Fujitsu and Sun Microsystems Set the Standard for Open Systems Computing with Fastest, Most Reliable Solaris/SPARC Servers

Fujitsu Limited (TSE:6702) and Sun Microsystems, Inc., (Nasdaq: SUNW - News) today 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 Solaris™ 10 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.

The SPARC Enterprise server line-up is the culmination of over two years of joint development between Fujitsu and Sun, building on their 20-year strategic relationship. The new servers address the growing customer need to maximize system utilization by offering an array of highly granular partitioning and domaining technologies. The 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 Fire server 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.

“These new systems help customers tackle the world’s most challenging computing problems, whether in the back office or in high-performance computing,” said John Fowler, executive vice president of Sun’s Systems group. “And they achieve this performance while delivering mainframe reliability with the unmatched virtualization capabilities that Solaris customers expect.”

“The combination of Fujitsu’s mission-critical computing technology and Sun’s Solaris in the new SPARC Enterprise server line-up, enables us to deliver maximum business value to our customers, ”said Chiaki Ito, Corporate Senior Executive Vice President, Fujitsu Limited. “Not only will they see outstanding performance, smarter resource management and reduced administrative intervention, but unparalleled levels of quality and scalability, that mean increased longevity of use and improved business growth potential.”

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 April 17, 2007, achieving 7,300 SD benchmark users.

The SAP SD standard SAP ERP 2005 application benchmark performed on March 28, 2007 by Fujitsu and Sun Microsystems in Walldorf, Germany has been certified with the following data:

Number of benchmark users & comp.: 7,300 SD (Sales & Distribution)
Average dialog response time: 1.98 seconds
Throughput:
Fully Processed Order Line items/hour: 731,330
Dialog steps/hour: 2,194,000
SAPS: 36,570
Average DB request time (dia/upd): 0.018 sec / 0.041 sec
CPU utilization of central server: 99%
Operating System central server: Solaris 10
RDBMS: Oracle 10g
SAP ECC Release: 6.0
Configuration:
Central server:
SPARC Enterprise Server Model M8000, 16 processors / 32 cores / 64 threads, SPARC64 VI, 2.4 GHz, 256 KB L1 cache per core, 6 MB L2 cache per processor, 256 GB main memory
The SAP certification number was not available at press time and can be found at the following web page: www.sap.com/benchmark.

New SPARC Enterprise Servers
The new SPARC Enterprise servers will include six models. Entry models use the UltraSPARC™ T1 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.

Both Fujitsu branded and Sun branded SPARC Enterprise servers will be marketed worldwide. All other features are identical. The systems are available today.