Fujitsu and Sun To Launch New Solaris/SPARC Servers

Fujitsu and Sun unveiled a new line-up of co-developed servers that hold the promise of dramatically reshaping the computing market by delivering mainframe-class reliability with open systems advantages. The new servers, based on the SPARC architecture and running the Solaris10 operating system (OS), are the fastest SPARC servers ever, and will be marketed by both companies and affiliates under the "SPARC Enterprise" product brand. The systems are ideal for customers requiring highly scaleable, reliable servers, and needing to achieve increased system utilization and performance through virtualization. The servers leverage the powerful combination of Fujitsu's expertise in mission-critical computing technologies and high-performance processor design, and Sun's expertise in open, scaleable, network computing.

SPARC Enterprise servers are also designed to ensure minimal downtime. They contain

mainframe-class RAS (Reliability, Availability, Serviceability) features such as hot-swappable components (which includes memory and processors) redundant hardware, instruction retry, memory mirroring and extensive diagnostic and healing capabilities.

To protect customers' existing datacenter investments, Sun guarantees 100% Solaris binary compatibility. This means Fujitsu's PRIMEPOWER or Sun's Sun Fireserver customers can adopt the new SPARC Enterprise platform with ease and confidence, enabling them to continue to use the broad range of proven Solaris applications (the No. 1 share in the UNIX market) from the world's top ISV/IHV providers.

The new servers are already demonstrating their performance leadership. The SPARC Enterprise M8000 (16 processors, 32 cores, 64 threads) with SPARC64 VI 2.4 GHz processor running SAP ERP 2005, Oracle Database 10g and Solaris 10 set a new world-record for the SAP SD 2-tier standard application benchmark for systems with 16 processors as of 04/17/07, achieving 7,300 SD benchmark users.*

The new SPARC Enterprise servers will include six models. Entry models use the UltraSPARCT1 processor developed by Sun Microsystems. Mid-range and high-end models use the SPARC64 VI processor developed by Fujitsu. These systems deliver up to 50 percent more performance than current SPARC-based servers. All the new servers run the Solaris 10 operating system.