The Official Site for Breaking News and the Latest Information from Sun On The Record

Sun Student Central is a great starting point to find out what Sun, as a company, has to offer students. Covering everything from technology to eco-responsibility and jobs to social media, this page will help business and technical students find information about Sun according to their interests.

Looking for technology?  No problem. Searching for a job?  We gotcha covered.  Trying to find some classes?  We've got that, too. 

Not sure where you want to go or what Sun has to offer you as a student?  Come find out!

Yesterday, we announced the dates & locations for the 2008-2009 Sun Tech Days worldwide developer conferences. Sun Tech Days is a 13-city world tour designed to showcase how developers can leverage Sun technologies, services and products to drive the next generation of industry innovation.

Tech Days will kick off later this month - Sept 29-Oct 1 in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

A very cool update about the Brazil event is that Intel is a platinum sponsor & Sean Maloney, executive vice president of Intel Corporation and chief sales and marketing officer will be doing a keynote on Sept 30th.

Mr. Maloney will be speaking about some of the new opportunities for developers, how the market in Brazil has grown (and continues to grow) and also provide attendees with updates about the Sun and Intel collaboration and how the companies are working together to provide developers with the tools they need to help drive technological innovation.

Intel is an active participant in the OpenSolaris community & and Intel is also giving a technical session “Optimizing Open Solaris for Xeon” featured in Solaris track at Tech Days Brazil, on Sept. 29th. Jim Grizanzio, senior program manager on the Sun OpenSolaris team, has done a post highlighting more about Intel's participation at Tech Days & their involvement in OpenSolaris.

For the latest news on Sun Tech Days, our press kit is located here.

Continuing to advance its leadership in the modular datacenter space, Sun today released a new deeper rack model of the Sun Modular Datacenter (Sun MD). Known as Sun MD D20 (versus S20 for the original configuration), the new model provides customers with new choices for deploying a broader spectrum of enterprise-class servers and storage in their modular datacenters.  The deeper rack configuration is particularly key for customers who run larger database applications or who want to use Sun MD for back up and recovery or other business critical solutions which require larger amounts of disk and tape.

From the Sun portfolio, the new Sun MD D20 supports systems including the Sun SPARC Enterprise M4000 and M5000 servers, Sun StorageTek SL500 Modular Library, and the Sun StorageTek 9985V System. Sun MD also supports a wide range of third-party equipment in both the standard and deep rack configs.

Since its official launch in January 2008, the Sun MD has taken the world by storm and has been deployed by numerous global customers - especially those in emerging markets - for a broad range of applications in high-performance computing, education, manufacturing, government, telecommunications and healthcare. The Sun MD is also the only containerized datacenter certified for regulatory and safety compliance as well as for fire-suppression in over 50 countries world-wide with installations on nearly every continent.

More information on Sun MD is available here.

As I'm sure you noticed, last week, Sun announced the expansion of our xVM portfolio with Sun xVM Server software & Sun xVM Ops Center 2.0.

But what you might not have noticed is that the first source code bundle for Sun xVM Server software is hosted at Project Kenai.

"What the heck is Project Kenai?" you say? 

Project Kenai is a place for the global developer community to freely host their open source projects and code. It also allows developers to easily find people that share their same interests so they can collaborate on projects.

Project Kenai is currently in beta and anyone can sign up to become a member of the community. But during this beta, only select individuals who receive an invitation will be able to create a new project.

Right now, Project Kenai offers an integrated stack of collaboration services (e.g. source code management, bug tracking, wiki, forums, mailing lists, project and developer profiles) enabling the buildout of developer communities. As Project Kenai evolves and as Sun receives feedback from the developer community during the beta, additional components will be added.

Interested? Want to learn more?  Come explore the site and let the Project Kenai team know what you think.

Also, if you're attending Web 2.0 Expo in NYC this week - stop by Sun booth #1701, say hi to Sharat & JB & have them give you a tour of Project Kenai.

For more on Project Kenai - check out this interview Tim Bray did with Nick Sieger - one of the lead engineers and
Simon Phipps also offers his perspective.

(Updated 9/17 - removed internal link) 

Wednesday, 9/10, was an exciting day for Sun with the announcement of key components of its comprehensive virtualization strategy -- Sun xVM Server software and xVM Ops Center 2.0. With the addition of these two products, Sun now offers one of the most comprehensive virtualization solutions on the market today, allowing customers and partners to virtualize from the desktop to the datacenter.

Sun also launched xVMserver.org, a new open source community, where developers can download the first source code bundle for the Sun xVM Server hypervisor and contribute to the direction and development of the product at www.xvmserver.org. In addition, Sun added new services and support for Sun xVM Server software and xVM Ops Center 2.0 to its world-class virtualization suite of services.

