Sun Fuels x64 Server Growth with Customer Wins in Education, Telecommunications, and Media and Entertainment Industries

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:JAVA) today announced several customers have selected Sun Fire(TM) x64 servers to power deployments in a wide range of industries from education to telecommunications to media and entertainment. Sun continues to see strong growth in the x64 market growing factory revenue by over 21.3 percent year over year, in Q4CY08, according to IDC's Worldwide Server Tracker(1). Sun also outperformed the blades market with year over year growth of more than 60 percent(2). Sun's new deployments at Blue Sky Studios, Clemson University, Last.fm, Marteleron, Northern Arizona University and Reliant Security, along with three new world record benchmarks announced today, show Sun's x64 systems, based on the Intel(R) Xeon(R) and AMD(R) Opteron(R) processor technology, provide the performance, efficiency and scale to help power and simplify IT infrastructures.

"The solid growth of Sun's x64 server portfolio is proof positive that Sun's built-in virtualization technologies and innovation sets us apart from other vendors in the market,” said Lisa Sieker, vice president, Systems Marketing, Sun Microsystems. "Whether customers are looking to virtualize their IT environments or build the world's largest supercomputers, Sun delivers technical excellence in design, operating systems, networking, storage and virtualization, fully supported by Sun Services.”

From commercial industries with Web and telecommunications requirements to high performance computing (HPC), Sun's flexible, modular x64 system design can maximize data center efficiency and performance while allowing customers to seamlessly address evolving workload requirements. Sun's x64 server family supports the Solaris(TM) Operating System, Linux and Windows, as well as multiple virtualization solutions including Sun(TM) xVM Server, Sun(TM) xVM Ops Center, VMWare, Microsoft Hyper-V, and Solaris(TM) Containers, delivering ultimate scalability and consolidation while lowering power and cooling costs. Additionally Sun's servers are supported by a highly skilled force of Sun Services professionals, delivering a suite of service offerings that better maximize server performance and return on investment. Customers can choose from an array of services, including virtualization, HPC, eco/datacenter efficiency, and heterogeneous support, designed to help customers increase utilization, reduce costs, and go-to-market faster.

Customers using Sun's x64 servers and blade systems achieved dramatic business benefits with increased performance, scalability, reliability and reduced power consumption as demonstrated by:

Blue Sky Studios

Academy Award® winning Blue Sky Studios, a wholly-owned unit of Fox Filmed Entertainment, is using the Sun Blade(TM) X6250 servers and Sun Ultra(TM) 24 workstations to animate its upcoming film Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. As part of Sun's(TM) Constellation System, the Sun Blade(TM) 6048 Chassis hosts 48 blade servers in one standard rack-sized space.

Clemson University Computational Center for Mobility Systems

Clemson University, one of top 22 public universities in the country built the Clemson University Computational Center for Mobility Systems (CU-CCMS), a high performance computing research facility. CU-CCMS selected 43 Sun Blade(TM) 6000 Modular Systems with a Sun Blade(TM) 6000 Chassis and 10 Sun Blade X6250 Server Modules per chassis managed by Sun xVM Ops Center software. The Sun Blade servers were chosen for their efficient design as well as for performance and reliability. "They are compact and provide incredible compute power for their footprint,” said Dr. James Leylek, executive director, Clemson University Computational Center for Mobility Systems. "We had a fixed amount of square footage, yet we wanted a significant increase in compute power. By using Sun Blade 6000 servers, we kept the square footage the same and went from 7 to 35 teraflops.” In partnership with other Sun applications like Solaris 10 OS and Sun Fire servers, like the Sun Fire(TM) X4150 -- InfoWorld's 2009 Technology of the Year Award winner in the Best 1U Server category, and chip multi-threading technology, CU-CCMS, delivers more power per user than other larger systems. With their recent ranking as the world's 99^th most powerful HPC system, according to top500.org, CU-CCMS can now expand their HPC resources to a wide range of new customers in aerospace, aviation and energy industries. Check out CU-CCMS' story at: http://www.sun.com/customers/index.xml?c=cu-ccms.xml.

