Sun Announces Solaris 9 Operating Environment: With Over 300 New Features, Customers Save Money and Time

New version of leading enterprise operating environment provides customers with path to application services future and all the features they need for increased manageability, security, availability, and scalability

Santa Clara, Calif. -- May 22, 2002 -- Sun Microsystems, a leader in systems and solutions that make the net work, today announced the Solaris 9 Operating Environment (Solaris OE), the new version of the leading operating system for UNIX (R) servers. With over 300 new features, Solaris 9 provides users, system administrators, and developers with a superior services platform, making it easier to develop, deploy and manage Web services on Sun systems. Sun also announced it is integrating significant elements of middleware, including its next generation Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) 1.3 compliant Sun ONE Application Server 7, Platform Edition, and the foundation for identity management, the Sun ONE Directory Server. Saving millions for the typical enterprise, Solaris 9 OE also includes enhanced manageability, security, availability, and scalability features.

"Solaris 9 OE provides the industry's most complete platform architecture for today's mission critical applications," said Andy Ingram, vice president of marketing for Solaris software at Sun Microsystems, Inc. "Solaris 9 OE is the only Operating Environment to deliver so many dimensions of middleware and application architecture built-in, while still allowing for the integration of third party applications. Furthermore, key components of security and provisioning are built right into the operating environment. Taken together, these enhancements will help to reduce cost of acquisition, testing, integration and management, and will dramatically improve resource utilization while making deployment of Web services more secure, available, and easier to manage."

New Features Enhance Manageability, Security, Availability, Scalability

Sun announced over 300 new feature enhancements in Solaris 9 OE in the areas of manageability (Sun ONE integration; data management; provisioning and change management; and server virtualization); security; availability (configuration management and full Sun Cluster 3.0 support); and scalability (performance enhancements and increased compatibility.)

"Sun has delivered a solid platform for deploying Web applications and services with Solaris 9 OE by anticipating the technological innovation required to take computing to the next level," said Tony Iams, vice president of systems software for D.H. Brown Associates. "Improving security, manageability and provisioning, Solaris 9 OE also benefits from the most mature partitioning capabilities in the UNIX space."

Sun Open Net Environment (Sun ONE) Integration

The Solaris 9 OE will feature the integration of the new J2EE 1.3 compliant Sun ONE Application Server 7, Platform Edition with a single server development and deployment license for use on Sun systems. The Application Server includes the market proven and high performance http engine and web infrastructure from the Sun ONE Web Server and the Sun ONE Message Queue, which is ten times faster than IBM's WebSphere MQ product. Solaris 9 OE also integrates the Sun ONE Directory Server, an industry-leading foundation for open, scalable identity management. The integration of these Sun ONE middleware elements into Solaris 9 OE makes it easier to build and deploy application and web services based on Java, XML and SOAP technologies, while helping customers to save on acquisition, integration, testing, support, and management costs. Further details to be unveiled in June, at http://www.sun.com/sunonenetevent/

Data Management

The Solaris 9 OE incorporates many file system features which provide high performance and superior manageability without the need to buy additional products. New features include:

• Unix File Systems (UFS): Journaling and concurrent direct I/O improves performance and resilience, particularly of databases.
• Solaris Volume Manager: Provides storage management tools that allow users to efficiently manage large disks as well as large numbers of disks. For example, the number of disk partitions per device has been increased from eight to eight thousand, which means that customers can more cost-effectively utilize large capacity storage devices by partitioning them as needed. Graphical disk management has also been enhanced, making it easier for customers to manage their storage environment.

"The data management features in Solaris 9 OE provide an integrated platform for the production database and file system requirements of EG&G's customers," said Boyd Fletcher, systems engineer, EG&G. "The cost savings of having the Solaris Volume Manager integrated into Solaris 9 OE are significant, on average $50K per site, and the UFS and Network File Systems (NFS) enhancements enable faster creation of file systems with improved performance and reliability."

