Sun Microsystems, Inc. announced a comprehensive portfolio of new storage software, systems, services, and partner programs. With the digital transformation and collection of data, voice, text, and multi-media, companies are experiencing massive growth in data storage requirements as the current storage array market is projected to be $25 billion in 2002 according to IDC. Sun’s announcements offer unprecedented TCO gains by being the first IT infrastructure provider to offer server consolidation, storage consolidation, and data consolidation for the midrange to data center environments. Prices for high-performance midrange storage products start at under $80,000 with advanced features like virtualization spanning multiple arrays available at approximately $100,000.
These new offerings will meet customer demands for storage solutions optimized for the Sun platform while supporting multivendor environments. With the new midrange systems announced today, projects that used to take a month using EMC’s Clariion products can now be achieved in a week or less with Sun’s new systems.
“Complete storage solutions do not equal storage alone,” coined Ed Zander, president of Sun Microsystems. “For a storage solution to deliver the availability, performance and low total cost of ownership that customers demand, the solution has to be an integral part of the end-to-end IT infrastructure. Now, in addition to delivering the leading UNIX servers and operating environment for the enterprise, we’re delivering the best choice in storage for Sun’s customers from the workgroup through the data center. The solutions and partnerships announced today are the culmination of investments, acquisitions and development efforts over the past three years. We’ve listened to customer needs and we’re delivering.”
Sun’s storage products and technologies are a key driving force behind Sun’s role as the leading provider of hardware, software and services that power enterprises and network computing. According to IDC, Sun ships more terabytes than any other UNIX storage supplier. Storage is one of the fastest growing product groups in the company, posting quarter over quarter revenue growth of 40 percent. With this announcement, Sun is not only demonstrating that it is committed to providing customers with integrated end-to-end storage solutions, but it is also committed to open storage solutions resulting in choice for Sun’s customers.
Showcased at the launch event were new storage software offerings built on the Storage ONE architecture including next generation file systems and four new software suites: availability, performance, utilization, and resource management. Sun announced the new Sun StorEdge 3900 and 6900 series which are targeted at the fastest growing space in the UNIX market — the midrange market — and enhancements to the recently announced Sun StorEdge 9900 series for the high-end data center were also introduced. Extending its service offerings, Sun announced important new consulting, support, and training services including remote services capabilities, storage centers, and implementation offerings for Sun StorEdge Complete Storage Solutions. Sun also re-enforced its commitment to the channel with two new partner programs including the iForce Storage Elite Program and the Sun storage certification program.
“Sun is clearly demonstrating its commitment to leadership in the storage industry,” said Ed Broderick, principal analyst at the Robert Frances Group based in Westport, CT. “The combination of these new storage products, services and partnerships, along with Sun’s existing infrastructure, illustrates the degree to which Sun is now poised to become the single source storage vendor of choice for its customers. With the breadth and scope of these announcements, Sun becomes a serious contender in the storage industry and is well positioned for success.”
“The announcement of the Sun StorEdge 9900 series last fall gave Sun’s customers a best-in-class solution for high-end data centers and we’ve already booked over 200 units mostly at EMC’s expense,” noted Mark Canepa, executive vice president, Network Storage, Sun Microsystems, Inc. “We expect to book our 500th high-end system by the end of June as we increase our penetration in the $12 billion storage market that connects to Solaris. “