During its second quarterly Network Computer '04 launch today, Sun Microsystems, Inc. announced a suite of innovative N1 Grid technologies and solutions that will help make it easier for companies to deploy and manage enterprise grids and resources to deliver network services. These new enhancements include N1 Grid Engine 6, N1 Grid Console, N1 Grid Tool Kit, N1 Grid for SAP solutions, N1 Grid Blueprint and the availability of ready-to-deploy grid computing solutions that leverage the Sun Fire V20z Compute Grid rack system. Sun Fire V20z Compute Grid rack system, can improve resource utilization by up to 90 percent, reduce system deployment time from days to hours and install operating systems on 32 nodes in less than an hour. "These new offerings demonstrate Sun's leadership in opening up grid computing for enterprise applications and the progress made in our N1 Grid strategy," said David Nelson-Gal, vice president, N1 Grid System at Sun. "With the N1 Grid Tool Kit, developers can easily integrate and deploy their custom applications with the N1 Grid Service Provisioning System for reduced costs and time to market." The new product offerings will help customers increase levels of utilization of resources and speed of upgrades for operators of IT infrastructure. The new N1 Grid enhancements include an extended core grid computing platform, a centralized control console to manage thousands of containers and the N1 Grid Tool Kit, which can extend a developer's ability to interact with components of the N1 Grid System. In addition, customers can benefit from an infrastructure solution to easily move resources and a blueprint to implement new N1 Grid Systems. The new products are part of the N1 Grid System, which provides all the core services for establishing, partitioning, provisioning and managing grids. It helps customers optimize business services and infrastructure in accordance with dynamic business demands and IT requirements, while leveraging the new capabilities and features of the Solaris(TM) 10 Operating System (OS), such as N1 Grid Containers and Predictive Self-Healing, to deliver an even more reliable, rock-solid foundation for the next generation of networked solutions. The N1 Grid offerings are built upon an expanding technology roadmap. N1 Grid Engine With thousands of deployed grids worldwide, Sun has helped customers use grid computing to achieve shorter time to results with reduced operating costs. The new N1 Grid Engine 6 now addresses key needs for enterprise grid computing, such as more sophisticated policy management, which enables alignment of resource usage and business needs depending on changing resource needs and business priorities. Also, this new product offering supports all major UNIX® platforms, including the Solaris OS and Linux for integration into enterprise grids and can support up to 10,000 systems in a single grid. Additionally, Sun has adopted and included the new industry standard DRMAA into the product offering, which enables developers to use the APIs to develop enhancements to improve the user experience and reduce application deployment time. http://www.sun.com/gridware N1 Grid Console The N1 Grid Console simplifies the management of containers and provides system administrators with a centralized console for easy, accessible management, as well as a better overview of what is deployed in their datacenter. The offering can also lower costs by allowing administrators to manage more consolidated systems and will help customers take advantage of the predictive self-healing features in the Solaris 10 OS. http://www.sun.com/n1 N1 Grid Tool Kit The N1 Grid Tool Kit will provide developers with access to a free N1 Grid Service Provisioning System Developer License and N1 Grid Service Provisioning System Developer Guide to help them easily extend their existing applications for automated deployment via the N1 Grid System. http://www.sun.com/n1 The Sun Infrastructure Solution for N1 Grid for SAP Solutions The Sun Infrastructure Solution for N1 Grid for SAP Solutions is a mix of products, technologies and services that helps customers realize significant cost savings through the optimization of infrastructure in SAP solutions-based environments. The Sun Infrastructure Solution for N1 Grid for SAP Solutions provides customers the technology, methodology and guidance to help accelerate deployment of N1 Grid technology with reduced customization and faster time- to-value. Sun's Infrastructure Solution for N1 Grid for SAP Solutions, scheduled to be available June 1, includes: proven best-practice and service methodologies, Sun Tone audit and certification; N1 Grid technology; Solaris OS; and the Sun N1 Grid for SAP Solutions Reference Architecture. The Sun N1 Grid for SAP Solutions Reference Architecture is a tested, tuned and fully documented implementation of an optimized SAP workload on the Solaris OS. Designed to drive out cost and complexity in the data center, the Sun N1 Grid for SAP Solutions Reference Architecture is based on Sun Fire servers, Sun StorEdge(TM) arrays, the Sun Java(TM) Enterprise System, SAP software and third-party infrastructure products. http://www.sun.com/products/architectures-platforms/refarch N1 Grid Blueprint The first N1 Grid Blueprint article "N1 Grid Architecture Realized: Strategic Flexibility" helps data center operators, solution architects and developers explore the properties, attributes, and potential routes to realize an N1 Grid system and achieve strategic flexibility. This article is a chapter from the forthcoming book, "Building N1 Grid Solutions: Preparing, Architecting, and Implementing Service-Centric Data Centers," which will provide specific examples of how to begin N1 Grid service implementations in a customer's environment. The article is available today through the Sun Blueprint website, with the book available in September. http://www.sun.com/solutions/blueprints/online.html Ready-to-Deploy Grid Computing Solutions The Sun Fire v20z Compute Grid Rack System leverages the power of Sun's Opteron-based Sun Fire v20z system. This new integrated solution is designed to increase compute resource utilization by up to 90 percent, reduce system deployment time from weeks or days to hours, and install operating systems on 32 nodes in less than an hour. http://www.sun.com/grid Tune-in to the NC04Q2 web event at www.sun.com/nc26 . Go to www.sun.com/sncasia2004 for up-to-the-minute information live from the SunNetwork Conference in Shanghai.