Provisioning and Change Management

Solaris 9 OE enables system administrators to more easily and securely install and update software stacks, thus simplifying common tasks and reducing cost of operations. Key provisioning features include:

• Solaris Flash software: allows a user to create a snapshot of the entire software stack (including applications, the OS, and customizations) and then copy it to another system, reducing typical installation or reconfiguration time from hours to minutes.
• Live Upgrade: minimizes downtime by allowing for operating environment upgrades while still supporting production workloads. The original OE configuration is preserved, allowing for safe rollback if needed.
• New change management features include:
• Sun Management Center Change Manager. To be available later this year, Change Manager will allow rapid automated deployment of software stacks to groups of systems simultaneously across the network.

Server Virtualization: Solaris Containers, Resource Management

Solaris 9 OE extends Sun's leadership in resource utilization by introducing Solaris software containers as well as integrating advanced resource management functionality into the operating environment:

• Solaris software containers are an extension of the UNIX (R) partitioning concept introduced with Dynamic System Domains, a fifth-generation leadership technology from Sun, and Dynamic Reconfiguration, in which components including CPUs and memory can be replaced with no system or application downtime. This functionality extends across Sun's server product line, from the Sun Fire V880, 3800-6800, 12K, 15K, and the Sun Enterprise 10000.
• Containers: Allows customers to run multiple applications on a single server, with fault, security and resource containment built-in. Container sizes can even be changed without bringing down the application. This enables the delivery of more predictable application service levels to all of the diverse applications that are consolidated on a given system. Rather than repurposing old mainframe technology to UNIX, Sun is delivering an innovative approach which more efficiently utilizes resources.
• Solaris software containers will be delivered in phases, beginning with Solaris 9 Resource Manager. Now built into the Solaris OE, Solaris 9 Resource Manager makes it easy to allocate resources, allowing for fine-grain control of CPU and memory.

Security

The Solaris 9 OE builds in the core security services required to protect modern application services that live on the Internet. New security features in Solaris 9 OE include:

• SunScreen 3.2: This enterprise class firewall enables system level access control in addition to stealth mode perimeter security.
• Secure Shell: for secure remote access and management.
• IPSec: Built-in 128 bit encryption allows for greater protection of data on the network.
• Kerberos v5 server: Built into Solaris 9 OE, this industry-standard protocol enables single sign-on.
• Buffer overflow protection: Limits attacks based on buffer overflow exploits.
• Other features include security hardening scripts; extensible password encryption, and RBAC (role-based access control).

Availability

Extending an already highly available system, Solaris 9 OE includes the following features:

• The Solaris 9 OE will be available immediately with full Sun Cluster 3.0 support through its latest update, Sun Cluster 3.0 5/02 software. Sun Cluster 3.0 software enables pooling of resources in a tightly coupled environment providing customers with easier manageability at higher service levels. Sun Cluster 3.0 software provides agents for applications such as Oracle9i RAC and SAP to ensure that these applications can run in a highly available manner within the cluster. Sun Cluster 3.0 software is the only clustering solution for Solaris OE that delivers Dynamic Reconfiguration capability in a cluster.
• Data multipathing: Solaris OE provides for multipathing data to storage devices and across the network through the Sun StorEdge Traffic Manager and enhancements to IP Multipathing.
• Reconfiguration Coordination Manager: Automates dynamic reconfiguration operations. The Reconfiguration Coordination Manager and Automated Dynamic Reconfiguration tools enable system administrators to easily manage the process of adding and removing physical system resources.
• High Availability Service Packs: Blends out of the box consulting, training, and support services to provide a foundation from which a comprehensive availability solution can be implemented and managed throughout the application life cycle.
• Dynamic Reconfiguration: Processors, memory, and I/O interfaces can be
• plugged into Sun's Sun Fire V880, 3800-6800, 12K, 15K, and Sun Enterprise 10000 systems to dynamically configure into or out of an operating system's domain and be replaced with no downtime.

Configuration Management

Using the Sun Sigma process to measure customer experience, Sun has determined that proper configuration is a key contributor to system uptime. To address this, Sun has made significant investments in configuration management services. They include:

• Reliability Availability Serviceability (RAS) Knowledge Database: An innovative rules database which captures best practices for systems configurations, particularly as it pertains to system availability.
• RAS Profile: A Sun service that compares the RAS Knowledge Database to a customer's existing configuration and makes recommendations on how to improve configurations with the goal of achieving higher availability.
• Solaris Patch Manager: Gives system administrators better control over configurations, by enabling them to easily determine what patches are already installed on a system, identify needed patches and then allowing those patches to be obtained and deployed in a secure automated fashion.

