Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz Previews Sun xVM and Unveils Partner Ecosystem at Oracle OpenWorld

Business Wire, Nov 14, 2007

Industry's First Free, Open Source Datacenter Virtualization and Management Platform

SAN FRANCISCO -- Today during his keynote address at Oracle OpenWorld San Francisco, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq:JAVA) President and CEO Jonathan Schwartz will unveil Sun(TM) xVM, the company's open, comprehensive virtualization and management platform. The introduction of Sun xVM marks a new era in IT productivity, building on years of virtualization innovations in the Java(TM) platform, in the free and open source Solaris(TM) Operating System (OS), and in the commodity UltraSparc(R) microprocessor. During his keynote, Schwartz will also highlight Sun's cutting-edge Eco technologies that help increase IT energy efficiency and drive user cost savings.

"The world clearly recognizes that the move to free and open source software has led to savings, efficiency and competition. Virtualization presents an equivalently compelling opportunity - but it's a move not without risk," said Schwartz. "Customers tell us the last thing they want is a proprietary vendor at the core of their next generation datacenter architectures, which is why Sun is pleased to commit nearly $2 billion in R&D to the success of its xVM program, a free and open software platform and comprehensive management offering to virtualize and manage mixed environments running platform software from the Java, OpenSolaris(TM) and Linux software communities, along with Microsoft Windows, across HP, Dell, IBM and Sun hardware. Sun xVM moves beyond server consolidation, recognizing that virtualization must encompass all datacenter assets, from the network and storage, to applications and hardware provisioning -- while eliminating the risk of proprietary dependency."

During the keynote, Sun will also demonstrate two upcoming products at the core of Sun's virtualization offerings: Sun xVM Ops Center, a unified management infrastructure, and Sun xVM Server, an enterprise-grade bare-metal hypervisor. Sun xVM will combine enhancements to Sun's existing technology portfolio with new offerings that will help customers to increase efficiency, while simplifying management and saving money. Additionally, Sun will launch www.openxvm.org, an open source community for developers building next-generation datacenter virtualization and management technologies.

Sun will also announce that key industry partners are supporting the company's goal to deliver the industry's first, interoperable, virtualization and management platform built on open source technologies. AMD, Intel, MySQL, Quest Software, Red Hat and Symantec are a few of the many hardware, software, operating system and management companies endorsing Sun's vision for the future of virtualization.

"Virtualization extends the tradition of information technology enabling customers to do more with less, and its profound benefits are truly revolutionizing the industry," said Hector Ruiz, Chairman and CEO, AMD. "Sun's introduction of its open xVM Infrastructure expands enterprise access to virtualization technology and its accompanying benefits, including helping contain ballooning energy costs through consolidation. With Quad-Core AMD Opteron(TM) processors specifically designed to optimize virtualization performance, and Sun xVM products based on Solaris OS, AMD and Sun will push the envelope for what is possible with virtualization in the enterprise."

"Virtualization is gaining momentum and bringing real value to the enterprise," said Kirk Skaugen, Vice President Server Platforms Group, Intel. "Intel supports virtualization solutions from leading suppliers including Sun. Sun and Intel are working together to take advantage of Intel[R] Virtualization Technology in the new Intel[R] Xeon[R] processors. We expect this collaboration on Sun xVM Server to accelerate the value of virtualization solutions across the enterprise."

"We are thrilled to see Sun bring a world-class open source virtualization solution to market; a true testament of Sun's continued commitment to the open source community," said Marten Mickos, CEO, MySQL AB. "We're always pleased to offer our customers more open source options. Now, they can deploy the MySQL database and Sun's xVM virtualization platform to drive further productivity and cost efficiencies across the enterprise."

"Virtualization is one of the most important areas for Quest moving forward, and we are delighted to partner with Sun in its effort to have Sun xVM address the increasing market demand for a simplified, reliable and open virtualization and management platform," said Mike Ragusa, vice president, Channels and Alliances, Quest Software. "Together we're working to ensure that Quest's expanding line of systems management products and tools will support Sun's xVM product portfolio to help organizations get even more performance and productivity out of their enterprise applications and databases."

Red Hat and Sun are collaborating to expand interoperability and customer choice. Customers seeking a free and open source virtualization platform that ensures interoperability and avoids proprietary vendor lock in, can look to Sun and Red Hat solutions. Sun supports Red Hat's Linux Automation strategy and Red Hat supports Sun's xVM strategy, both of which extend the reach and value of open source. Red Hat and Sun will ensure customers mutual certification and customer support across our virtualization offerings. In addition, Sun and Red Hat are committed to working together to foster libvirt (www.libvirt.org), an open source community for cross-platform virtualization management, to enable Sun, Red Hat and 3rd party management tools to seamlessly interoperate across each company's virtualization platforms.