Highlights of xVM Server
- An easy-to-use, open source, datacenter-grade server virtualization solution that helps companies virtualize and manage heterogeneous workloads, including Windows, Red Hat and SUSE Linux, Solaris and OpenSolaris operating systems, on Sun x86 platforms.
- Has a state-of-the-art web GUI.
- Provides built-in management through a browser, enterprise-class scalability, reliability and security.
- Designed to interoperate with VMware -- uses the same virtual hard disk and virtual appliance formats, enabling customers to easily move workloads between VMware ESX and Sun xVM Server.

Highlights of xVM Ops Center 2.0
- A highly scalable datacenter automation tool that provides integrated, simplified management of virtual and physical environments, making it easier to manage thousands of geographically distributed systems simultaneously.
- Simplifies and accelerates the discovery, provisioning, updating, monitoring and reporting of physical and virtual assets, as well as compliance reporting via one unified browser-based interface.

Sun at VMWorld 2008
Sun will showcase its complete xVM portfolio at the upcoming VMworld in Las Vegas, Sept. 15-19, 2008 at booth 1108. Feel free to swing by to see demos. You can also join a panel with Sun's leading experts in virtualization on Sept. 18, 2008 at 9 a.m. at the Titan conference room (#2305) as well as a session on “Virtualizing the Desktop” on Sept. 17, 2008 at 10 a.m. at the Marcello room (#4502).

For more information on Sun xVM, check out Steve Wilson's blog: http://blogs.sun.com/stevewilson/

Here's a screenshot of Sun xVM Server: 

You may have heard that yesterday, Sept. 10, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) flipped the switch on its Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's most powerful particle accelerator. Physicists will use the LHC to recreate the conditions just after the Big Bang, by colliding two beams of subatomic particles head-on, at very high energy. Teams of physicists from around the world will then analyze the particles created in the collision to gain a better understanding of some of the fundamental laws of nature. (For an alternative description, check out the Large Hadron Rap.)

What does all this require? Storage. Massive amounts of storage. Enough power and storage to handle 15 Petabytes per year, making the data available to thousands of physicists for analysis. CERN needs to store all the raw data, and also turn the raw data into something physicists can use -- and store that too. Reliable storage is a critical factor for successful LHC experiments.

To help them handle this massive amount of storage, CERN is utilizing Sun StorageTek SL8500 modular library systems and Sun StorageTek T10000 tape drives. In addition, the installation was greatly simplified with the use of Sun's Customer Ready program.

Some other interesting LHC factoids:

- There is 10 times more atmosphere on the moon than there will be in the LHC.
- With an operating temperature of about ‐271 degrees Celsius, just 1.9 degrees above absolute zero, the LHC is colder than outer space.
- When two beams of protons collide in the LHC, they will generate temperatures 1000 million times hotter than the heart of the sun, but in a minuscule space.

Sun and Microsoft announced several developments this week in our work to make it easier for customers to use our software and servers together in virtual environments. We also showed off some demos at Microsoft’s 'Get Virtual Now' customer event in Bellevue, Wash. on Monday. 

Here are the highlights:

- The Sun xVM Server, a datacenter-grade hypervisor, will be validated to work with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and prior versions.
- Sun and Microsoft are working together to offer customers the Solaris OS as a certified guest on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V.
- Sun is providing Sun Ray thin client customers the ability to access Windows as a guest OS running on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V.

These announcements build on Sun’s current work with Microsoft. As a Windows Server OEM, Sun sells and supports Windows Server products on certified x64 servers and blades and offers Windows Server utilities and value-added software. Sun also provides solutions to enable major TCO savings for customers, such as Sun's Infrastructure Solution for Microsoft Exchange Server.

In addition, Sun and Microsoft plan to integrate Sun xVM Ops Center with Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007. This will mean that Sun customers will be able to use a single management framework to manage their choice of operating systems from Solaris and Windows to Linux as well as monitor physical and virtual environments.

Bob Kelly, Corporate Vice President of Infrastructure Server Marketing at Microsoft (right) and Lisa Sieker, Vice President of Systems Marketing at Sun Microsystems (left) celebrate the launch of the Sun-Microsoft Interoperability Center. Redmond, Wash., March 10, 2008.

Sun Laboratories' focus on open source projects continues to dovetail with open source community efforts, this time on the gaming front with Project Darkstar. For those of you who may not be familiar with Project Darkstar, it is a a software infrastructure designed to simplify the development and operation of massively scalable online games, virtual worlds and social networking applications, Sun's partner and active community contributor fatfoogoo, which provides in-game commerce ecosystems, announced today that it will offer micropayment software through Project Darkstar. Fatfoogoo is the first company to design commercial billing and transaction software to work explicitly with the Project Darkstar technology. Having the fatfoogoo software available through Project Darkstar will make it easier for game developers to add payment capabilities to their games – letting players make “micropayments” to each other, or to the game publisher. Read more about fatfoogoo’s work with Project Darkstar .

Once again, Java developers & evangelists from Sun will be heading to Antwerp, Belgium this December 8-12 to participate as a Premium Partner of the 2008 DeVoxx Conference.

