SYSTEMS

Sun Data Management Group Improves Data Center Staff Utilization Resulting in New Grants Such as Atlas Project From National Science Foundation and New Services for Students -- Sun Microsystems today announced The University of Texas at Arlington (UT Arlington) selected Sun Microsystems to consolidate and relocate two data centers into one, resulting in a more efficient and powerful data center that can support academic and business growth. Sun's Data Management Group (DMG) planned the move from inception to completion, surpassing UT Arlington's expectations in terms of speed and efficiency. The new data center, which includes various Sun StorageTek libraries, tape drives and disk arrays, and Sun StorEdge Open SAN (Storage Area Network) Architecture, allowed UT Arlington to increase business both by rolling out new services to its ever-growing student population and securing new grants such as Atlas, as bestowed by the National Science Foundation. The University of Texas at Arlington created an ambitious five-year growth plan and its success hinged on its data center. As of mid-2004, The University of Texas at Arlington was managing two data centers for its academic and business operations, respectively, both located in older, ill-equipped buildings that were costly to manage and maintain. To achieve its goals, UT Arlington required a powerful and secure data center residing in one central location that would consolidate servers and therefore maximize IT staff efficiencies. From site discovery to architectural assessment and design to project management of the data center consolidation and relocation project, DMG surpassed The University of Texas at Arlington's expectations. "I've been involved in data centers for 40 years and if there is perfection DMG is it. Sun DMG knew exactly what needed to be done: they ran the project so my staff could focus on the ongoing work -- they could not have worked more in conjunction with my team," said Jon Harris, director, Enterprise Operations and Systems, The University of Texas at Arlington. "While typical data center relocation projects take one year, this was completed in six months. And the actual physical move was completed in less than 24 hours with zero unplanned downtime. You simply can't go wrong with DMG." The new data center helped maximize the IT staff of The University of Texas at Arlington to help it achieve its academic and business growth objectives. With a centralized location, the IT staff was not divided between two sites and therefore able to focus on increasing servers up to 25 percent, which was critical for growth. As a result, the new data center was able to better support the ever-increasing number of students enrolled at UT Arlington (25,432) by deploying solutions such as a new student information system. The new data center can also now support new grants such as project Atlas. Awarded to UT Arlington by the National Science Foundation, Atlas is a European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN)-led initiative that is a particle physics experiment exploring the fundamental nature of matter and basic forces that shape the universe. CERN gathers massive amounts of data from its Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and distributes it through various high performance computing (HPC) environments throughout the world -- now including The University of Texas at Arlington -- which processes and analyzes the data and then in turn distributes that information to more than 150 universities and laboratories in 34 countries. "With more than 35 years of experience in designing, building, moving and managing complex data centers, Sun DMG is a trusted brand within the world's most powerful computing environments," said Mark Canepa, executive vice president, Sun Data Management Group, Sun Microsystems. "Our technologies and services are leveraged among the world's most elite and demanding universities, corporations and consortiums as Sun has proven its expertise and innovation is a combination that is tough to beat."