Sun StorageTek SL8500 Chalks Up Its 1000th Customer Shipment

SL8500’s Shipped to Date Capable of Storing 10,000 Petabytes – All the Data Created in the Last Two Years

SANTA CLARA, CALIF. July 27, 2006 Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: SUNW) today celebrated the 1000th delivery of its Sun StorageTek StreamLine SL8500 tape library. The SL8500 library system is the industry’s first tape library to provide true mixed-media support and interfaces necessary to consolidate enterprise and midrange computing infrastructures and allow for dynamic upgrades of capacity and throughput. The 1000th shipment milestone is just the latest in a series of accomplishments for Sun’s tape portfolio including the Sun StorageTek SL500 winning both a 2006 Most Valuable Product (MVP) award and an Editors Choice award from the UK edition of Storage magazine, as well as the shipment of more than 1,000 Sun StorageTek T10000 tape drives since March 2006. Gartner Inc. also recently upgraded its rating of Sun Storage to “promising” (Vendor Rating Update: Sun Microsystems Storage 2006, Roger W. Cox, Dave Russell, Adam W. Couture, Fara Yale, 23 June 2006.)

Over the last 2 years, the Sun StorageTek SL8500 has enabled customers in industries including financial services, telecommunications, broadcast, media and entertainment, and service providers to cost effectively address the need for more storage space, increased performance and higher availability. In fact, fully configured to 10,000 slots with the Sun StorageTek T10000 tape drive, 1000 SL8500 tape library systems could store 10,000 petabytes – equivalent to all the data created in the last two years.

Media and Entertainment customers like EFILM, who recently delivered production services for the movie “The Da Vinci Code,” have requirements to store very large - and rapidly growing - volumes of digital media files that are always quickly available to dynamic workflow processes. Digital libraries are used for revenue generation, workflow cost reduction, ease-of-access to content, and long-term preservation of digital content assets. These customers are building long-term digital library solutions that must maintain an aggressive total cost of ownership.

“The SL8500’s modular design allows easy expansion both within and outside the existing unit, with pass-thru, and provides us the scalable capacity we need for the future,” said Bob Eicholz, vice president of Corporate Development, EFILM. “High availability features such as redundant robotics and components will further lower our risk and total cost of ownership.”

“Sun is committed to addressing the storage needs of a broad spectrum of computing environments - from mainframe to high-performance computing to open systems. The SL8500 tape library is a consolidation powerhouse and a prime example of the tools in Sun’s portfolio that help customers get more value from their storage infrastructure,” said Nigel Dessau, vice president of Storage Marketing and Business Operations, Sun Microsystems. “Today’s milestone - more than 1000 shipments - is a testament to the fact that customers continue to trust Sun with their critical data.”

Sun StorageTek Tape Portfolio Shines

The Sun StorageTek SL500 Modular Library System was awarded the 2006 MVP Award in the Backup Hardware category last month at the Storage World conference. The MVP Awards Program recognizes the “best of the best” of storage networking products in the industry, as determined by storage end users. This awards program is co-sponsored by two user-focused organizations: InfoStor magazine, the leading storage-specific publication for enterprise storage professionals, and the Association of Storage Networking Professionals (ASNP), the first worldwide organization dedicated to the needs of storage networking users.

For two consecutive years the Sun StorageTek SL500 Modular Library System has brought home an award from the UK edition of Storage magazine’s annual awards ceremony known as The Storries. Most recently the SL500 library picked up the Editors Choice award in the 2006 Storage Awards. In 2005 the SL500 was crowned the winner in the Backup Hardware Product of the Year category. The Storries - storage award winners - are chosen by the readership of Storage magazine’s UK edition.

For more information on Sun’s tape storage portfolio including: the StorageTek SL8500 library system, the StorageTek SL500 library system and the StorageTek T10000 tape drive go to: http://www.sun.com/storagetek/tape_storage/

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

A singular vision -- “The Network Is The Computer” -- guides Sun in the development of technologies that power the world’s most important markets. Sun’s philosophy of sharing innovation and building communities is at the forefront of the next wave of computing: the Participation Age. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the Web at http://sun.com.

Sun,Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, StorageTek and The Network is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

Contact Information

Stacey Infantino

Press Contact

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Contact via E-mail