Performance: Increasing the Lead

Solaris 9 OE has made significant improvements in performance without necessarily requiring developers to recode, recompile or redesign existing applications. These include improvements to:

• Multithreading: Improved implementation of the threads library without breaking existing applications.
• Memory Optimization: Solaris 9 OE accelerates applications, allowing them to take advantage of the extensive memory architecture available in Sun Fire systems.
• Java technology: Solaris 9 OE integrates "HotSpot" Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition, (J2SE) 1.4 platform, which significantly increases performance of applications that use Java technologies.

The following world records were achieved using the Solaris 8 OE. Sun expects similar or better results will be achieved with the Solaris 9 Operating Environment:

• #1 Java platform performance on SPECjbb 2000--77 percent faster than IBM's best posted number. [1]
• #1 non-clustered DSS performance on TPC-H for 1000GB database--43 percent faster than HP's best posted number. [2]
• Best linearity: Sun Fire 15K server demonstrates 99 percent (98.96%) linearity on 64-bit processors across 72 CPUs (Oracle 9i data warehouse query; at 72 CPUs, performance is 71.25 times faster than 1 CPU)

Compatibility

Sun is so confident about compatibility between revisions that it offers a guarantee of application compatibility. The Solaris Guarantee Test Suite provides a means by which a customer can determine whether an application can move from one Solaris OE release to the latest without incurring potential compatibility problems.

Solaris 9 OE has enhanced built-in Linux compatibility and includes many new features, including APIs, commands, tools, utilities, and services. This is one of Sun's key Linux initiatives, ensuring Linux applications can 'just run' while scaling up and taking advantage of the rich features and benefits of Solaris OE. Sun also provides the Linux Compatibility Assurance Toolkit (LinCAT) to further simplify the process of developing source code compatible applications. Solaris 9 will also feature the next generation desktop, GNOME 2.0.

Services

Sun is providing a comprehensive suite of services to help customers quickly and cost-effectively implement, upgrade or migrate to the new Solaris 9 Operating Environment and get the most out of its new features and functionality. Sun's services include technical consulting to assess opportunities for mainframe migration and consolidation, a complete portfolio of training options, and total care support solutions. For more information, please visit http://sun.com/service/about/features/solaris9.html

Pricing and Availability

Sun includes a Solaris software license in the price of each hardware system shipped. Customers with Sun support contracts receive upgrades as part of the price of support. For all others, Solaris 9 OE is available from $50 and up.

The Solaris 9 Operating Environment (SPARC ® Platform Edition) is available for download at no cost for an unlimited number of systems with a maximum capacity of a single CPU. The Free Solaris Binary License Program is at http://www.sun.com/solaris/binaries. A Systems Administration kit with Solaris software media, hard copy installation documentation and bonus software is also available at this site.

About the Solaris 9 Operating Environment

The Solaris Operating Environment (OE) is the premiere operating environment for the enterprise. With over 300 new features, Solaris 9 OE is the most scalable, available, manageable and secure services platform for the networked world. By focusing on industry standards, the Internet, innovation and integration, Solaris 9 OE delivers a documented lower cost of operation. Solaris is the leading UNIX operating environment with Sun servers capturing 64 percent US market share in shipments and 54 percent revenue share, according to Gartner Dataquest's "1Q02 Servers Quarterly Statistics."

The Solaris 9 OE is available on the SPARC Architecture platforms and supports more than 12,000 applications. Customers have access to many freeware programs, including utilities, productivity tools and development tools. In addition, the Solaris 9 OE will include the integrated Sun ONE Application Server 7, Platform Edition, and the Sun ONE Directory Server, along with special licensing for other Sun ONE products and the Oracle 9i database.

