Network and Security Articles

Mars to you on blades

They said it couldn't be done, but through innovation and determination Mars rover mission pictures are now streaming back to Earth from the red planet some 300 million miles away. Technology and the Internet are making these pictures available not only to NASA scientists but to millions of people online. An astounding amount of Internet traffic quickly jammed the NASA Web site. That's when Sun came to the rescue. Teaming with the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UCSD, Sun helped build a mirror site in very short order to handle the overwhelming traffic. By leveraging Sun's blade technology, including 16 blades in a single chassis and 8GB Ethernet links to the Internet, site traffic has been flowing smoothly. This solution is helping to provide every interested party with up-to-the-minute information on America's return to the red planet, including access to the extraordinary 2D and 3D images of Mars' surface. » Full eWeek article

The Sun Fire B1600 Blade Platform is designed specifically to deliver scalable flexible network facing infrastructure applications like web serving in a cost effective package. It can be deployed very quickly and scales seemlessly to meet rapidly changing needs.  » Learn more

Read what eWeek is saying about the Sun Fire B1600 Blades platform:

"... we were impressed by the Sun Fire B1600 Blade Platform's flexibility, the array of services available and the redundancy features the system offers." eWeek adds, "With support for 16 server or specialty blades (and a total of 224 blades per rack), the Sun Fire B1600 offers excellent computational density for tier-one applications in data center environments." » Full eWeek product review

Additional Resources

Read eWeek's story about the UCSD solution on the Sun Fire B1600 Blades Platform Blades Bring Mars Down to Earth. » Full article

Find out more about the role of Java in the Mission to Mars. » Full story

Learn more about the Mars Quest and see pictures from the Mars Rover at http://www.marsquestonline.org/