Sun Microsystems Revamps 'Galaxy' Line of Sun Fire(Tm) Servers

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today announced its "Galaxy" line of Sun Fire(TM) x64 (x86, 64-bit) servers powered by Next-Generation AMD Opteron(TM) processors and the Solaris(TM) 10 Operating System (OS), the most advanced operating system on the planet. The Sun Fire X4100 M2, Sun Fire X4200 M2 and Sun Fire X4600 M2 servers with on-chip virtualization support set new standards for reliability and energy efficiency. Sun was the first vendor to ship systems powered by the latest AMD Opteron processors with the release of the Sun Fire X2100 M2 and Sun Fire X2200 M2 servers in August.

"Sun changed the marketplace when we announced the 'Galaxy' Sun Fire X4100 and X4200 servers a year ago, and our x64 portfolio keeps picking up speed and getting stronger every quarter," said John Fowler, executive vice president, Systems Group, Sun Microsystems. "Now Sun's x64 server business has a completely refreshed product lineup, and we continue to deliver the stellar systems that our customers demand and love."

Designed for virtualization, web infrastructure and high performance computing (HPC), the Sun Fire X4100 M2, Sun Fire X4200 M2 and Sun Fire X4600 M2 servers deliver a combination of performance, manageability and longevity that is unmatched by competing x64 systems. These qualities make the Sun Fire server line an ideal solution for a variety of consolidation and virtualization projects that are common in enterprise datacenters, and often act as competitive differentiators. For example:

-- The Sun Fire X4600 M2 server is a powerful 16-way 4U server that is

capable of consolidating applications that have been running on more

than 50 legacy x86 servers today, onto just one system. It offers

twice the compute density in the same size footprint compared to 4-

processor servers from HP and IBM. The Sun Fire X4600 M2 server offers

similar performance and greater software choice than the Itanium-based

HP rx7640 -- at half the price.

-- The Sun Fire X4100 M2 and Sun Fire X4200 M2 servers utilize the

advantages of AMD's Direct Connect Architecture and are more efficient

and scalable by design than competitive Intel-based systems.

Integration of memory controllers and use of less power-hungry

components allows for much lower power consumption when compared to

Intel Xeon "Woodcrest"-based servers.

-- Additionally, under full load, the 2-socket Sun Fire servers

demonstrate better scalability and higher performance than similarly

sized Intel "Woodcrest"-based servers, with the ability to consolidate

up to 22 legacy servers using VMware.

The Sun Fire X4100 M2, Sun Fire X4200 M2 and Sun Fire X4600 M2 servers are pre-installed with the Solaris 10 OS, in addition to running standard distributions of Linux and Windows, to offer customers the greatest flexibility and investment protection. In addition, the servers support a variety of virtualization technologies, including VMware, Microsoft Virtual Server and XEN.

"Galaxy" Sun Fire Servers Beat Competition on Performance, Energy Efficiency

Adding to the more than 125 world records established by Sun's x64 systems to date, the Sun Fire X4100 M2, Sun Fire X4200 M2 and Sun Fire X4600 M2 servers, motivated by the advanced technology incorporated in Sun(TM) Studio 11 software, offer better performance and energy efficiency than similar Intel processor-based servers:

-- The Sun Fire X4100 M2 is up to 43% faster than Intel Xeon 5160-based

servers from Dell, IBM and HP.(1)

-- The Sun Fire X4200 M2 defeats the best published Intel Itanium2 result

by 16.5%.(2)

-- Demonstrating the advantages of the Solaris 10 OS, the Sun Fire X4100

M2 server trumps the similarly equipped IBM System X3455 server running

Linux, by 32%.(3)

-- Fueled by Next-Generation AMD Opteron processors with Direct Connect

Architecture, the Sun Fire X4200 M2 improves the previous generation's

result by over 20% and betters the best 4-thread IBM Power5+ result by

62%.(4)

The complete list of 125+ record-breaking performance results achieved by Sun's x64 platforms can be found at: http://www.sun.com/x64/benchmarks/.

Availability and Pricing

The Sun Fire X4100 M2 and Sun Fire X4200 M2 servers are available now. Entry-level pricing starts at $2,595 and $2,995, respectively. The Sun Fire X4600 M2 server will be available in early November.

For more information on the Sun Fire x64 system family, please visit: http://www.sun.com/x64

About Sun Studio Software

Sun Studio software is the premier development tool for the Solaris Operating System on the x64 platform. With optimizing compilers and tools for C, C++ and Fortran application development, Sun Studio delivers the highest optimizations and performance for these latest Sun Fire servers. For more information about Sun Studio software, please visit: http://developers.sun.com/sunstudio

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

A singular vision -- "The Network Is The Computer(TM)" -- guides Sun in the development of technologies that power the world's most important markets. Sun's philosophy of sharing innovation and building communities is at the forefront of the next wave of computing: the Participation Age. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the Web at http://sun.com.

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Sun Fire, Solaris and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. AMD and AMD Opteron are trademarks or registered trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

All prices noted are U.S. list price. All prices quoted are in U.S. Dollars.

SPEC, SPEComp, SPECfp reg tm of Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Results from http://www.spec.org as of 10/15/06. Sun's results were submitted for review. For SPEC comparisons, socket equates to chip.

(1) Sun Fire X4100 M2 (2xAMD Opteron model 2220SE, 4 cores, 2 chips, 2 cores/chip, Solaris10): SPECfp_rate2000 -119, SPECfp_rate_base2000 - 102; IBM System X 3550 (2xXeon 5160, 4 cores, 2 chips, 2 cores/chip, Windows 2003 Server EE): SPECfp_rate_base2000 - 82.1; HP ProLiant DL360G5 (2xXeon 5160, 4 cores, 2 chips, 2 cores/chip, RHEL 4AS U3): SPECfp_rate2000 - 84.7; Dell PowerEdge 1950 (2xXeon 5160, 4 cores, 2 chips, 2 cores/chip, RHEL 4AS U3): SPECfp_rate2000 - 83.4

(2) Sun Fire X4100 M2 (2xAMD Opteron model 2220SE, 4 cores, 2 chips, 2 cores/chip, Solaris10): SPECfp2000 - 3515; Bull NovaScale 3045 (4xItanium2 9050, 8 cores, 4 chips, 2 cores/chip, Bull Linux AS4): SPECfp2000 - 3017

(3) Sun Fire X4100 M2 (2xAMD Opteron model 2220SE, 4 cores, 2 chips, 2 cores/chip, Solaris10): SPECfp_rate2000 -119, SPECfp_rate_base2000 - 102; IBM System X 3455 (2xAMD Opteron model 2220SE, 4 cores, 2 chips, 2 cores/chip, SLES 9 SP3): SPECfp_rate2000 - 90.3

(4) Sun Fire X4100 M2 (2xAMD Opteron model 2220SE, 4 cores, 2 chips, 2 cores/chip, 4 threads, Solaris10): SPECompM2001 - 13222; Sun Fire X4100 (2xAMD Opteron model 285SE, 4 cores, 2 chips, 2 cores/chip, Solaris10): SPECompM2001 - 10964; IBM System p5 520 (POWER5+, 2 cores, 1 chip, 2 cores/chip, 4 threads, AIX5L V5.3): SPECompM2001 - 8174

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Rebekah Johnson

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

(650) 585-5473

rebekah.johnson@sun.com

Somill Hwang

Bite Communications

(415) 365-0363

somill.hwang@bitepr.com

Contact: allpress@sun.com

(650) 786-7377

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