Last.fm

Last.fm is a free, global music website that offers music fans millions of tracks in every genre for free on-demand music and radio streaming. Similar to community web sites and social networking, a social-music platform like Last.fm allows over 25 million users worldwide to share their musical tastes with a global audience. With a task- heavy Web infrastructure, handling music streams, member profiles and data on upcoming events, Last.fm looked to Sun to help redesign and scale their Web infrastructure as popularity, user traffic and energy consumption increased. Through Sun's(TM) Startup Essentials Program, Last.fm chose two Sun Fire(TM) X4450 servers, two Sun Blade 6000 Chassis and a number of Sun Blade X6250 and x6450 server modules to support their database. By adding the Sun systems to the infrastructure database, Last.fm increased capacity and throughput significantly, delivering maximum compute density while lowering power consumption. Last October, Last.fm purchased 10 more Sun Blade X6450 servers featuring the new six-core Intel Xeon L7455 processors. "The main drivers for buying the new Sun Blade X6450 servers with Intel Xeon processors are the compute density, scalability, and power efficiency. In total, we get 240 cores in a single 10 RU chassis, which I think is the best density achievable on the market. I don’t think other IT solution providers can compete with that kind of performance," said Mike Brodbelt, director of technical operations at Last.fm. For more information on why Last.fm choose Sun's x64 systems visit: http://www.sun.com/customers/index.xml?c=lastfm.xml.

Marteleron

Marteleron is a telecom services company that offers patent-pending technology (IPJunction™) designed to route Internet calls, text and video between carrier gateways. In order to provide its customers with service continuity, ultimate performance and reliability, Marteleron selected the Sun Blade 6000 Modular System. Marteleron chose the Sun Blade 6000 chassis and Sun Blade X6250 server module for the quad core Intel Xeon processors memory and I/O capacity that could easily manage demanding applications and heavy workloads. "We have a full solution running on the Sun Blade X6250 Server Modules that's capable of doing millions of queries of communication per second between carriers," said Mario Aluf-Medina, Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Marteleron. Sun's x64 solutions coupled with Marteleron's gateway services will help communication carriers benefit from IP networking. Marteleron's case study can be found at: http://www.sun.com/customers/index.xml?c=marteleron.xml.

Northern Arizona University

Northern Arizona University's W.A. Franke College of Business (FCB) provides its 3,000 students each semester with access to technologies ranging from standard office applications and custom business simulations, to operating systems and networking studies. Unable to dedicate lab space to specific applications and environments or staff time to continually reconfigure labs, FCB turned to Sun’s virtualization technologies. Originally implemented on Sun Fire X4200 M2 servers, FCB provides a virtual environment based on Sun Ray(TM) thin clients and Sun(TM) Secure Global Desktop, enabling FCB to provide its students with flexible access to Windows and UNIX environments, from home or the lab, without adding staff or expanding lab space while reducing asset cost and electrical consumption. For more on NAU's implementation of Sun's x64 systems visit: http://www.sun.com/customers/index.xml?c=nau.xml.

Reliant Security

Reliant Security provides information security products and services that help retailers secure and protect the confidentiality and integrity of a consumer's information. In order to protect credit card and transaction data, retailers have to comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI), a security requirement that can be costly and complex to manage through various point solutions from various vendors. To offer a turnkey solution for its clients, Reliant Security developed a Managed PCI System (MPS) which provides a full suite of security controls that comply with PCI requirements, in one solution while dramatically lowering costs for its retailers.

Reliant Security's Managed PCI System is built on both Solaris 10 and the OpenSolaris(TM) Operating System and virtualized using Solaris Containers. Sun Fire X2200 M2 servers with quad-core AMD Opteron processors support virtualized environments for multiple security applications and Web 2.0 portals. "With Sun we get leading-edge virtualization from a well-established technology solution provider with a great pedigree,” says Richard Newman, president and co-founder, Reliant Security. "Sun has strength and experience in security and in overall enterprise management. And it is able to bring both software and hardware solutions to the table from one organization.” For more info on Reliant Security's deployment of Sun solutions and products visit:

http://www.sun.com/customers/index.xml?c=reliant_security.xml.

World Record Benchmark Results Spotlight Sun x64 Servers Virtualization Capabilities, Performance and Efficiency

Sun set new record breaking results with three industry-standard benchmarks on key enterprise workloads including virtualization, Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence and secure web-serving. The world record VMmark, TPC-H and SPECweb2005 results on Sun's x64 servers based on quad-core AMD Opteron processor technology show Sun's commitment to delivering customers with a wide range of solutions that will increase performance, reduce power consumption, as well as consolidate and virtualize IT environments.

