DEVELOPER TOOLS

SAN FRANCISCO, SunNetwork(SM) 2003 Conference and Pavilion -- Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:SUNW) continues to drive cost and complexity out of the architecture and implementation of Network Computing with the introduction of eight new Sun(TM) Reference Architectures and a new Sun(TM) Infrastructure Solution for Grid Computing. Among those seeing immediate benefits from new Sun Reference Architectures is the Beaverton School District in Beaverton, Oregon. District administrators, confronted by the emerging demands of schooling, which includes creative scheduling, elevated concerns about student safety, and the demand for better access to information, turned to Sun to help manage the flood of student data. These offerings deliver proven, straight-forward and repeatable methodologies to improve critical business processes in key network computing arenas including: -- Security -- Anti-Virus, Identity Server and Data Integrity Assurance Reference Architectures bring a new level of iron-clad security to businesses looking to protect their valuable network assets. -- Grid Computing -- Grid Reference Architecture and Sun Infrastructure Solution for Grid Computing provide compute power as a network service, enabling transparent access to resources, centralized management and centralized resource management based on workload. -- Next-Generation Data Center -- Mainframe Rehosting Reference Architecture establishes an end-to-end methodology for migrating legacy applications from a mainframe to highly reliable, available and secure Sun Fire(TM) and Sun Enterprise(TM) servers running the Solaris(TM) Operating System. "By rehosting our mainframe application to Sun, our company was able to cut costs by more than 50 percent and improve operational efficiency. Sun Mainframe Rehosting software works seamlessly with our existing infrastructure products," said Naj Hirani, vice president and chief information officer, Transamerica Life Canada. "By providing an implementation framework that captures these third-party product and sizing guidelines, Sun's Mainframe Rehosting Reference Architecture will reduce deployment time and risk for future implementations." "Our research and interviews with four organizations shows that implementing the Sun-Sybase Enterprise Data Warehouse Reference Architecture solutions can provide significant benefits to organizations," said Chip Gliedman, co-author of "The Total Economic Impact of Deploying the Sun-Sybase Enterprise Data Warehouse Reference Architecture" and analyst for Giga Information Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Forrester Research. "The organizations interviewed by Giga all showed actual or expected returns on their investments in the Sun-Sybase EDW RA that ranged from 36 percent to 117 percent on a risk-adjusted basis. Simply put, for every dollar invested in the Sun-Sybase EDW RA project, $1.63 would be returned to a representative organization in direct cost savings or increased bottom-line profit as a result of increased business."* "We found only one solution that could adequately meet our needs and that was the Sun Student Information System Reference Architecture which includes Administrative Associates Limited's eSIS software running on Sun servers powered by the Solaris Operating System," said Steven A. Carlson, Ph.D., associate superintendent for information and technology, Beaverton School District. "The implementation and sizing guides delivered by the Reference Architecture program reduce the technical complexity and risk of deploying the IT infrastructure, helping us to meet our budgetary constraints." Sun has three primary methodologies for implementing solutions and maximizing quality -- Sun Reference Architectures, Sun Infrastructure Solutions and iForce(SM) Solutions -- that function like building blocks. Reference Architectures provide a solid, pre-tested, integrated and documented infrastructure layer and are based on proof-of-concepts done at customer sites, Sun's integration labs and in Sun's iForce Solution Centers worldwide. Sun Infrastructure Solutions add Sun lifecycle services and support, financing, repeatable methodologies and technology refresh services to deliver the key technologies and best-practice methodologies required for optimized implementations that maximize resources, accelerate projects, reduce costs, and improve quality. iForce Solutions take these methodologies for implementing solutions and add more in-depth business process applications and services from Sun's sales, delivery and application partners. Sun, a global leader in grid computing with more than 7,000 grids deployed running Sun ONE Grid Engine software, continues to deliver products and solutions that address customer business issues. Sun grid offerings help customers simplify management and increase utilization of compute resources, resulting in faster completion of projects at reduced costs. "More than just selling and moving machines, Sun understands our necessities and business. They work in a real collaboration environment with their partners, anticipating and presenting solutions for our IT challenges, adding value to our business," said Paulo Siston, Petrobras Geophysical Data Processing Manager and President of Brazilian Geophysical Society. The new Sun Fire V60x(TM) Compute Grid Rack System, (see related announcement) a key component of the Sun Infrastructure Solution for Grid Computing, is a pre-integrated, ready-to-install product that provides fast, easy deployment of Linux/X86 compute nodes and management software. "Cisco sees grid computing as one of the new frontiers for Ethernet. It enables closer integration of the network and the computer by creating a new architecture for calculation and analysis," says Larry Birenbaum, senior vice president of Cisco's Ethernet Access Group. "The combination of Sun Fire V60x Compute Grid and the Cisco Catalyst 3750 Series switch provides an easy-to-use and cost-effective solution that will increase productivity for businesses of all sizes." Sun also lets customers streamline the integration and deployment process with the Customer Ready Systems (CRS) program. The CRS program pre-integrates Sun and complementary third-party hardware and software products and ships to the customer's site ready to deploy. The program incorporates a broad spectrum of integration services ranging from basic factory integration to complete life cycle management and managed deployment. "Engineering complexity out of solutions provides a distinct cost and time to market advantage over fully customized solutions that our competitors hide behind to drive services revenue," said Clark Masters, executive vice president of Enterprise Server Products at Sun. "Already, we have saved our customers millions of dollars, cut months off implementation time, and helped them quickly realize a return on their IT investment." Other new Sun Reference Architectures announced today include: -- Anti-Virus (Security) Reference Architecture -- Low-risk, low-cost solution scans incoming and outgoing e-mail, FTP and Web requests to protect against virus intrusion, spamming and content filtering, and to minimize spread of viruses. Additionally, it helps remove malicious content from protocol streams and notifies users/administrators of attack. -- Identity Server Reference Architecture -- Helps guard against identity theft, providing a comprehensive identity management infrastructure foundation designed to deliver lower administrative, help desk, and development costs. It also includes federated identity management capabilities that enable organizations to efficiently create trusted networks that foster new business partnerships and create revenue- generating opportunities. -- Application Services Reference Architecture -- Helps customers design, build, and deploy a tested and proven infrastructure platform for Java(TM) technology-based web services that help enable quicker deployments for Sun ONE integration, decreasing complexity and risk while lowering overall Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). -- Communications Internet Data Center (CIDC) Reference Architecture -- Provides enterprises and service providers a highly secure, scalable, available infrastructure for an enterprise-wide communications system that is designed to scale from one to one million users. -- Data Integrity Assurance (Security) Reference Architecture -- Provides in-depth defense by detecting and pinpointing undesired changes to server data by monitoring and maintaining systems integrity. -- Student Information Systems Reference Architecture -- Provides school districts with a centralized, Web-based system for real-time tracking, management and access to student data from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade. More information about Sun Reference Architectures is available online at http://www.sun.com/products/architectures-platforms/refract/, and about Sun Infrastructure Solutions at http://www.sun.com/infrastructure-solutions. * A complete copy of the Giga Information Group Total Economic Impact(TM) of Deploying the Sun-Sybase Enterprise Data Warehouse Reference Architecture is available online at http://www.sun.com/products/architectures- platforms/WP/GigaInformationGroup_TEI_Sun-Sybase.pdf