ACADEMIA
Sun Modular Datacenter Fuels Momentum With New Customer Wins
Project Blackbox Now Available as Sun Modular Datacenter S20, Design Innovation Changes Economics of Datacenter Expansion; New Sun Services Simplify Deployment and Management of Sun Modular Datacenter: Sun Microsystems today announced new customers and product availability for Sun Modular Datacenter (Sun MD) S20, widely known as Project Blackbox. These new implementations for Hansen Transmissions, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre (UMCN) a second unit at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) and Mobile TeleSystems OJSC (MTS), highlight the global demand for Sun MD and the broad applicability of a virtualized, modular datacenter housed in an enhanced 20' shipping container. Sun also announced a new Sun MD Suite of Services to support Sun MD deployment from site preparation to installation and testing, as well as integration of Sun MD into existing IT infrastructures. 
Sun MD, the world's first virtualized datacenter, has generated tremendous customer interest. In the last year, it has visited 73 cities on 4 continents and been toured by more than 12,000 customers and partners. Sun MD leverages Sun's design innovation to engineer out complexity and provide a high-density, energy efficient and rapidly deployable solution to meet datacenter expansion and mobility requirements. Capable of 18 teraflops of compute performance or 3 petabytes of disk capacity in a heterogenous environment Sun MD is deployable in one-tenth the time it takes to design, build and deploy a typical brick and mortar datacenter, at a fraction of the cost. Sun MD, with its innovative watercooled design, also delivers 40 percent lower cooling costs, independent of payload, as compared to a typical datacenter. More information on Sun MD is available at www.sun.com/sunmd. Sun Modular Datacenter S20 Attracts Broad Range of Customers Hansen Transmissions Hansen Transmissions, a Belgium-based wind turbine and industrial gearbox designer, manufacturer and supplier, is responding to the increasing demand for wind power with the expansion of its manufacturing facilities in India and China. A multi-phase construction project, Hansen selected Sun MD to help ensure its Coimbatore, India plant would be up-and-running as quickly as possible. “In planning for Hansen Transmissions' expansion in India, we considered building a new datacenter ourselves, but determined we needed to be able to offer IT services while the plant was under construction. Sun Modular Datacenter S20 is a great solution for us -- cost effective and easy-to deploy,” said Marnix Maes, Hansen’s director of IT. “Using Sun Modular Datacenter, we'll be able to offer IT services in a semi-finished factory and start seeing ROI almost immediately. We also expect to use the same model to support our expansion in other countries.” Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre (UMCN) Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre (UMCN) is a leading academic center and teaching hospital in the Netherlands. Facing two server farms reaching full capacity, UMCN sought a solution that would quickly add new compute and storage capacity while minimizing energy costs. “Sun's Modular Datacenter S20 is a smart solution for rapid, easy deployment of very high-density computing. Sun MD allowed us to not only solve for our growing compute demands almost immediately, but UMCN has also gained significant cost savings in not having to power up an additional datacenter,” said John van de Loo, Manager Services, UMCN. “Sun has really thought through the power and heat exchange requirements for the maximum payload Sun MD can hold, and this modular datacenter really runs as advertised.” Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) The first US customer to use Sun MD, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) needed to rapidly expand its compute capabilities while balancing diminishing power and cooling capacity in its computing building. Pleased with Sun MD's rapid, easy deployment, SLAC recently purchased a second unit which will be used to rapidly increase computing resources to its high-performance computing infrastructure to support critical experiments. “It is very exciting to have Sun Modular Datacenter S20 here at our center because of its simplicity. Every organization, whether it is a physics lab or a financial institution, is going to be faced with the same problem of running out of datacenter support resources. The chief benefit is this has allowed us to increase our data processing and computing capacity faster - by a factor of three, which we couldn't have done with any other way accessible to us,” said Richard Mount, Director of Computing Services, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. “Sun Modular Datacenter helped us answer the very real challenge of how to scale up computing resources quickly, and this has meant the difference between success and failure.” Sun Services Simplifies Sun MD Planning, Deployment and Management With the Sun Modular Datacenter Suite of Services, Sun can provide customers a complete turn-key solution for quickly expanding datacenter capacity globally – from preparing the site to installation, testing, and integrating Sun MD in existing IT infrastructures. Key services include:
Sun MD, the world's first virtualized datacenter, has generated tremendous customer interest. In the last year, it has visited 73 cities on 4 continents and been toured by more than 12,000 customers and partners. Sun MD leverages Sun's design innovation to engineer out complexity and provide a high-density, energy efficient and rapidly deployable solution to meet datacenter expansion and mobility requirements. Capable of 18 teraflops of compute performance or 3 petabytes of disk capacity in a heterogenous environment Sun MD is deployable in one-tenth the time it takes to design, build and deploy a typical brick and mortar datacenter, at a fraction of the cost. Sun MD, with its innovative watercooled design, also delivers 40 percent lower cooling costs, independent of payload, as compared to a typical datacenter. More information on Sun MD is available at www.sun.com/sunmd. Sun Modular Datacenter S20 Attracts Broad Range of Customers Hansen Transmissions Hansen Transmissions, a Belgium-based wind turbine and industrial gearbox designer, manufacturer and supplier, is responding to the increasing demand for wind power with the expansion of its manufacturing facilities in India and China. A multi-phase construction project, Hansen selected Sun MD to help ensure its Coimbatore, India plant would be up-and-running as quickly as possible. “In planning for Hansen Transmissions' expansion in India, we considered building a new datacenter ourselves, but determined we needed to be able to offer IT services while the plant was under construction. Sun Modular Datacenter S20 is a great solution for us -- cost effective and easy-to deploy,” said Marnix Maes, Hansen’s director of IT. “Using Sun Modular Datacenter, we'll be able to offer IT services in a semi-finished factory and start seeing ROI almost immediately. We also expect to use the same model to support our expansion in other countries.” Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre (UMCN) Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre (UMCN) is a leading academic center and teaching hospital in the Netherlands. Facing two server farms reaching full capacity, UMCN sought a solution that would quickly add new compute and storage capacity while minimizing energy costs. “Sun's Modular Datacenter S20 is a smart solution for rapid, easy deployment of very high-density computing. Sun MD allowed us to not only solve for our growing compute demands almost immediately, but UMCN has also gained significant cost savings in not having to power up an additional datacenter,” said John van de Loo, Manager Services, UMCN. “Sun has really thought through the power and heat exchange requirements for the maximum payload Sun MD can hold, and this modular datacenter really runs as advertised.” Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) The first US customer to use Sun MD, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) needed to rapidly expand its compute capabilities while balancing diminishing power and cooling capacity in its computing building. Pleased with Sun MD's rapid, easy deployment, SLAC recently purchased a second unit which will be used to rapidly increase computing resources to its high-performance computing infrastructure to support critical experiments. “It is very exciting to have Sun Modular Datacenter S20 here at our center because of its simplicity. Every organization, whether it is a physics lab or a financial institution, is going to be faced with the same problem of running out of datacenter support resources. The chief benefit is this has allowed us to increase our data processing and computing capacity faster - by a factor of three, which we couldn't have done with any other way accessible to us,” said Richard Mount, Director of Computing Services, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. “Sun Modular Datacenter helped us answer the very real challenge of how to scale up computing resources quickly, and this has meant the difference between success and failure.” Sun Services Simplifies Sun MD Planning, Deployment and Management With the Sun Modular Datacenter Suite of Services, Sun can provide customers a complete turn-key solution for quickly expanding datacenter capacity globally – from preparing the site to installation, testing, and integrating Sun MD in existing IT infrastructures. Key services include: - Assessment and Architecture Services: Sun can work with you to understand your business and assess your needs, design a configuration for payload within Sun MD to support specific datacenter application requirements, and to prepare the site for delivery and installation of your Sun MD.
- Sun MD Customer Ready System (CRS) Factory Configure and Build: Sun can integrate and fully test customer payload in the Sun Modular Datacenter using the Sun Customer Ready Systems program, eliminating the hassle of installing IT systems on-site.
- Lights-out Management and Support: Sun remote management services help increase system availability and reduce operating costs by monitoring your systems from afar to detect and address potential problems, and minimize unplanned downtime.
For more information and a complete listing of new Sun MD services visit www.sun.com/service/sunmd/. Pricing and Availability With today's announcement, Sun MD is available starting at $559,000 (US list price). For more information on the Sun MD go to www.sun.com/sunmd.