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SANTA CLARA, CA -- Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today announced that its Sun Fire(TM) 3800, 4800, 4810 and 6800 Midframe servers are delivering on the vast benefits of Dynamic System Domains and Dynamic Reconfiguration, taking productivity and quality of service to a new level in the enterprise. Sun is the only server vendor to bring these traditionally costly mainframe-class software tools to the midrange market, addressing the availability requirements of an increasingly 24x7, Web-enabled business world. Dynamic Reconfiguration adds a new dimension to availability in the midrange, allowing users to attach and detach system resources -- CPUs, memory and I/O interfaces -- ``on the fly,'' with no disruption to the production environment. Dynamic Reconfiguration is the enabling technology behind Dynamic System Domains, which are fault- and security- isolated domains that can be resized to meet customers' changing application needs. These availability and resource management features help lower total cost of ownership by tremendously minimizing system downtime and allow for server consolidation. Customers Reap the Benefits of Fault-Isolated Dynamic System Domains ``The Dynamic Reconfiguration capabilities found in the Sun Fire servers have saved us hundreds of hours in test time by eliminating the need to reboot our systems each time we add or remove system boards,'' said Marwan Zeineddine, director of JNI's Systems Integration Labs. ``By running Sun servers in the lab, we are keeping operations running smoothly and productivity is high. JNI has a strategic advantage over our competition, since Sun is the first and only vendor to come to market with servers that offer true Dynamic Reconfiguration.'' Sun was the first vendor to bring Dynamic System Domains to high-end servers in 1997 and is the first and only vendor to provide this capability to the midrange. Unlike competitors who have promised dynamic partitioning technology in their high-end Unix® servers, Sun has a five-year advantage in delivering on this technology. Customers such as JNI Corporation are already benefiting from this advanced Dynamic Reconfiguration technology, and Emulex Corporation has incorporated support for Dynamic Reconfiguration software into its products as well. Sun Fire Servers Provide A Truly Dynamic Operating Environment ``Bringing Dynamic Reconfiguration to the Sun Fire Midframe product line and the Sun Fire 15K is central to Sun's strategy of offering data-center customers uncompromised levels of RAS and efficient, flexible resource management, while keeping price points low,'' said Clark Masters, vice president and general manager, Enterprise Systems Products, Sun Microsystems. ``We're the only server vendor to supply Dynamic Reconfiguration and fault-isolated Dynamic System Domains in this data-center class of system, which offers an extremely compelling advantage in the marketplace. Already, Sun Fire systems are outshipping IBM's pSeries, and with new, unprecedented availability features, we're positioned to increase our lead over the competition.'' Combined with the Solaris(TM) Operating Environment, the Sun Fire Midframe server family and the Sun Fire 15K are the most capable servers on the market for delivering the kind of availability, reliability, scalability and resource usage previously exclusive to more costly mainframe and fault-tolerant systems. Dynamic Reconfiguration is an operating environment feature that helps enables IT managers to replace and reconfigure system hardware while the system is running, providing a host of benefits to the enterprise, including: Continuous Uptime: By allowing system administrators to insert and remove resources (CPUs, memory and I/O) and bring them on- and off-line in a live system, the Sun Fire Midframe and high-end servers significantly increase availability in the enterprise. Dynamic Reconfiguration helps minimize maintenance windows, simplify serviceability and eliminate/reduce system service disruption and downtime -- all adding to greater availability to get business-critical work accomplished. Simplified Resource Management: Dynamic Reconfiguration enables system administrators to optimize resource utilization, while providing greater uptime, by providing the ability to dynamically change the system hardware setup -- from CPUs and memory to storage resources -- to meet the changes in the system load. Flexibility for Compute Resources: Dynamic Reconfiguration provides the ability to instantly redistribute capacity across domains for flexible and efficient resource utilization. By enabling unused CPU, memory and I/O to be reallocated to another domain and by allowing online upgrades to new components, such as memory, CPUs and I/O interfaces, DR helps increase system availability. Performance and Scalability: With Dynamic Reconfiguration, Sun Fire Midframe and high-end servers can be manipulated -- whether it's adding faster processors, or the addition of more memory and I/O interfaces -- to meet all business needs -- without a minute of system downtime and near-linear scaling. For additional information visit www.sun.com