Solaris 9 will include a single server development and deployment license for Sun's next generation J2EE 1.3 compliant Sun ONE Application Server 7, Platform Edition, with full integration scheduled for the end of calendar 2002. The Sun ONE Directory Server is fully integrated today and is available immediately with a license for 200,000 named entries per Solaris Enterprise Wide Network on Sun systems. Full licensing and support information is available from http://sun.com/solaris.

Listen to the Solaris 9 Audiocast at http://www.sun.com/webcast/solaris9/index.html.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision -- "The Network Is The Computer" -- has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that make the Net work. Sun can be found in more than 170 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun Logo, Solaris, Java, J2EE, Sun Enterprise, Sun Fire, Sun StorEdge, SunScreen, and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

All SPARC trademarks are used under license and are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.

UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries, exclusively licensed through X/Open Company, Ltd.

[1.] SPECjbb is a trademark of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corp. (SPEC). Results published on http://www.spec.org as of 5/20/02. For the latest results see http://www.spec.org

[2] On TPC-H the Sun Fire 15K delivered 18,802.1 QphH@1000GB, $287/QphH@1000GB, avail 7/17/02. TPC-H, QphH and $/QphH are trademarks of the TPC. For latest information see http://www.tpc.org

Sun Microsystems Announces Solaris 9 Operating Environment: Transforms #1 Unix Into Modern Services Platform

Extends Industry Lead - First to Offer Built-in Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition Application Server and Identity Management Foundation; Major Performance and Security Enhancements

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- May 22, 2002 -- Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW), a leader in systems and solutions that make the net work, today announced the shipping of the Solaris 9 Operating Environment (Solaris OE) (http://www.sun.com/solaris). Solaris 9 OE changes the market for operating environments by raising the bar on what it means to be a modern network services platform-- building services based on Web technologies. Solaris 9 OE also helps customers reduce costs and risks by making applications easier to deploy and manage. The Solaris OE is the foundation for Sun Open Net Environment (Sun ONE), the integration of Sun's award winning portfolio of software products.

"Solaris 9 OE is out in front and pulling away," said Scott McNealy, chairman and CEO of Sun Microsystems. "The industry's premiere Operating Environment for the enterprise just got better, giving developers the richest industrial strength platform for application delivery. Solaris 9 OE provides users with the most reliable, scalable, secure, and manageable operating environment today, and now we're converging it with critical areas of Java technology and XML middleware to extend the platform for even faster deployment. All still done in an open, standards-based world. As the UNIX market evolves and continues to expand through Solaris, Linux and the Mac OS X, we see a massive uptake in demand for the kind of operating environment partners can build on with confidence. Solaris 9 OE just helped extend that confidence even further."

Solaris 9 OE delivers several significant firsts for the industry. The most important of these is the integration of the new Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) 1.3 compliant Sun ONE Application Server 7, Platform Edition with a single server development and deployment license for use on Sun systems. Solaris 9 OE also integrates the Sun ONE Directory Server, the industry-leading foundation for open, scalable identity management. The integration of these Sun ONE middleware elements into Solaris 9 OE makes it easier to build and deploy application and web services based on Java, XML and SOAP technologies, while helping customers to save on acquisition, integration, testing, support, and management costs.

"By integrating the Sun ONE Application Server and other important middleware into Solaris 9 OE, Sun provides customers with a more complete platform for developing and running applications in a J2EE environment," said Shawn Willett, principal analyst at Current Analysis. "The inclusion of application server middleware into Solaris 9 OE can help lower the cost of operations as companies develop Web services. However, Sun customers will still be able to work with third party applications and middleware with Solaris 9 OE, as the company is avoiding proprietary lock-ins."

In addition, Solaris 9 OE includes more than 300 improvements which enrich the meaning of the modern services platform. These improvements help save time and money and improve security, manageability, performance and compatibility:

