SUN REDEFINES STORAGE FOR THE NET ECONOMYSUN REDEFINES STORAGE FOR THE NET ECONOMYUnveils Highly Available Storage Building Blocks, Data Protection Software and Services To Meet Customers Needs in the Internet AgePALO ALTO, CA -- June 14, 2000 -- Sun Microsystems, Inc. today continued its drive for market share in the rapidly growing $30 billion plus network storage market. Armed with open, network-based and massively scalable servers in the mid 1990s, Sun attacked the traditional mainframe market. Sun is now poised to address the same customer frustrations and technology limitations with an innovative, new approach to storage. Today, Sun unveiled a host of new systems, sophisticated local and remote data protection software, a full suite of customer care services and support programs, and a number of key storage partner programs and open standards endorsements. "Large enterprises, dot-com companies...just about every business sector that is addressing the absolutely explosive growth trends in storage is tired of being hijacked from choice," said Ed Zander, president and chief operating officer of Sun Microsystems, Inc. "As everything with a digital heartbeat connects to the Internet, and data explodes from text to graphics, audio and video, our customers are clamoring for a more modern, open and networked-based solution. Monolithic, mainframe-like architectures for storage will not be able to keep pace with the Net. Today Sun is taking on this immense opportunity head-on with our StorEdge family of products and services." Sun's Managed Storage NetworksThe network of servers, peripherals, wireless devices, desktops, and appliances is driving a nearly insatiable storage growth. Drawing on its expertise with complex, scalable networked systems, Sun is committed to developing "any-to-any" connectivity - providing and supporting open, standard interfaces and technologies to allow any device to access data via any combination of servers and storage on the storage network. Sun understands that high availability storage no longer requires proprietary, monolithic boxes. Sun's open storage can deliver the same functionality as traditional storage, but can provide it far more cost effectively through a network of services that allow better access and use of constantly growing pools of information. This approach is similar to the one Sun used to migrate traditional datacenters away from mainframes to open, network-based servers. "IDC estimates that the disk storage systems market will reach $46 billion by 2003, up more than $16 billion from 1999," said John McArthur, Vice President of Storage Research at IDC. "Today's announcement represents a significant enhancement to Sun's Networked Storage vision. As one of the leading suppliers of enterprise servers with a renewed focus on storage, Sun is increasingly well positioned to compete for networked storage opportunities." Sun's new approach has three basic components: a breakthrough modular building block disk storage system, the Sun StorEdge T3 array; data protection software that allows companies to manage their data from any location on multivendor arrays; a full suite of storage-specific services aimed at ensuring total data integrity, ranging from 24x7 predictive monitoring and preemptive response to capacity planning, performance tuning and architecture/prototype/implementation consulting. New System ProductsThe Sun StorEdge T3 Array: For highly available networked storage, Sun introduced the StorEdge T3 array (a.k.a. "Purple") -- the flagship product in Sun's StorEdge family. "Purple", which is about the size of a desktop PC, can store up to one-third of a terabyte. A single building block delivers the industry's most scalable storage solution -- for entry-level workgroup to high-end enterprise requirements and everything in between. The Sun StorEdge T3 array has a "no single point of failure design. When configured as a pair, every component is redundant, making "Purple" extremely reliable and dramatically increasing data availability. By simply stacking the building blocks, the solution scales from 324 gigabytes to 88 terabytes (88 billion megabytes). With each incremental pair of Sun StorEdge T3 array's, you get more capacity, improved availability and greater performance -- linear growth in three dimensions. Using this modular technology, "Purple" can leverage volume component costs and offer cost-effective, manageable growth increments. As a result, in typical configurations, the Sun StorEdge T3 array is one-half to one-third the price of an equally configured EMC system. For the emerging storage area network (SAN) market, Sun currently offers a complete set of SAN components and a specialized SAN consulting practice. In addition, Sun also announced a pre-tested, pre-configured "SAN in a box" integrated solution for easy customer order and implementation. Sun is also working with leading fibre channel switch vendors including, Ancor, Brocade, Crossroads, Gadzooks, McData and Vixel to drive complete SAN interoperability. New Software ProductsData Protection Software: Sun is committed to protecting any data on any storage system. Sun's StorEdge Network Data Replicator (SNDR) and StorEdge Instant Image software provide sophisticated local and remote data management software for protection from planned or unplanned disruptions and reduce time to recovery. The Network Foundation Software for Solaris: The core infrastructure for the Managed Storage Network, providing a complete suite of infrastructure software to allow multiple Solaris servers to share a common pool of storage. New Service and Program OfferingsSun offers a total service approach that includes a dedicated storage consulting practice; dedicated storage support personnel; training and certification; and Sun Remote Services to proactively monitor and preemptively manage storage networks via a secure continuous connection. SunTone Certification for Storage Service Providers (SSPs), a quality of service certification program for SSPs, that ensures compliance with best practices based on the requirements of Sun Network Storage platforms, data and management service guidelines, methodologies, processes, and architectures. SunTone Certification for SSPs is aimed at making data tone as reliable as dial tone. An entire press kit and information package can be found online at http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/presskits/networkstorage/index.html. About Sun Microsystems, Inc.Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision - The Network Is The Computer - has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW), to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that power the Internet and allow companies worldwide to dot-com their businesses. With $14.2 billion in annual revenues, Sun can be found in more than 170 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://www.sun.com.
Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Sun StorEdge, Solaris, Sun Remote Services, SunTone and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc., in the United States and other countries.PR Contacts for Press and Analysts:
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