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Q & A
Sun Powers MLB.com
Thursday, October 28, 6:00 AM PT
To help it build a rock-solid, secure infrastructure that supports game broadcasts to hundreds of millions of fans worldwide, Major League
Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM) turned to Sun Microsystems. The two companies extended their multi-million-dollar technology alliance
earlier this year. The goal? To build new data centers to power MLB.com, which delivers more than 44 million minutes of streaming media, 2,500 full-length games, and more than 650 million page views per season. Visitors to MLB.com can find everything from live game analysis, player news, pre-game shows, and an ever-growing list of interactive services.
As part of the alliance, Sun will deliver an end-to-end technology solution that includes Sun Fire servers, storage systems, Java Enterprise System software,
and Sun's Digital Asset Management Reference Architecture. Sun will also support the new data centers with a comprehensive portfolio of advanced services, including ongoing monitoring and a management solution.
MLB.com has to perform under any condition. It has to handle heavy traffic during games and never choke under the pressure. That's where reliabliity, scalability, and availability come into play--and Sun is an expert at delivering it all.
Hal Stern, Chief Technology Officer of Sun Services, answers questions
on Sun Microsystems' technology alliance with Major League Baseball Advance
Media, the largest live event producer on the Web.
Q: What is being announced between MLBAM and Sun?
A:
MLB Advanced Media (MLBAM) and Sun have renewed their alliance, based on MLB.com's All Star stats as a result of Sun's low-cost systems and proven solutions. With this news, Sun will be delivering an end-to-end technology solution, including Sun servers, storage, Java Enterprise System and Digital Asset Management Reference Architecture, to build its next-generation data centers that will enable MLBAM to continue to create new dynamic real-time, video and interactive services.
Q: Why is this announcement significant to MLBAM and Sun?
A:
For MLB, collaborating with Sun enables MLBAM to host a truly powerful, interactive Web site (MLB.com) that seamlessly supports data- and bandwidth-intensive features to provide baseball fans worldwide with a richer experience on the Net. MLB.com is not just a sports repository, but a truly interactive site with services such as live Internet broadcasts of full games, digital downloads of all playoff games, hour long live pre-game shows, post-game highlight shows, and expanded broadband capabilities. The infrastructure will support enhanced video content such as pitch-by-pitch views of games, pre- and post-game shows, analysis, and enhanced search and on-demand capabilities for fans, as well as archives of every at bat to aid in player development.
MLBAM, the largest live event producer on the Internet in the world, delivers as many as 15 live games daily in-season through MLBTV and more than 6,000 audio streamed games each year. This announcement establishes Sun as the official technology provider for MBL.com and trusted advisor, integral to MLBAM's business and strategy.
Q: Why did MLBAM choose Sun as the technology provider for its next-generation IT environment?
A:
MLBAM was looking for a strategic technology partner to provide a proven, reliable platform and innovative solutions that help them take risk out of the equation, while driving down costs and complexity, so MLBAM can focus its efforts on delivering new and unique interactive services to its 650 millions visitors. After evaluating all the logical IT options, Sun was the ONLY technology partner able to handle the magnitude and scope of MLBAM's business to support 2,430 games per year, compared to the NFL which only has only approximately one-tenth of MLBAM's programming.
Q: How will this announcement benefit MLBAM and its fans?
A:
MLBAM creates, tests and implements new innovative services and online properties on a weekly basis. Sun is helping MLBAM architect and build a rock-solid platform infrastructure that can easily scale to support a wide variety of applications and deliver the performance to handle tens of millions of fans today - those fans are globally distributed, representing the geographic diversity of baseball. MLB.com carries its content in both Japanese and English, for example.
Q: What have been the benefits of this alliance to date?
A:
The ability to support the growing success of MLB.com and expand the functionality to include broadband and other features to draw fans further into the sport was made possible through this alliance with Sun, first established in July 2000. In the past year, new features added to MLB.com included live Internet broadcasts of full games, digital downloads of all playoff games, hour long live pre-game shows, and expanded broadband capabilities, which have helped MLB.com record its first-ever 35 million page view day on opening day of the 2003 playoff series. In addition, MLB.com and the 30 individual team sites registered over 4 billion page views and attracted over 650 million visitors to date.
Q: Why is MLBAM building new data centers and when and where will they be located?
A:
Sun is helping MLB build its next-generation data center to upgrade its IT infrastructure to all of Sun's new technologies and products from the data center to the edge. The first data center is located in the New York metropolitan area. A mirror site is planned for 2005. The mirror data center will be built to improve reliability, performance and redundancy.
Q: What are the systems, software and services being deployed?
A:
The new platform infrastructure will include Sun Fire V210, V240, 4800 and 15K servers, running on the Solaris Operating System.
MLBAM will be purchasing Java Enterprise System licenses for 250 seats which provides an integrated, open software system that delivers a core set of industry-leading shared enterprise network services for every business need. This is a significant cost and complexity reduction from previous software stacks. By licensing the Java Enterprise System based on the number of MLBAM employees, we're not creating a penalty for success for the MLB.com site. Double the number of users? Double the server footprint? Same licensing cost and terms.
Sun is also delivering tested and proven solutions that help take risk out of the equation and speeds time-to-market with Sun's Data Asset Management Reference Architecture, developed with WGBH in Boston. The Digital Asset Management Reference Architecture is a complete content management infrastructure that easily integrates with existing IT and broadcast infrastructures, using technologies from Artesia, Sony and Sun. We want to be able to marry the in-depth, focused highlights of a sports show with the immediacy of the Internet: Think of this as the ridiculous play on demand!
In addition, Sun will be providing a comprehensive portfolio of services, including technical consulting, training and support to help design, build and manage an integrated solution for a highly reliable, scalable and efficient platform. Initially, Sun's professional services consultants will be providing technical design and platform integration of the Digital Asset Management Reference Architecture - built on the Sun Fire V480 servers and Sun StorEdge L700 Tape Library - ongoing monitoring, preventive services and management solution.
Q: What are the future investments with MLBAM?
A:
Look out for more joint announcements as we continue to team together to develop a variety of new real-time interactive services, as well as showcase how this collaboration continues to generate successful results for MLB.com.
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