• Time and Money Savings: Save up to three-quarters of a million dollars in acquisitions costs alone depending on system configuration. The integration of Sun ONE middleware, a firewall, Resource and Volume Managers, as well as enhancements to file system management and provisioning resources help drive down the cost of acquisition, integration and testing, while increasing efficiency and overall system manageability. In many instances, the improvements in the Solaris OE lead to dramatic reduction in the time required to carry out routine system configuration activities. In some instances, the time required for routine system updates can even be reduced from hours to minutes.
• World-Class Performance: Solaris 9 OE holds world record performance numbers in three categories: the ability for a system to run business applications using Java technologies; decision support database applications; and linear scalability for numbers of CPUs in a data wherehouse application. The formal benchmarks that substantiate these claims are available from http://www.sun.com/solaris
• Improved Security: Solaris 9 OE is the first operating Environment to feature an integrated, full enterprise-class firewall. Other features enable greater protection of data on the network, simplify and strengthen security administration, and help to reduce the impact of network attacks.
• Easier Resource Management: Solaris 9 OE is the only UNIX(R) OE to have integrated resource management which helps drive service levels up while reducing system administration costs with a variety of tools designed to streamline system configurations, updates and patch management.
• Increased Availability: Application service downtime can mean losing customers and millions of dollars in revenue. Through the Sun Cluster 3.0 software available immediately for Solaris 9 OE, applications such as Oracle9i RAC and SAP will run with a high degree of reliability. Solaris 9 OE also helps increase data and network availability.
• Guaranteed Compatibility: Sun is the only vendor offering a guarantee of application compatibility with prior Solaris-based applications. Solaris 9 OE also brings improved compatiblity with Linux through the addition of many new APIs, commands, tools, utilities and services. (For program terms and details see web page http://www.sun.com/solaris/programs/guarantee.html)

The Solaris OE continues to accumulate the most extensive UNIX application portfolio available with solutions that redefine industry practices and business processes and drive improved profitability in key industries such as healthcare, streaming media and financial services. Significant market segments include Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Supply Chain Management (SCM), and Enterprise System Management. Over 60 partners, including Oracle (R), BEA, VERITAS, J.D. Edwards, SunGard and BMC Software will rely on the extensive features included in the new Solaris 9 OE that make applications easier to deploy and manage.

Sun is also providing a comprehensive suite of services to help customers upgrade or migrate to the new Solaris 9 Operating Environment including technical consulting to assess opportunities for mainframe migration and server consolidation. Solaris 9 OE is available immediately across the Sun server line and is planned to be available across Sun workstation product lines in calendar year 2003.

"Serious times demand a serious approach and enterprises are being challenged to do more with less as they make fundamental decisions about the architecture they choose," said Anil Gadre, vice president of Solaris software at Sun Microsystems, Inc. "True to Sun's DNA, Solaris 9 OE provides support for open standards with the ability to integrate, and positions Sun and Sun's partners as technology enablers. The options are clear � choose an open, integratable approach as part of a complete end-to-end solution, or face complexity and closed options, which in time will restrict your opportunities for growth and integration. Solaris OE and the Sun ONE platform remain the best technology investment today."

In the 1Q'02 Servers Quarterly Statistics from Gartner Dataquest, Sun Microsystems was ranked number one in US UNIX server revenue with $924.9M, larger than the combined US revenues of IBM, HP, and Compaq. Sun and its UltraSPARC(R)-based systems experienced the highest level of revenue growth year on year of the top five IT vendors while most competing systems saw a decline.

Pricing and Availability

Sun includes a Solaris software license in the price of each hardware system shipped. Customers with Sun support contracts receive upgrades as part of the price of support. For all others, Solaris OE is available from $50 and up.

The Solaris 9 Operating Environment, SPARC(R) Platform Edition, is available for download at no cost for an unlimited number of systems with a maximum capacity of a single CPU. The Free Solaris Binary License Program is at http: //www.sun.com/solaris/binaries. A Systems Administration kit with Solaris media, hard copy installation documentation and bonus software is also available at this site.

Solaris 9 OE will include a single server development and deployment license for Sun's next generation J2EE 1.3 compliant Sun ONE Application Server 7, Platform Edition, with full integration scheduled for the end of calendar 2002. The Sun ONE Directory Server is fully integrated today and is available immediately with a license for 200,000 named entries per Solaris Enterprise Wide Network on Sun systems. Full licensing and support information is available from http://www.sun.com/solaris. Customer webcasts will be available in June, at http://www.sun.com/sunonenetevent

About the Solaris 9 Operating Environment

The Solaris Operating Environment is the premiere Operating Environment for the enterprise. With over 300 new features, Solaris 9 OE is the most scalable, available, manageable and secure service platform for the networked world. By focusing on industry standards, the Internet, innovation and integration, Solaris 9 OE delivers a documented lower cost of operation. Solaris is the leading UNIX operating environment with Sun servers owning 64 percent US UNIX market share in shipments and 54 percent US UNIX revenue share, according to Gartner Dataquest's "1Q02 Servers Quarterly Statistics."