VMmark: The Sun Fire X4600 M2 server, running VMware ESX Server 3.5.0 hypervisor, posted the best VMmark score published to date. The Sun Fire X4600 M2, equipped with eight quad-core AMD Opteron 8384 processors, delivered a world record VMmark score of 29.11@19 tiles, demonstrating its capability as a highly scalable virtualization platform. Capable of supporting 114 virtual machines simultaneously, the Sun Fire X4600 M2 achieves top ranking in the VMware virtualization space. In addition, the Sun Fire X4600 M2 server consumed only 988W on average using half of the system memory and approximately half the physical space compared to HP's DL 785 G5 server(3).

TPC-H@3000GB: The Sun Fire X4540 server posted the best price/performance result on the TPC-H benchmark at 3000 GB scale factor for all non-clustered systems(4). The unique design of the Sun Fire X4540 server allows customers to achieve ultimate storage density – up to 48 terabytes – in a single system with a 4RU footprint, offering an unparalleled "Data Warehouse-in-a-Box” solution that consumes under 1000W of power. When combined with Sybase(R) IQ 15 analytics server software, the Sun Fire X4540 running the Solaris 10 Operating System, offers an affordable and easy to manage solution for organizations seeking high performance analytics and reporting platforms, making it ideal for Business Intelligence/Data Warehousing (BIDW) and Decision Support Systems (DSS) processes.

SPECweb2005: The industry's only four-socket 2RU x64 server based on the Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor, the Sun Fire X4440 server delivered the best 16-core result among all platforms, on the SPECweb2005 benchmark(5), an industry standard benchmark for evaluating Web Server performance. Sun's compact server outperformed the 16-core HP DL 580 G5 server by 20 percent while consuming only 617W of power on average. In comparison, the HP DL 580 G5 server requires twice the physical space and consumes 79 percent more electricity, making the Sun Fire X4440 server an ultimate solution for power and space-constrained data centers.

Sun continues to be the only vendor that discloses power consumption data for all its benchmark results. For additional information on Sun servers' record setting performance visit: http://www.sun.com/benchmarks.

To test drive Sun's x64 solutions for a free 60-day trial through Sun's Try and Buy(TM) program visit: www.sun.com/tryandbuy. More information on Sun's complete line of x64 systems is available at: www.sun.com/x64.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Sun Microsystems develops the technologies that power the global marketplace. Guided by a singular vision -- "The Network is the Computer" -- Sun drives network participation through shared innovation, community development and open source leadership. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the Web at http://sun.com

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Java, Sun Fire, Solaris, OpenSolaris, Sun Blade, Sun Ultra, Sun Ray and the Network is the Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.

Intel(R) Xeon(R) is a trademark or registered trademark of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. AMD, Opteron, the AMD logo, and the AMD Opteron logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices. SPEC and SPECweb are registered trademarks of Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation.

1) "IDC Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, February 2009”

2) "Worldwide Server Market Contracts Sharply in Fourth Quarter as Market Revenues Decline to $53.3 Billion in 2008, According to IDC” Press Release, February 25, 2009, http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS21703309.

3) VMware(r) VMmark(r) is a product of VMware Inc., an EMC Company. VMmark utilizes SPECjbb(r)2005 and SPECweb(r)2005, which are available from the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC). Results from http://www.vmware.com/products/vmmark/, as of 03/13/09. Sun Fire X4600 M2 (8 AMD Opteron 8384 processors, 32 Cores, 128GB RAM, 4RU) - VMmark score of 29.11@19 tiles. HP DL 785 G5 (8 AMD Opteron 8384 processors, 32 Cores, 256GB RAM, 7RU) - VMmark score of 27.71@19 tiles.

4) TPC-H, QphH, $/QphH TM of Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC). More info http://www.tpc.org. Sun Fire X4540 - 11,435 QphH@3000GB, $5.26/QphH@3000GB, available 3/4/09.

5) SPEC, SPECweb are registered trademarks of Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Results as of 03/13/09 from www.spec.org. Sun Fire X4440 server - 48,007 SPECweb2005; HP ProLiant DL580 G5 - 40,046 SPECweb2005. Sun Fire X4440 power consumption was measured during the benchmark run. HP DL 580 G5 power consumption of 1106W was calculated as 80% of system utilization for configuration disclosed with the benchmark. Power Calculator is located at: http://h30099.www3.hp.com/configurator/calc/Power%20Calculator%20Catalog.xls.