MOVIES

SAN FRANCISCO, Sun Microsystems, Inc. announced a comprehensive suite of products, programs and services that deliver on its N1 vision for network computing. N1, Sun's multi-platform, multi-vendor operating environment for network computing, virtualizes widely distributed network computing resources and elements (servers, storage, software and networking) and enables them to dynamically operate as a single, powerful network computer. Sun's N1 Provisioning Server 3.0 Blades Edition is the industry's first blade virtualization solution and can reduce deployment time from weeks to hours. Sun also announced that Cingular Wireless, the first of several pilot customers, is deploying N1 technology in the company's Alpharetta, Ga. data center to increase efficiencies and save money. "Network computing has become a reality in our data center," said Thaddeus Arroyo, CIO at Cingular Wireless. "By automating away the complexity associated with managing our data center, we expect to increase utilization and availability while decreasing costs and time to deploy. We look forward to continued work with Sun on our current pilot program and on future phases of N1." "We are rapidly delivering the benefits of our N1 vision and strategy in the form of new products and services," said Steve MacKay, vice president of N1 Products at Sun Microsystems. "With N1 Provisioning Server 3.0 Blades Edition we're helping customers simplify the management of their existing data centers and drastically reduce costs. With N1 technology, customers like Cingular Wireless now have the choice to engineer away the cost and complexity in their current data centers instead of facing the high price tag of replacing infrastructure or outsourcing it away to 'On Demand'." Breakthrough N1 Products Reduce Server Deployment from Weeks to Hours N1 Provisioning Server 3.0 Blades Edition software is Sun's first N1 product and is expected to be available by the second quarter of 2003. The N1 Provisioning Server 3.0 Blades Edition reduces deployment time for customers from weeks to as little as hours. The N1 Provisioning Server 3.0 Blades Edition is the first blade virtualization solution in the industry -- it can reprovision blades from one server farm to another, add new blades, shelves and even racks into the data center environment, and bring new blades online to replace failed blades from its unique graphical user interface. Solaris(TM), Linux and Microsoft Windows operating environments are all supported by Sun's N1 Provisioning Server technology. The N1 Provisioning Server 3.0 Blades Edition is also included in the N1 Blades Starter Pack. Priced at only $27,000, the quick-start solution includes the Sun Fire(TM) Blade Platform, N1 software, onsite installation and configuration, remote help desk services, and third-party software ready-to-go. The technology used in the N1 Provisioning Server 3.0 Blades Edition will be deployed in Cingular Wireless' Alpharetta, Ga. data center to virtualize its base operating system platform infrastructure. Cingular is continuing its work with Sun Services to deliver the next phase of N1 technology which will automatically deploy Web server, application server and database applications throughout its data center. In addition, Sun is announcing N1 Data Services for storage virtualization. Sun is currently virtualizing storage resources in pilot customer data centers including a large international pharmaceutical company. Sun will continue to expand the availability of its N1 Data Services offerings throughout 2003, once the pilot phase is complete. Sun Services for N1 A new set of N1 services for the Sun Fire Blade Platform and the data center is also available through Sun Services to help customers architect, implement and manage their next generation network computing platform. Through consulting and training, N1 Services for Blades helps companies quickly and cost-efficiently deploy the Sun Fire Blade Platform using the N1 Provisioning Server 3.0 Blades Edition. Sun's Customer Ready Systems program will support large volume deployments of Sun Fire Blades by shipping complete, factory configured and tested Blade systems designed to meet customer specifications. Sun is also introducing its Blade Manager instrumentation and monitoring package, a set of tools and services designed to help customers deploy, monitor and maintain large numbers of blades quickly, effectively and efficiently. For customers who wish to learn about the benefits of N1 and how they can prepare for building a full N1 data center environment Sun Services also offers the N1 Architecture Workshop and N1 Architecture Assessment service. Through these services, customers learn how to create the system architecture required to utilize a new computing paradigm that will significantly simplify system administration and drastically reduce network computing costs.