The Solaris 9 OE is available on the SPARC Architecture platforms and supports more than 12,000 applications. Customers have access to many freeware programs, including utilities, productivity tools and development tools. In addition, the Solaris 9 OE will include the integrated Sun ONE Application Server 7, Platform Edition, and the Sun ONE Directory Server, along with special licensing for other Sun ONE products and the Oracle9i database.

About Sun Open Net Environment (Sun ONE) architecture

Sun ONE, the integration of Sun's award-winning portfolio of software products, is Sun's vision, architecture, platform and expertise that enables the delivery and deployment of services on demand. Through its open, integratable architecture, Sun ONE extends current enterprise systems to help reduce costs and complexity while improving organizations return on assets. More information on Sun ONE is available at http://www.sun.com/sunone.

Listen to the Solaris 9 Audiocast at http://www.sun.com/webcast/solaris9/index.html.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision -- "The Network Is The Computer" -- has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that make the Net work. Sun can be found in more than 170 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun Logo, Java, J2EE, Solaris, Free Solaris, BigAdmin and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

All SPARC trademarks are used under license and are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.

UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries, exclusively licensed through X/Open Company, Ltd.

Industry Leaders Endorse Solaris 9 OE

Solaris Market Share Momentum Boosts Market Opportunity for BEA, BMC, J.D. Edwards, Oracle, SAP, SunGard, Sybase, VERITAS

SANTA CLARA, CA -- May 22, 2002 -- Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW), a leader in systems and solutions that make the Net work, today joined with over 60 industry leaders to introduce Solaris 9 Operating Environment, Sun's newest edition of Solaris and the heart of its modern services platform. Solaris OE continues to build the most extensive UNIX[R] application portfolio available with solutions that consistently improve industry practices and business processes. Partners relying on the enhancements to Solaris 9 OE span market segments from Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), to Supply Chain Management (SCM), and Enterprise System Management partners including BEA, Oracle, VERITAS, J.D. Edwards, Sybase, SunGard and BMC Software.

The Solaris 9 OE is the foundation of the Sun Open Net Environment (Sun ONE), which enables customers to build and deploy services on demand, today. Designed to lower the cost of IT management and overall operations, the Solaris 9 OE includes more than 300 new features improving availability, manageability, performance and security. In addition to its technological excellence, and 64 percent UNIX market share in shipments and 54 percent UNIX revenue share, the Solaris OE is a proven platform on which to build a market place.

The Solaris OE has long been recognized for its rich breadth of application support. From the desktop to the DataCenter the Solaris OE has created a computing ecosystem that has fostered growth in numerous industry segments. With industry standard database support from leading solutions such as Oracle9i and Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise, Solaris 9 OE will deliver high performance and manageability to support resource intensive computing needs for markets such as financial services and retail.

"Oracle is very pleased with the new enhancements and additional capabilities of Sun's Solaris 9 operating environment," said Doug Kennedy, vice president, Platform Alliances, Platform Technologies Division, Oracle Corporation . "The system is highly optimized for Oracle9i Real Application Clusters which will enable our mutual customers to achieve much higher levels of availability and performance at a dramatically reduced cost."

The Solaris 9 OE includes the SolCat toolkit to facilitate ISV application migration for software vendors either in a stand-alone or in a fully networked environment. This toolkit, available to ISVs and customers, assures that the porting effort of our ISVs will carry over from one release of Solaris to the next.

"The new Sun Solaris 9 Operating Environment has allowed J.D. Edwards to quickly validate our software application suite, and will be supported in the SP20 release of J.D. Edwards OneWorld® Xe," said Michael Madden, chief technology officer, J.D. Edwards. "In addition, recompiling using Sun's Forte compilers yielded significant performance improvements over previous Sun compiler versions. Clearly, Solaris 9 goes a long way in enhancing the performance, scalability and total cost of ownership of J.D. Edwards software for our mutual customers."

