Sun Microsystems today announced that Virtual Compute Corporation (VCC), a high performance computing service provider, has signed an agreement to use over a million hours of central processing units (CPUs) on the Sun Grid Compute Utility. VCC is currently using Sun Grid to serve its customers in the oil and gas industry, including Paradigm, a company who specializes in software solutions for geosciences. Sun Grid helps customers and partners derive immediate benefits from an open, grid-based computing infrastructure on a utility basis by giving them more choice and control over how they purchase and leverage IT. Paradigm signed an agreement with VCC to supplement compute resources and gain quick access to thousands of CPUs. VCC's deployment on the Sun Grid, based on Sun Fire V20z servers powered by AMD Opteron processor-based systems, marks a new era for energy companies' use of true utility compute services. "Sun Grid and VCC have been instrumental in providing us quick, easy access to additional CPU cycles to meet our growing cyclical business demands," said Bob Nielsen, director of information technology, Paradigm. "We've demonstrated companies can use grid-based computing on a utility basis to increase service whilst driving down cost, fueling the overall market acceptance for compute on demand." "With Sun Grid, we have opened the doors to a new era of utility computing that will usher in a fundamental change in how our customers in all industries manage their datacenters," said Edward Hawes, chief executive officer of VCC. "This alliance allows VCC to expand the Utility Computing industry and provide more sophisticated resources to the end users of our high performance computing." "This major Sun Grid deal-with VCC-underscores the growing demand for flexible compute resources as a service to customers in a wide of range of industries, from financial services to oil and gas companies," said Stuart Wells, executive vice president, utility computing, Sun Microsystems. "VCC's deployment on Sun Grid marks a turning point in the computing resource- strapped energy industry, as the company frees up capital and labor that can be refocused on innovation and competitive advantage -- leading the way for others to reexamine their IT spending. With Sun Grid, our entire global customer base now has the ability to get a competitive edge from a true computing utility."