check out the NAB 2008 press kit. You can also click here to listen to an audio clip of Sandeep Agrawal, Sun's Group Marketing Manager of IPTV, discussing the show and the significance of the expanded Sun Streaming System.

How hard would it be when you're only given 60 seconds to deliver your message? That was the time given to attendees at the Open Repositories conference in Southampton at the poster sessions called "Minute Madness". Each presenter had 60 seconds to introduce his/her poster.

Sun had a poster stand to showcase the popular Honeycomb product for the education community. Gail Truman (photo far right), our Honeycomb product manager, gave an excellent 60 second overview on Honeycomb's benefits for digital data repositories.

You will hear more about digital repositories as we prepare for our next PASIG (Preservation and Archiving Special Interest Group) meeting in May. Hundreds of education institutions from around the world will gather in San Francisco to discuss how we can preserve history for the next generation.   You can register to attend here.

Today Sun is introducing two new servers powered by AMD Opteron processors: the Sun Fire X4140 and Sun Fire X4440. Both servers are ideal for small and medium businesses, based on their affordable prices, extreme energy efficiency, performance and scalability.

The Sun Fire X4140 is a 1U server ideal for customers with large-scale HPC/grid computing and web infrastructure deployments involving hundreds, even thousands, of systems.

The Sun Fire X4440 is the industry's only 4-socket x64 AMD Opteron server in a 2U form factor, giving customers superior performance, scalability and connectivity, yet taking up half the space as systems from other vendors.

   

Its high density and scalability make it a great system for virtualization and consolidation. Both servers are designed for Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors, and can be seamlessly upgraded from dual-core.

Stay tuned for more news on the availability of quad-core systems!

Jonathan Schwartz Announces Latest Mainframe Commitment with Support for New IBM System z10 Server

Sun today announced it will support the IBM System z10 server, IBM's newest generation mainframe, with its portfolio of enterprise class data storage solutions. This includes the Virtual Storage Manager (VSM) family of Virtual Tape, Tape Libraries, Access and Capacity Tape Drives, the Sun StorageTek 9990V and 9985V disk systems, and the Shared Virtual Array (SVA) family of Virtual Disk. IBM's most current system z operating system, z/OS v1.9, and industry standard interface protocols, FICON and ESCON, are supported.

Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz talks about Sun's mainframe storage portfolio in this latest video http://sun.feedroom.com/?fr_story=FRdamp261859

Sun's storage portfolio has never been stronger and we continue to remain in lock-step with that latest mainframe-attached storage technology that has supported IBM mainframe servers such as the S/390, zSeries, and System z servers.

We are encouraged by IBM's interest in our products attaching to the z10. The z10 is at the forefront of mainframe server technology and Sun is the leading innovator in mainframe-attached storage with the most complete, scalable, function rich and performance-leading set of products ever.

As one of the world's largest suppliers of storage, Sun is completely committed to mainframe attached storage -- from high performing disk and tape drives to virtual tape and automated tape libraries that can store over 70 petabytes of data. Mainframe storage is a key contributor to the Sun revenue and Sun has recognized this by its ongoing investment in the technology. Having recently announced the new enterprise mid-range SL3000 tape library, the 4th generation of T9840 tape drive, Key Management Station (KMS) V2.0 and VSM performance enhancements, Sun provides the most robust end-to-end mainframe-attached storage options.

At Sun, we value the importance of customer choice. Our goal is to help you get more value out of your existing architectures and applications, as well as provide you with the most innovative software, servers, storage, and services as you build out and deploy our new technologies to be more competitive and innovative. I invite you to spend some time with the Sun Storage team to hear more about the benefits only Sun can deliver.

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Today we sit down with Joe Heel, Senior Vice President of Sun's Global Storage Practice. Joe shares his thoughts on the new Sun/Microsoft Interoperability Center and a new joint collaboration – the Sun Infrastructure Solution for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007.

Question: Give us a sense of what Sun announced today, and what the impact will be to customers.

JH: We made two key announcements today about our relationship with Microsoft. The first notable item is that we have launched a joint Interoperability Center together with Microsoft on their Redmond, WA, campus. I was onsite back in January to meet with some peers and take part in filming the launch video; I was quite impressed with the facility, and excited about the sense of openness and opportunity for collaboration that the Interop Center offers. The customer benefits are also quite clear, as we will bring to bear the strength of both Sun's and Microsoft's technical know-how and industry-leading innovations.

