GOVERNMENT

DENVER, CO -- Continuing to advance the state of grid computing, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today unveiled the beta version of its Sun™ Grid Engine, Enterprise Edition 5.3 software. Designed to provide the growing campus grid market with higher levels of control to manage resource allocation, Sun Grid Engine, Enterprise Edition 5.3 software builds on the explosive growth of Sun Grid Engine 5.2.3 software, whose adoption has increased more than 20 fold since its announcement one year ago. Today, over 118,000 CPUs are managed by Sun Grid Engine software. “Just as Sun has done for the Internet, our technologies are powering the grid. We’re providing the robust, end-to-end architecture necessary to enable grid computing today—including software, systems, storage and services,” said Robbie Turner, vice president of Client and Technical Market Products at Sun Microsystems, Inc. “As adoption of the grid computing model evolves from cluster grids to the global grid, with Sun’s proven grid computing platform, strong industry relationships and open standards initiatives, we’re well positioned to deliver massively scalable grid solutions today to help our customers maximize their IT investments.” Today, most grid computing is happening at the cluster grid level. The new Enterprise Edition of Sun Grid Engine software addresses the next evolutionary step—campus grids. Providing higher levels of control, Sun Grid Engine, Enterprise Edition software incorporates a policy management function to allow multiple groups to easily share available compute cycles. More than half of Sun’s current grid computing customers have stated a need to support multiple projects and departments, and the new software’s capabilities to manage expanded, more flexible grids can help provide the necessary edge for these customers to remain competitive. During the past year, numerous million-dollar, Sun-based grid deployments such as the 152-CPU “Cosmology Machine” that’s powering unprecedented astrophysics research at Durham University in the United Kingdom—along with new solutions like the Sun™ Technical Computing Portal, and more than 12,000 downloads of Sun Grid Engine software, place Sun firmly among the world’s leaders in grid computing today. Setting Sun apart from other system vendors, Sun Microsystems has also developed a comprehensive stack of software offerings to power grid computing, including Sun Grid Engine software and the Sun Technical Computing Portal solution—utilizing iPlanet™ Portal Server—as well as key enabling technologies, such as Sun™ Management Center, Sun ClusterTools™, Sun Forte™ Developer tools, Java™ and JXTA, an emerging P2P platform, all built atop Sun’s robust Solaris™ Operating Environment. Sun has also built strong industry relationships with such key players in grid computing as AVAKI and Globus. Sun is advancing innovation in grid computing through active participation in the Global Grid Forum as well as the formation of a workgroup that will help develop standards for application APIs. Additionally, Sun’s work with solution providers like Blackstone and Raytheon and open source experts like Collabnet have helped elevate the availability of grid computing technologies worldwide. The beta version of Sun Grid Engine, Enterprise Edition 5.3 software is available today. To download the software or for more information about Sun’s grid computing efforts, go to http://www.sun.com/gridware. For more information about Sun’s Grid Engine Open Source Project, go to http://www.gridengine.sunsource.net. Sun Enterprise Services(SM) and Sun Professional Services(SM) are available to provide full product support for the beta release of Sun Grid Engine, Enterprise Edition software. For more information visit www.sun.com