Sun has signed five new Java technology distribution agreements
with Acer, Gateway, Samsung, Toshiba and Tsinghua Tongfang. Sun
believes these new agreements underscore industry demand for Java
technology on the desktop PC and should bolster developer commitment to
the Java platform.
Sun and Performance Technologies will collaborate on technology for
Sun's CompactPCI Packet-Switched Backplane (cPSB) products and leverage
it in the Netra blade platforms for telecommunications equipment
manufacturers. Performance Technologies develops unified embedded
computing products and system-level solutions for the communications,
military and commercial markets.
The Java Desktop System will be supported on the recently announced
AMD Athlon 64 processor, which should help to meet customer demands for
an alternative desktop. The increased processing and memory power will
be beneficial to customers in areas such as manufacturing, call centers and
governments.
Sun Fellow Dr. Jim Mitchell of Sun Labs has been selected to lead Sun's
High Productivity Computing Systems (HPCS) Research and Development
Program. He was the Vice President of Sun Labs. Funded in part by the
recent three-year $50 million grant from DARPA, the HPCS research
program will explore novel approaches to the hardware and software
total system design leading to the next generation of supercomputers.
Glenn Edens has been appointed Vice President and Director of Sun
Microsystems Laboratories. Edens assumes the role from Jim Mitchell,
Sun Fellow and Sun Vice President, who was recently appointed Vice
President and Director of Sun's HPCS Research and Development Program.
Edens will report to Greg Papadopoulos, EVP, CTO, Sun, and will manage
research and development at all three Sun Labs locations.
Sun Microsystems, Asia South is working with ISVs and System
Integrators (SIs) in the Asia South region, which includes partners
covering Singapore, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the
Philippines to offer advanced systems
integration support with the Java Enterprise System.
IT managers faced with the task of architecting complex, multi-tier
systems and charged with responsibility for lowering TCO and ensuring
quick ROI have an alternative in the new Reference Architectures from
Sun.
Sun has a new Time-to-Repair service that commits to repair a
customer's mission-critical system within four, six or eight hours,
depending on the level of service agreed to.
According to Clark Masters, writing on the Sun Web site, Sun is working
to eliminate the anxiety for users concerned with maintaining
competitive advantage or fearful of investing more than they should on
new solutions and services. Sun, says Masters, is concentrating on a
solutions-led approach to the deployment of systems and software, an
approach whose aim is to reduce the cost and complexity of network
computing.
Jonathan Schwartz says that Sun is about to offer customers a new, more
secure desktop PC that will follow in the technological footprints of
the cellphone industry to combat spam, viruses and the plague of
identity theft. Unlike the unauthenticated Windows PC, Schwartz argues,
the incorporation of Java Card technology in the Sun PC will
provide authentication at the first level and eliminate the license for
mischief that anonymity presents.
Sun recently sponsored an IDC white paper by Doug Chandler and Lionel
Lamy that focuses on how "Sun Sigma Helps Deliver Higher Service
Levels to Customers." The document examines what is involved in today's
service level agreements (SLAs) and how Sun Sigma can help reach a
desired goal of improvement through customer input.
Sun's Utility Computing Infrastructure Procurement service combines Sun
hardware that is based on the UltraSPARC III processor and/or Sun
StorEdge products, the Solaris Operating System (Solaris OS)
and services under a utility pricing model that allows acquisition of
IT infrastructure on a pay-for-use basis. Sun's utility computing
service is structured to maximize customer choice and control over IT
environments, cost management and service levels.
The Java Desktop System, introduced at the SunNetwork
Conference 2003, includes a desktop environment based on GNOME; an
office suite featuring StarOffice 7 software; browser, email,
calendar and instant messaging applications; and a Linux operating
system. Included in the system is one year of maintenance and other
support services. The desktop targeted is for small and medium
businesses. It can run on older, existing hardware.
StarOffice 7 Office Suite Retail software aims to offer a full-function suite
with functionality for the home and office. The numerous stand-alone
applications are fully integrated and compatible with Microsoft Office.
StarOffice 7 Enterprise Edition Office Suite software includes additional enhanced support
for the Solaris Operating System (Solaris OS) and Linux.
Chapter 5 of the StarOffice 6 software User's Guide describes how
the software allows users to create presentations using the StarOffice
Impress tool. After creating the presentation with the AutoPilot
feature the user can also edit the presentation, switch views, add
slides, export, create a business report or create an organization
chart.
A Sun Net Talk will be held on October 2, 1-2 p.m. ET, detailing high
availability demands in today's high tech environment. "Achieving High
Availability: Beyond Five 9's to 'Always On,'" examines those
mission-critical applications that some businesses just can't afford to have
ever go down.
Storage Expo 2003 is intended for IT professionals facing the task of
choosing and implementing a data storage technology. Details will be
available on the latest storage solutions from more than 90 major vendors
exhibiting on the show floor. The event is scheduled for October 15-16 in
London, U.K. and will open at 10:00 a.m. both days.
Sun veterans will assemble for an upcoming Web seminar that will examine
and debate the highly touted Java Enterprise System that was
recently announced at the SunNetwork Conference 2003. "Taming the
Infrastructure Beast: Does Sun's New Model Deliver?" will be held
online on November 10, at 2 p.m. ET.