DeVoxx - formerly known as JavaPolis, is put on by the Belgian Java User Group & is one of the largest Java developer events in the world. It's truly a fantastic event where Java developers can mix & mingle with technical luminaries - not to mention a great chance to eat Belgian french fries & stock up on chocolate!

As a Premium Partner of DeVoxx, Sun will once again have a keynote slot at the event plus several expanded technical sessions. Since we've got Java SE 6 Update 10 on the horizon & JavaFX is due this fall - you can bet that Sun will have a LOT to talk about with the Java community. We'll be working up some killer demos as well!

Why the name change?

As everyone knows, Sun does own the trademark for Java. By having an independent name, the DeVoxx conference organizers are able to take the conference in whatever direction they choose. You can hear from Stephan more about DeVoxx and the name change. Regardless of what it's called, you can be sure the Java community will be in attendance! Registration is open now - http://www.devoxx.com .

See you in Belgium!

Sun kicked off the new fiscal year in July 2008 with moves designed to elevate and propel its Network.com business into the clouds. Sun's powerful and efficient breadth of systems, storage and software offerings are ideal for building out datacenters and clouds. Sun's current Network.com offering based on the Sun Grid project will evolve in the coming months and year.

Starting in July, the Network.com organization has seen a number of changes. First, David Douglas was named Senior Vice President of Network.com, and is now the head of Sun's cloud computing initiative. The group now reports directly to CEO Jonathan Schwartz, and Douglas sits on Schwartz's staff. Finally, Douglas recently announced the addition of two more executives to the Network.com team. The first is Ingrid Van Den Hoogen, Sun's Senior Vice President of Brand, Global Communications & Integrated Marketing, who will be adding the Network.com marketing, adoption and business strategy to her responsibilities. The second is Lew Tucker, who was hired in August as the Vice President and CTO of Sun's Cloud Computing initiative.

In announcing Tucker in his new role, Douglas noted, "Lew's career has been focused on scalable computing and web development. He spent much of the '90s at Sun and contributed to the explosive growth of Java and growing Sun's presence on the Internet. In 2002, Lew joined Salesforce.com and led the design and implementation of App Exchange, which remains one of the largest cloud computing success stories to date. After Salesforce.com, Lew was CTO at Radar Networks, where he focused on the scalable design and build out of its semantic web service. With this background, Lew brings a unique combination of technical experience and past success in Sun, which will be a great asset to the Network.com team."

Commenting on the overall organizational changes, Douglas said, "We continue to see huge potential in the cloud space, and I'm very pleased about the team we've put together to further extend our reach in it."

Vice President and CTO of Sun's Cloud Computing Initiative Lew Tucker 

Sun Java System Content Delivery Server (CDS) is a market leading product that allows mobile operators, service providers and enterprises to deliver a variety of content to mobile users. CDS provides a single content catalog that can support multiple storefronts on phones and PCs, as well as content pricing, promotion, preview, payment and delivery services.

The new CDS version 5.1 offers enhanced support for rich media, makes it easier for subscribers to locate content and provides a more compelling and personalized subscriber experience.

Some of the new CDS features are:  

• Support for streaming content
• Advanced searching & sorting
  
• Customizable fields
  
• Popularity ranking for content and ability to create "featured" content
  
• Device Client Interface
• Online help for the Catalog Manager administration console and the Vending Manager administration console

OpenCDS, the open source version of Sun CDS, can be found at the OpenCDS community project on Java.net.

Expanding the scope of its HPC software solutions, Sun announced the release and immediate availability of Sun HPC ClusterTools 8.0.

Sun HPC ClusterTools 8.0 is a high-performance production quality MPI (Message Passing Interface) implementation based on the Open MPI 1.3 open source project, and with the release of HPC ClusterTools 8.0, Sun now supports Linux distributions as well as Solaris and OpenSolaris OSs. With growth of HPC systems outpacing traditional IT due to the rapid expansion of modeling and simulation in research projects and product innovation, Sun continues to successfully build out some of the largest installations in the world, like the Texas Advanced Computing Cluster (TACC), and also deliver complete HPC hardware, software, and services solutions for customers. In addition to Intel x86, AMD x86, and Sun UltraSPARC-based servers, Sun now offers complete software stack offerings on both Linux and Solaris OSs, with all the innovations of OpenSolaris now available to the HPC community.
For developers, Sun HPC ClusterTools 8.0 works with both Sun Studio and GNU/gcc-based toolchains on Solaris, OpenSolaris, and Linux OSs. With Sun Studio software that includes optimizing C, C++, and Fortran compilers, support for OpenMP, optimized math and performance libraries, and performance analysis tools, developers have an advanced integrated solution optimized for the performance and productivity requirements of HPC applications. From the Lustre cluster filesystem, to Sun Grid Engine resource management software, to Sun HPC ClusterTools -- Sun is a leader in HPC software.

For more information, check out Kuldip Oberoi's blog.