The second component in today's announcement is around the Sun Infrastructure Solution for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. Sun has developed a targeted solution to address the infrastructure needs of Microsoft Exchange users. This offer provides compelling reasons to run the application on Sun's hardware platforms, which deliver optimal performance in Exchange environments. Customers can save up to 70% on their email total cost of ownership (TCO) over a three-year period and realize up to 85% in “eco” savings as part of this.

Q: What kind of work will be done at the Interoperability Center?

JH: One of the main functions the Interop Center will have is as a lab and testing facility for Microsoft Windows running on Sun hardware. It also offers a space for benchmarking, demos, and concept validation of new or unique environments. I think one of the coolest capabilities it has is around co-development of solutions around things like web services and identity. It's also a place where customers and Sun or Microsoft employees can run proofs-of-concept before deploying a given configuration.

Q: Switching gears a bit....are the Exchange 2007 solutions targeted at businesses of any particular scale?

JH: The Exchange Infrastructure solution is not a “one size fits all” offering; as a Microsoft Gold Partner, we have initially developed and tested six separate configurations targeted at organizations with an Exchange 2007 user base of anywhere from 1,000 to 20,000+ users, and will continue to grow our set of Microsoft approved configurations with new Sun products. Furthermore, we have developed sizing tools to help customers of all sizes find the server and storage configuration that is right specifically for their environment and workload requirements. So, again, we have many options and can scale as a customer's business grows.

Q: Sounds great, but why did Sun focus on email, and on Exchange 2007 in particular?

JH: Email space and bandwidth requirements have increased tremendously – some sources cite an average growth of 68% year-on-year for four straight years. Obviously this puts significant financial and operational pressure on organizations to manage their email growth. The transition from Exchange 2003 to 2007 has tremendous potential to save customers acquisition and operating expenses, but you won't hear many of our competitors offering these savings as they have hug installed base revenues to protect. Sun's Exchange solution offers the industry's most powerful 64-bit servers and optimally-sized storage; implementing Exchange 2007 on Sun will cost save customers up to 70% in acquisition, space, power, cooling and operational costs over 3 years.

I should also note that while we're focused on email archive because of growth in this area, it's critical, too, because most customers do not leverage lower-cost secondary storage for storing dated or non-critical data. This cost savings opportunity is largely overlooked in IT organizations.

Q: From a sales standpoint, what do you see as the biggest opportunity in today's announcements?

JH: I think the Exchange Infrastructure solution is huge, as it is a direct response to what customers have been seeking. Our Solutions teams have been hard at work, and have assembled what I think is a world-class offering. In previews with customers, partners and others, the reception has been strongly positive. We have a full series of collateral, supporting materials, and data ready to go. Plus with several experienced partners on board to help ensure successful deployment, I think we'll see great uptake over the next several quarters.

Q: Is the Sun Infrastructure Solution for Microsoft Exchange just a storage solution?

JH: Not at all; our Exchange Solution focuses on offering the full end-to-end infrastructure, including both servers and storage. In fact, we have some configurations for small customers which leverage servers alone. That said, storage is a critical part of right-sizing an Exchange environment. As such, taking a holistic approach we've taken here ensures that optimal configurations are selected for our customers.

IDC today released the Worldwide Quarterly Disk Storage Systems Tracker results for Q4CY07 and Sun demonstrated growth in key market segments. Sun outgrew the overall disk storage systems market in revenue, terabytes and unit shipments quarter over quarter (Q/Q) and year over year (Y/Y). Sun posted the highest growth rate among the top five vendors in overall disk revenue at 16.1% increase, as well as continued UNIX (20.5%) disk storage systems revenue growth. Sun gained market share for both disk and UNIX revenue, procuring share from competitors IBM and HP.

“These results are in-line with the positive momentum we're seeing in delivering next-generation disk storage systems for customers of all sizes,” said David Kenyon, vice-president, Storage marketing, Sun Microsystems, Inc. “ Our increase in market share is a testimony to our products, strategy and sales force and the desire of customers to look to storage systems vendors that use open software and general purpose hardware to present better economics than closed, proprietary alternatives.”

More specifically, the report showed growth for Sun in these areas:

• Sun gained, while IBM and HP lost, market share points Y/Y in overall disk storage systems revenue;
• Sun had the largest market share point gain of the top 6 vendors Y/Y in overall disk storage systems units shipped;
• Sun grew 2x faster than the overall market in the total UNIX® disk storage systems revenue market;
• For the 17^th straight quarter, Sun held the #1 market share position in UNIX disk storage systems unit shipments;

• Sun Fire x4500 (Thumper) as its units shipped doubled and revenue grew almost 2 times, Y/Y. Sun's products in the midrange are well positioned to take advantage of the growth that is forecast for this segment.