The Sun Blade 1500 workstation is built with the UltraSPARC IIIi
processor and features support for 4 GB of DDR memory, up to two
internal 80-GB, 7200 RPM Ultra ATA100 hard drives, five PCI slots, and
support for high-performance graphics such as the Sun XVR-100 or
Sun XVR-500 graphics accelerators. The Sun Blade 1500 workstation
also offers built-in USB 1.1, USB 2.0 and IEEE 1394a FireWire ports and
on-board Gigabit Ethernet (10/100/1000Base-T). The Solaris 8
Operating System (Solaris OS) comes installed.
Course number SM-256 teaches the maintenance and administration of the
Sun Blade 1000 workstation, Sun Blade 2000 workstation and Sun
Fire 280R server. Topics covered include the architectural layout
of each workstation and the server; replacing parts on these products;
and administering these products using firmware and software commands
and utilities.
Capacity On Demand 2.0 (COD 2.0) and Temporary Capacity On Demand (T-
COD) are designed to offer easy access to additional system capacity
with no disruption to computing services, helping to improve
availability and lower total cost of ownership (TCO) in your data
center.
The Sun Fire Workgroup server course (SM-258) introduces students to the Sun Fire
280R, Sun Fire V480 and Sun Fire V880 servers, covering installation,
configuration and maintenance issues.
Sun customers with operating Sun Enterprise 3000/4000/5000 and 6000
servers have been given an additional two years to determine their
migration path to the current Sun Fire server line. SunSpectrum
program End of Service Life (EOSL) support on the Sun Enterprise server
series has been extended from March 31, 2004 to March 31, 2006 in
response to customer demand. Concurrently, the EOSL date for
SPARCstorage arrays is being extended to coincide with the extension
on the Sun Enterprise servers mentioned above, March 31, 2006.
The Sun Fire V440 server, introduced at the NC 03 Q3 launch, is a
data center-class server that delivers low-cost, horizontally-scalable
services and solutions. It features an integrated architecture designed
to meet a variety of different processing needs while reducing
complexity and maximizing valuable data center floor space. Features
include up to four 1.062-GHz or 1.28-GHz UltraSPARC IIIi processors,
up to 16 GB of memory and up to four 36-GB Ultra320 SCSI disks.
The Sun Fire V60x Compute Grid rack system combines hardware and
management software that is pre-configured and integrated to meet grid
computing objectives of compute-intensive applications. The Sun Fire
V60x server is used as the hardware platform for Cluster Grid Manager
and as the compute nodes. It is pre-loaded with Red Hat Enterprise
Linux 2.1 (ES Edition), Sun Control Station 2.0 and Sun ONE Grid
Engine 5.3, Enterprise Edition. The whole Sun Fire V60x Compute Grid
rack system is delivered in a Sun Rack 900.
New Zealand's National Library is implementing Sun equipment to help it
to better gather Web information and make more of its archived content
available online, according to Tom Pullar-Strecker, writing for stuff.co.nz. The
library is making the Sun Fire 12K server the centerpiece of its $3
million computer upgrade.
Sun can provide universities with a business continuity solution that
goes beyond storage. Sun's business continuity solutions are available
for every campus need. Resources for schools include promotions on
hardware and software, a storage TCO review and the Sun Infrastructure
Solution for Enterprise Continuity.
The Information Module Profile (IMP) is an optional Connected Limited
Device Configuration (CLDC) package for the Java 2 Platform, Micro
Edition (J2ME). When it is put together with the CLDC, the IMP
offers a Java technology application environment targeted at
embedded networked devices that are constrained and lack rich graphical
display capabilities.
Java Web Services Developer Pack (Java WSDP) 1.2 contains the
latest versions of XML and Java technologies for building reliable
and secure Web Services. It has added new features, fixed bugs from
earlier releases and made developing and deploying Web Services
easier, according to Qusay H. Mahmoud in his overview of the new
technologies and tools in the Java WSDP 1.2. More importantly, he
states, Java WSDP 1.2 is implementing cutting-edge industrial
technologies such as the XML Web Services Security (XML Signature) and
Web Services Interoperability (WS-I) Basic Profile.
A recent exploit has been identified that can allow remote attackers to
gain super-user privileges by executing arbitrary commands against
Solaris Operating System (Solaris OS) hosts that are running the default Remote
Procedure Call (RPC) authentication scheme in Solstice AdminSuite
software. A workaround is available involving the sadmind daemon.
Sun is offering the Sun Certified Security Administrator for the
Solaris 9 Operating System (Solaris OS) exam for interested
candidates who have six to twelve months of experience administering
security in Solaris OS. The course provides students with the skills to
implement, administer and maintain a secure Solaris OS.
Vijay Masurkar of Sun Services provides best practices tips and more in
his Sun BluePrints OnLine document "Responding to a Customer's
Security Incidents -- Part 3: Following Up After an Incident". Topics
in the third paper present best practices such as acquiring incident
data, resorting to legal actions when deemed necessary, and
post-incident activities, such as taking inventory of the affected
assets, assessing the damage and capturing the lessons learned.
The infrastructure software solutions provider Process Software is
releasing its new PreciseMail Anti-Spam Gateway for general
availability in October. The solution takes advantage of rule-based and
artificial intelligence technologies to eliminate unwanted spam email
at the Internet gateway, without blocking critical email messages.
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