SYSTEMS

Building on its leadership in the UNIX server market, Sun Microsystems, Inc. introduced the industry's first Throughput Computing Systems and the most comprehensive refresh of its Sun Fire systems family in more than a decade. Powered by the UltraSPARC IV processor and the Java Enterprise System, the new Sun Fire Enterprise Servers set breakthrough benchmarks in commercial, high performance and technical computing. In competitive comparisons, Sun outpaced the fastest systems from IBM, HP, Fujitsu and others on system performance, price performance and other capabilities. The new family of servers combine the advances of Throughput Computing technology from the processor and SMP architecture to the Solaris 10(TM) Operating System, Sun Java Enterprise System and multithreaded applications. These new systems tightly integrate on-chip capabilities with the operating system to enable customers to mix and match UltraSPARC III and UltraSPARC IV processors in their systems, nearly doubling their data center performance at a fraction of the cost. "We're starting the year with our strongest product lineup ever and delivering customers the ultimate in throughput power," said Clark Masters, executive vice president, Enterprise Systems Products, Sun Microsystems, Inc. "Only Sun can deliver this degree of integration between hardware and software, making our systems a smarter investment over the long term as customers evolve their data centers to respond to changing business demands." "Sun allows us to mix, match and manage our existing UltraSPARC III uniboards with the new, more powerful UltraSPARC IV processors within our current servers," said Chuck Sears, Director of Research Computing, Oregon State University. "We were able to install the new boards in our Sun Fire 4800 servers quickly with no problems and immediately received sizable performance improvements. Our existing applications ran just like before, only much faster. It used to take us 28 days to complete a 50-year simulation of earth and weather patterns. With Sun's new systems, preliminary results show that we can accomplish the same simulation in only 13 days." New Systems Set World Records In the commercial marketplace, Sun has established the world record 36- processor two-tier SAP(R) R/3(R) 4.70 Sales and Distribution [SD] standard Application Benchmark. This SAP-SD test, which used the Oracle 9i Database on a Sun Fire E20K system, supported 5,050 users and was more than 25 percent faster than the 1.5 GHz Itanium2-based server which ran version 4.70. Another commercial world record on the Manugistics NetWORKS Fulfillment v7.1 supply chain management (SCM) application for the retail industry supported 30 million SKUs per hour. The Sun Fire E6900 system was 1.97 times faster than a competitive UNIX system, providing a marked advantage for enterprises managing inventories. Sun also established a new world record on the SPEC ompL2001 high performance computing platform, which tests 9 scientific applications, such as earthquake modeling and crash simulation, that use the standard OpenMP programming model. The Sun Fire E25K system set a record SPEC ompL2001 performance score of 316,182, beating a fully configured Fujitsu PRIMEPOWER HPC 2500 and Itanium2-based HP Integrity SuperDome servers. New Systems Double Data Center Productivity and Throughput The new Sun Fire E2900, E4900, E6900, E20K and E25K servers are powered by Chip Multithreading (CMT) technology of the UltraSPARC IV processor. This new family of servers is the first implementation of multithreading technology and is one of the industry's most cost-effective platforms for customers to run mission-critical applications and databases. Customers can easily mix and match speeds and generations of UltraSPARC processors within the same domain and achieve nearly double the performance without disruption or downtime. The additions to the Sun Fire family of products provide hot swap and plug-and-play capabilities through dynamic reconfiguration technology, as well as support for clustering and linear scalability. The new servers are based on the Sun(TM) Fireplane interconnect, multithreaded UltraSPARC IV 1.05 and 1.2 GHz processors and scalable high-end SMP architecture. A complete line of storage products complement the CMT performance of the new family of servers. For a limited time, customers can receive a 30 percent discount on the Sun StorEdge(TM) 6000 system, fully integrated through Sun's Customer Ready Systems program. The new systems include the: Sun Fire E2900 -- with up to 12 chip-multithreaded UltraSPARC IV processors and up to 96 GB of memory, delivering Sun's throughput computing vision to the rack-optimized data center arena where space is at a premium. Sun Fire E4900, E6900 -- a mid-sized 12 processor departmental server system and large 24 processor server, are ideal for datacenter tasks such as large databases, data mining or server consolidation applications. Sun Fire E20K and E25K -- 36 and 72 processor servers are the flagships of Sun's binary-compatible server line, ideal for large consolidation projects and mission-critical database workloads. Increasing Investment Protection and Availability in the Data Center Sun Fire servers will ship preloaded with Sun(TM) Remote Services Net Connect and enhanced dependability features. These technologies are designed to increase the reliability of a customer's computing environment and improve high availability in the data center. By mixing and matching speeds and generations of UltraSPARC processors in the same domain, customers can speed productivity within the same infrastructure. This backwards and forwards compatibility combined with the ability to run the Solaris 8, Solaris 9 and Solaris 10 OS in the same system, results in unmatched investment protection. Sun also announced updates to its software products -- the N1(TM) Grid System, Solaris 10 Operating System and the Java Enterprise System -- that will work seamlessly with Sun's new Sun Fire Enterprise Servers. Today, the N1 Grid System provides customers with N1 Grid Containers, Dynamic System Domains and Virtual Machine Managers that help enable increased server utilization through resource partitioning, which can lead to better manageability and lower total cost of ownership. Shipping since December 2003, Sun's second release of the Java Enterprise System will be available next quarter, concurrently with the upcoming Solaris 9 OS 4/04 release. N1 Grid Container technology is supported in the Solaris 9 OS, the present version, and will be supported in the Solaris 10 OS, the upcoming version of Sun's Operating System. To further enable customers to reduce cost and complexity, Sun is offering an enhanced pricing strategy for its N1 Grid Service Provisioning System. This new pricing structure will help save customers money and enable them to have access to upgrades and technical support throughout the year. Customers have early access to upcoming Solaris OS features through Sun's Software Express program, which helps enable IT managers and developers to plan ahead for new technologies coming in future versions of the Solaris OS, as well as test the new features in fault-isolated domains. In addition, customers can gain early access to the Solaris 10 OS through Sun's iForce(SM) Partner Program. NOTES: Results of the two-tier SAP R/3 Enterprise 4.70 SD Standard Application Benchmark Sun Fire(TM) E20K: 5,050 benchmark users. 36 1.2 GHz UltraSPARC IV processors, 288 GB, Oracle 9i, Solaris 9, SAP cert #2004006. NEC Express 5800 1320Xd, 4,030 benchmark users, 32 1.5 GHz Itanium2 processors, 256 GB, SQL Server 2000, Windows Server 2003 DE, SAP cert #2003067. Benchmark performance data as published on http://www.sap.com/benchmark/ as of 02/10/04. Manugistics NetWORKS Fulfillment 7.1, 30 Million stock keeping units (SKUs) per hour. IBM results: http://www.manugistics.com/news/detail.asp?id=471 Sun Fire E25K record SPEC ompL2001 316,182. SPEC, SPEComp reg. TM of Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Comparison metric SPEC ompL2001. Results from www.spec.org as of 021/10/04.