Sun Unveils xVM 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 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 platform, in the free and open source Solaris Operating System (OS), and in the commodity UltraSparc 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 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 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."Sun Microsystems Inc.