 

 
For more information please see http://www.sun.com/storagetek/index.jsp or to download open storage software go to http://opensolaris.org/os/community/storage/

(1) IDC Worldwide Quarterly Disk Storage Systems Tracker results for Q4CY07

IDC released its Q4CY07 Worldwide Server Tracker this morning. According to the results, Sun continues to show momentum in the server market, holding the #1 position in UNIX shipments. For the calendar year 2007, Sun held the #3 position in total server factory revenue (statistically tied with Dell). Other Sun highlights for Q4CY07 include:

• Sun's UltraSPARC T1 and T2-based CMT server systems outshipped Itanium in Q4CY07, spotlighting the power of the Solaris OS and the value of the systems' breakthrough performance with dramatic space and power efficiency.
• Sun delivered triple-digit blades year-on-year revenue growth, spurred by the industry's most comprehensive blades portfolio spanning AMD Opteron, Intel Xeon and SPARC.
• Sun's UNIX blades (includes CMT and Netra) captured 49.6% revenue marketshare -- nearly half the revenue marketshare in the UNIX blades space.

More than a dozen Sun systems are available for a free 60-day trial as part of Sun's Try-and-Buy program. More information is available at:http://www.sun.com/tryandbuy/index.jsp Information on Sun's full line of servers is available at http://www.sun.com/servers.

Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, February 2008

Last week, the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120 (and T5220) was awarded the SearchDataCenter Product of the Year award. SearchDataCenter talked up the eco-efficiency of the system, and the performance per watt it delivers. More on all that here. 

But that's not all just a lot of talk -- let's look at the dollars and cents.

 

 

 

Check out how the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120 server compares to a 2-socket x86     
server. You're reading it right, the T5120 is roughly half the cost to power and cool
(annually) and comes out 20% cheaper overall. The details are here.

 

 

 

 

 

And, the Sun SPARC Enterprise T1000 is no slouch either. It comes out at nearly 1/3 the cost of a comparable 1U x86 server and is nearly 1/3 less to power and cool (annually). The savings are even greater -- $700-$1000 per server -- if you're a PG&E customer and can take advantage of their rebate program. Details here.

 

Get your hands on either systems through Sun's Try and Buy program. Sign up for a risk-free, 60-day trial of these systems then buy at 25-45% off.

 
Hot on the heels of the Golden Globes "news conference", SearchDataCenter took the wraps off of its Product of the Year 2007 Awards winners. The UltraSPARC T2-based Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120 and T5220 took home GOLD in the Small Servers (four processors and under) category.

Judged on criteria including ease of integration into existing environments, innovation and value, the write up on the T5120 and T5220 notes the energy efficiency and performance per watt of the systems as well as the "free virtualization capabilities with Solaris Containers and Logical Domains (LDoms) that help keep IT costs low."

Additionally, SearchDataCenter highlights the systems for using "the same chassis, power supplies, disks and fans are used on the Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Intel Corp. processor-based variants of the servers, and the remote management capabilities are compatible with Sun's x64 family of servers, with standardized interfaces that are backwards compatible with the previous generation of SPARC remote management facilities."

At the November SC07 Conference, a team of researchers led by Dr. Wu Feng of Virginia Tech, Pavan Balaji of Argonne National Laboratory and the Tokyo Institute of Technology won the annual Storage Challenge, using Sun Systems, including the Sun Fire x4500 Server. 

This HPC Wire release outlines the challenge.  The team searched sequences of all completed microbial genomes against each other in order to discover missing genes and develop a genome similarity tree for future searches.

The team handled approximately a petabyte of data across an international network supported by Sun, and combined with software framework ParaMEDIC, the team was able to improve compute utilization from 10 to 100 percent and storage bandwidth from .04 to 90 percent. Congratulations to all!

In the most recent IDC Quarterly Disk Storage Tracking Results (Q3 CY'07), Sun outpaced the market for both UNIX revenue and unit shipments and posted its 16th consecutive quarters of UNIX disk storage systems leadership. In a growing overall market for UNIX disk storage products, Sun's continued leadership is a direct result of the increasing popularity of the Solaris Operating System as a Storage OS.

Sun also grew Midrange revenue by more than 40% year-over-year and gained 1.3 points in share YoY in what is cyclically a weaker quarter for Sun.

"The IDC quarterly disk storage tracking results showed growth for the UNIX storage market, driven predominantly by the increasing popularity of open, enterprise operating systems like the Solaris Operating System," said Dave Kenyon, vice-president of Storage Marketing, Sun. "With 40% year-over-year growth in mid-range disk storage, these results also show that Sun has responded to customer demand for mid-range modular storage systems - a key market into which Sun will continue to invest."