05.April.2006 - Over the years, telecommunications companies worldwide whose business depends on reliable voice, data, and video delivery services have relied on carrier grade servers from Sun Microsystems. And this year is no different--Sun is still the market leader in carrier grade servers. Now, we're introducing the Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture (ATCA) blade server family, which includes:

• Netra CT900 ATCA Blade Server, a standards-compliant, NEBS L3 certified server
• UltraSPARC and AMD Opteron-based blades
• Netra High Availability Suite 3.0 software

Combined, these products offer you a next-generation telco solution that leads the industry in choice, innovation, and value.

Sun is also announcing a new Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) business unit that provides dedicated sales teams, support resources for software development, and specialized services for OEM products. The Netra ATCA server has been designed as an OEM ready product, with the key elements of support already built into its delivery. Elements such as extended product lifecycle, well coordinated change management, and OEM technology support are among the unique offerings.

Why ATCA?

ATCA, a large specification effort with more than 100 companies participating, is targeted at setting standards for the next generation of carrier grade communications equipment. This series of specifications incorporates the latest trends in high speed interconnect technologies, next generation processors, and improved reliability, manageability and serviceability.

The Best Choice

The Netra ATCA family gives Network Equipment Providers (NEPs) more choices than any other platform:

• UltraSPARC and AMD Opteron processors
• Solaris 9 and 10, and MontaVista Linux operating systems
• The option to mix and match processors and operating systems in the same enclosure

With the Netra ATCA family, the old binary choice of either one platform or the other is a thing of the past. You can mix and match processors and operating systems to best suit your application.

The Best Innovation

The Netra CT900 server is the industry's fastest, densest, most reliable ATCA server.

• Delivers up to 30 percent better compute density, compared to competing systems.
• "Six 9's" reliability with redundant hardware and Netra Blade Management Suite and Netra High Availability Suite software

Feature-rich, "server-on-a-blade" design puts the features of a rack server right on a blade:

• Dual or dual-core processors
• Up to two, 2.5 inch hard drives
• Two expansion slots
• Support for compact flash
• Double the number of memory slots found on competing Intel-based ATCA blades

With its smaller 12U rack height, the Netra CT900 can save up to 10-inches of space per rack, leaving you space for other critical components. And because of its smaller size, the Netra CT900 is virtually the only ATCA blade server that can be stacked three units high in a rack, saving you valuable space.

Sun's design also saves you money. Because our ATCA blades support four DIMM slots, you can use four, less expensive 2 GB DIMMs, to get to the 8 GB maximum, instead of two, much more costly 4 GB DIMMs, which would be necessary on a competing blade.

The Best Value

Because we deliver an integrated system design, you can reap significant rewards:

• Shorter development times
• Lower total cost of development
• Lower total cost of operations

Netra ATCA means you can deliver better telco solutions faster--and for less. And we're only just getting started.

As we announced in February, by the end of this year, we will deliver an UltraSPARC T1 processor-based ATCA blade. This will be an exciting new product--the UltraSPARC T1 processor's unmatched throughput, and 70 watt profile is ideal for the ATCA-defined power environment.

With an integrated system design, a vast community of ISV/IHV partners, and a commitment to telco blades that dates back to 1998, Sun's Netra ATCA family delivers a total package that's much more than just the sum of the parts.