Solaris 9 OE is a modern services platform that makes applications easier to deploy and manage. Integrated identity management, policy management, messaging and workflow management have allowed Solaris OE to be the foundation for delivering rich application services. As the service platform for the Sun ONE architecture, Solaris 9 OE will provide a scalable, secure, reliable and high performing environment for delivering web services, with approximately 80 percent of all application servers running today run on the Solaris platform. Solaris has a rich developer legacy and enjoys the depth of development resources and tools from open source community solutions such as NetBeans to full lifecycle software development solutions from Rational.

"BEA has maintained a long standing strategic alliance with Sun to deliver high value and superior performing solutions to customers worldwide," said Gamiel Gran, vice president of worldwide alliances. "As an industry leader in bringing Java to the enterprise, BEA will continue to work closely with Sun to optimize the performance and scalability of BEA's WebLogic Enterprise Platform for the Solaris Operating Environment."

In providing an exceptional customer experience, leaders in the CRM and supply chain space including Oracle, SAP, J.D. Edwards and Manugistics will deploy on the Solaris 9 OE. "SAP has a high interest in the fast adoption of Solaris 9 OE. We are always pushing the limits to provide our joint customers with the latest in technology to help them improve their return on investment in a safe and secure way. The Solaris OE has a proven track record of stability and binary compatibility with mySAP.com," said Karl-Heinz Hess, Executive Vice President, Technology Development, Member of the Extended Management Board, SAP AG.

Sun is committed to working with its industry-leading ISV partners for multi-vendor interoperability ensuring that customers experience a smooth upgrade path to the Solaris 9 platform.

"VERITAS Software and Sun share a commitment to engineering integration that enables us to announce VERITAS Foundation Suite today running on Solaris 9," said Kevin A. Reinis, vice president of business development and strategic alliances, VERITAS Software. "Shortly, we will introduce VERITAS Database Edition™ for Solaris 9 customers, which will provide robust application availability and performance optimization for industry-standard databases such as Oracle 9iRAC, Sybase and IBM DB2."

Solaris OE is also the chosen services platform for delivering comprehensive integration solutions for financial services. SunGard Business Integration works exclusively with major international financial services institutions. SunGard Business Integration's MINT Knowledge family of solutions enables financial services institutions to seamlessly integrate disparate business processes and the supporting applications.

"In the drive towards hardened straight through processing and T+1 for the financial services industry, SunGard Business Integration's MINT family of products must have the most secure and resilient platform on which to run," said Danny Barsella, chief executive officer, SunGard Business Integration. "Solaris 9 OE with its enhanced security and reliability features, ensures investment protection through binary compatibility between each release enabling us to focus on customer solutions, not constant upgrades."

About the Solaris 9 Operating Environment

The Solaris Operating Environment is the premier operating environment for the enterprise. With over 300 new features, Solaris 9 is the most scalable, available, manageable and secure service delivery platform for the networked world. By focusing on industry standards, the Internet, innovation and integration, Solaris 9 delivers a documented lower cost of operation. Solaris is the leading UNIX operating environment with 64 percent market share in shipments and 54 percent revenue share, according to Gartner Dataquest's "1Q02 Servers Quarterly Statistics."

The Solaris 9 OE is available on the SPARC Architecture platforms and supports more than 12,000 applications. Customers have access to many freeware programs, including utilities, productivity tools and development tools. In addition, the Solaris 9 OE offers an integrated Sun ONE Application Server and Sun ONE Directory Server, along with access to the Oracle9i database.

A complete list of Independent Software and Hardware Vendor participating in the Solaris 9 OE program can be obtained at www.sun.com/presskits/solaris9

Listen to the Solaris 9 Audiocast at http://www.sun.com/webcast/solaris9/index.html.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision -- "The Network Is The Computer" -- has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that make the Net work. Sun can be found in more than 170 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Solaris and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries, exclusively licensed through X/Open company, Ltd. All SPARC trademarks are used under license and are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation.