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Sun Microsystems Unveils Latest in Line of Highly Energy Efficient, Flexible Datacenters


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Opens New Green Datacenter in Broomfield, Colo., Powered by Award-Winning Sun Technology and Revolutionary Datacenter Design, Saves 11,000 Metric Tons of CO2 Per Year; Sun Also Introduces Advanced Datacenter Efficiency Services

SANTA CLARA, CA - Responding to market demand for more energy-efficient datacenters, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: JAVA), today announced the completion of its new Broomfield, Colo. datacenter. The largest datacenter consolidation project undertaken in the company’s history, the Broomfield facility incorporates the latest in Sun’s portfolio of energy-efficient systems and expertise, including breakthroughs in innovative datacenter design and power and cooling technologies. With this project, Sun estimates it will save more than $1 million in electricity costs and 11,000 metric tons of CO2 per year in Broomfield and will help Sun reduce its carbon footprint by 6 percent in the U.S. Sun also announced the availability of new datacenter efficiency services to help customers retrofit and build more efficient datacenters like Sun’s Broomfield and Santa Clara datacenters. For more information on today’s event, including photos and a video tour of the new datacenter, visit http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/presskits/2009-0126/index.jsp

The new Broomfield datacenter follows similar Sun projects completed in Blackwater, UK, Santa Clara, Calif. and Bangalore, India in August 2007. It builds on designs used in Sun’s Santa Clara datacenter and features water savings, chemical reduction, free air cooling and flywheel uninterruptible power supply (UPS). As in Santa Clara, the Broomfield datacenter is based on Sun’s Pod Architecture, which delivers dramatic footprint compression while still providing capacity for future growth. A full complement of Sun’s high-performance, energy-efficient SPARC and x64 servers, Open Storage and tape products and the OpenSolaris Operating System are at the heart of the Broomfield datacenter. Specifics products include the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 and M5000 servers, as well as the SunStorageTek SL8500 modular library system, the Sun Fire X4500 storage server and Sun Storage 7000 Unified Storage Systems. These systems are part of a major hardware replacement program that led to a 66 percent space compression. In one example, Sun consolidated 63 servers and 30 direct attached storage devices to two Sun servers.

“The Broomfield datacenter showcases revolutionary datacenter design with the latest in modularity, scalability and flexibility to drive incredible efficiencies in cost, electricity and overall carbon savings,” said Dave Douglas, senior vice president of cloud computing and chief sustainability officer, Sun Microsystems. “As a company we’ve achieved our first 20 percent reduction in electricity usage since 2002, and the Broomfield datacenter is a great step forward in meeting our goal of another 20 percent reduction.”

Through its own datacenter consolidation efforts around the world, Sun has achieved 60 percent datacenter square footage compression globally, decreasing the company’s datacenter operating expenses by 30 percent in the Bay Area alone during the last two years. In October 2008, Sun announced the reduction of its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from U.S. operations by 23 percent, surpassing its goal five years early. The Broomfield datacenter is a major contributing factor in Sun’s ability to reach its goal of another 20 percent reduction in GHG emissions.

Features of the new Sun Broomfield datacenter include:

* Greater space efficiency: A scalable, modular datacenter based on the Sun Pod Architecture led to a 66 percent footprint compression, by reducing 496,000 square feet from the former StorageTek campus in Louisville, Colo. to 126,000 square feet;
* Reduced electrical consumption: By 1 million kWh per month, enough to power 1,000 homes in Colorado;
* Reduced raised floor datacenter space: From 165,000 square feet to less than 700 square feet of raised floor datacenter space, representing a $4M cost avoidance;
* Greener, cleaner architecture: Including flywheel UPS that eliminates lead and chemical waste by removing the need for batteries, and a non-chemical water treatment system, saving water and reducing chemical pollution;
* Enhanced scalability: Incorporated 7 MW of capacity that scales up to 40 percent higher without major construction;
* Innovative cooling: The world’s first and largest installation of Liebert advanced XD cooling system with dynamic cooling controls capable of supporting rack loads up to 30kW and a chiller system 24 percent more efficient than ASHRAE standards;
* Overall excellence: Recognized with two Ace awards for Project of the Year from the Associated Contractors of Colorado, presented for excellence in design, execution, complexity and environmental application.

Services Partners Support New Datacenter Strategy, Design and Build Out Services

As part of the company’s Datacenter Efficiency Initiative, Sun recently announced its Datacenter Strategy, Design and Build Out services. With today’s announcement, Sun highlighted its increasingly diverse bench of strategic partners, such as Winter Street Architects, Inc. and TeamQuest Corporation. These partners are collaborating with Sun’s datacenter consultants to provide customers with innovative design and infrastructure components. In addition, these service offerings can help customers determine whether to optimize their current datacenters or build new ones, and are based on the same datacenter design methodologies and best practices Sun used in building its own datacenters. The services aim to maximize space utilization, minimize operating costs and accommodate future growth, all critical in today’s economy. The new Strategy, Design and Build Out Services complement the Sun Eco Services Suite launched in August 2007. Complete details on Sun’s Datacenter Consulting Services can be found at www.sun.com/datacenterdesign

Eco Responsibility at Sun

Sun promotes an actionable path to cut energy bills and reduce IT environmental impact through a three-step approach for assessing, optimizing and virtualizing IT infrastructures. This results in decisive actions that limit computing’s impact on the planet and the bottom line of both Sun and its customers. Sun helps enable customers to reduce the GHG emissions and energy consumption of their IT infrastructures with a full portfolio of servers and storage, a complete suite of Eco Services and the Sun Modular Datacenter. Additionally, Sun continues to look for ways to decrease its carbon footprint through programs like OpenEco.org and Sun Open Work practice, Sun’s extensive flexible work program and its global datacenter consolidation initiative. For more information on Sun’s Eco Responsibility Initiative, visit www.sun.com/eco.

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 www.sun.com.



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