INDUSTRY INTERVIEW: Sun Microsystems Federal
INDUSTRY INTERVIEW
Anthony Robbins
Vice President, Federal Sales,
Sun Microsystems Federal
Q: So, Sun Microsystems is open?
A: Yes. Sun is “open” because we provide and support open source software, implement solutions and interfaces in compliance with open standards and support information and data sharing using open formats. Sun offers our customer base the three most popular operating systems on the planet today: OpenSolaris, Linux and Windows. In addition, our servers support three chip families: AMD/Intel x64, Ultra SPARC and the 64-way CMT. Since we launched our x64 server product line, we have gone from new kid on the block to the fifth-largest provider in the world. Our Intel and AMD servers are leaders in space and power reduction, and will run Windows applications in half the space, and with 25 percent less power than HP or Dell at the same price point. Our high-end SPARC servers provide massive scale and hold world record benchmarks for large ERP and database applications. We don’t lock customers into any one operating system or chip product.
But “open” doesn’t stop with just breadth of choice. If there is one thing we want our customers to know, it is that Sun equals open source. A lot of marketers have jumped on the open source bandwagon, but let’s just say we were open source when open source wasn’t cool. We have waited for everyone to catch up to us. We have contributed more than any other company to the open source community. All of our software and hardware is either already open source or going through indemnification to become open source. OpenSolaris, MySQL, OpenOffice, Solaris, Java, Glassfish, PostgreSQL, and many other products are all open source. OpenSolaris has been downloaded millions upon millions of times for free. Our software runs on anyone’s hardware. Since we started open sourcing our software, SunFed’s software revenue has gone up over 300 percent. We open source to improve security, increase quality, reduce cost, lower barrier to entry/exit, and engage developers. In fact, Sun’s software leads the industry in security, and has passed the most rigorous government security protection profiles in the industry.
Q: Can you describe the type of technology solutions that Sun Microsystems provides to the U.S. military?
A: Sun’s core competency is in providing mission- critical infrastructure products—hardware and software. Sun’s solutions portfolio focus on three distinct computing platforms: the enterprise (large-scale, back-office computing), Web services, and command and control. If you are in the U.S. military and plan to deploy a system that needs top-level security, high availability, high performance, dynamic scaling, open architectures, at the best value, Sun is the company for you. We build mission-critical infrastructure hardware and software products that are open source and are made to solve large scale problems at the most economic price point from the desktop to the datacenter.
Q: Should the military care about power costs and IT footprints?
A: Absolutely. Power and IT footprint, also known as space, weight and power (SWaP), is always a critical factor to most any program, whether you are installing a major system to a data center or deploying to a Navy ship or deployable unit. Sun has accomplished some major feats of engineering to deliver the military IT solutions that reduce SWaP footprints. For example, our chip multi-threading technology combines multiple cpu threads on a single core and multiple cores on a single silicon chip. This means you can get the processing equivalent of 20 servers you may have purchased two years ago into one-twentieth the space with one-twentieth the power draw.
On the desktop, Sun developed the Ultra- Thin Client, which eliminates the large fat client and allow multiple sailors to securely use the same desktop. The desktop merely consists of a keyboard and a flat panel screen that is attached to a larger network server. One server can support hundreds of desktops, enabling the ship to reduce the space needed for IT equipment. And, perhaps most importantly, the thin client desktops use just 4 watts of electricity. We’ve deployed the Ultra Thin Client all over the Department to Defense, including to Navy ships and the Integrated Warfare Systems Laboratory (IWSL), where we have deployed nearly 300 Sun Ray thin clients over the past 18 months. The IWSL believes this solution is cost-effective, bringing down the cost to about $500 per client. At approximately $500 in savings per client, costs are now about half of what they had been.
Q. What is Sun’s role in data center consolidation and virtualization?
A: Reducing the number of redundant systems decreases both cost and risk while reducing distractions from the performance of unit core missions. Sun has a successful track record helping government customers reduce costs, deliver predictable service levels and improve manageability through consolidation and virtualization. Sun’s approach to virtualization includes all aspects of the environment. We give our customers the opportunity to virtualize via hardware partitions, hypervisor, jails/zones, virtual machine management, and application virtualization. We can provide this capability by taking advantage of Sun open source intellectual property and the outstanding solutions from our many partners.
Q: What about the portable datacenter you have been touting?
A: For remote deployments, Sun has recently introduced the Modular Datacenter (MD), or Project Blackbox. We just had it on display at the Pentagon in April and more than 22 government agencies over the past year. It is a portable, full-scale datacenter in a shipping container. The MD has the processing power equivalent to a 10,000 square foot datacenter but is onefifth the cost for computer power and uses 25 percent less power. It is fully customizable, with the capability of using Windows, Linux or Solaris operating systems, AMD, Intel or SPARC chips and any storage or CPU. The MD can be dropped in a parking lot or in a war zone—all it needs is a power source, water and a network connection, and you are off and running in less than six hours. ♦
