SCIENCE

PALO ALTO, CA -- Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) announced today powerful enhancements to its Sun Ray(TM) systems, including improved functionality and easier deployment requirements, as well as two new system bundles tailored for the Electronic Design Automation (EDA) market. The new features included in Sun Ray Server Software 1.3 provide simplified deployment and improved management capabilities, combined with enhanced user session mobility and more flexible network configuration options. With the new features and enhancements, Sun Ray appliances become an even more compelling piece of the network services model for computing -- particularly in the technical, government and education markets. The new Sun Ray Server Software 1.3 provides: Improved Network Configuration Flexibility Sun is expanding the options for Sun Ray system deployments. Sun's new Sun Ray Server Software 1.3 supports customers across qualified virtual local area networks (VLAN). With the new Packet Reporting Tool, system administrators should be able to reconfigure their router/switches to help meet the necessary quality of service requirements and maintain their existing VLAN environment, reducing additional costs for customers and simplifying the installation process. Increased Management Capabilities Further simplifying administration for Sun Ray systems, Sun Ray Server Software 1.3 provides administrators new tools to more effectively configure, monitor and deploy system resources. With the Controlled Access Mode feature, Sun Ray systems can now be configured to launch and restart applications automatically without a user log-in. Additionally, administrators can control or limit which applications users are able to access, which is an ideal management tool for administrators who monitor appliances in unattended environments. For large Sun Ray system deployments, administrators can use the SNMP Monitoring function, which helps enable the use of Sun Management software or a third-party Sun Management Center-compliant product to monitor the compute environment. Finally, the new software's Enhanced Session Management feature gives administrators the power to more effectively and easily manage their system resources, allowing them to display, locate, terminate and suspend user sessions. Expanded Session Mobility "Hot desking," the ability to instantly call up your session from any Sun Ray system in the workgroup without logging on, has been a popular feature enabled by the advanced smart card feature. While the smart card technology is a highly desired feature to many customers, the new Sun Ray Server Software 1.3 release now also allows users to "hot desk" without the smart card investment, providing increased flexibility and reduced costs for customers. Simplified Purchasing and Deployment for EDA Market Sun continues to enhance Sun Ray system features for its core markets in education, government and technical computing. To encourage its growing momentum in technical computing, Sun has packaged new Sun Ray server bundles that are designed specifically for EDA usage. Sun Ray technology provides an easy and inexpensive solution for EDA customers, supporting collaboration, delivering server-based compute power to the desktop, and significantly decreasing the burdens of traditional system administration. With Sun Ray systems providing the infrastructure for technical computing, EDA customers should be able to meet the demands of more complex product designs and scale more easily to support increasingly aggressive growth. For more information visit www.sun.com/sunray