IBM expands support for SunSolaris OS on x86 Systems

The agreement announced today is an extension of IBM's existing support for the Solaris OS on select IBM BladeCenter servers, and exemplifies IBM's commitment to offering clients the widest choice of operating systems available in the industry, as well as Sun's commitment to offer customers a wider choice of systems for the Solaris platform. IBM and Sun's support of interoperability via open standards also means that customers will be able to extend their infrastructure by connecting new platforms easily, while preserving their initial investments.

IBM is the volume leader in the high-performance segment of the Intel-based server market, where technology innovation is crucial. IBM's X3 Architecture, the third generation of the Enterprise X-Architecture, has positioned IBM as the fastest growing vendor in high-end x86 servers in the first quarter of 2007.1

The Solaris OS is supported on more than 820 x86 platforms and runs more than 3,000 unique x86 applications including IBM Websphere, Lotus, DB2, Rational and Tivoli.

Today's announcement further affirms the value that Solaris OS delivers in Web, application and data-tier deployments. By adding the Solaris OS to its operating system portfolio, IBM is expanding customer choice. And by participating as one of over 800 partners in the IBM BladeCenter ecosystem, Sun has effectively joined others in the industry helping IBM accelerate the development and adoption of open blade server platforms.

'We're thrilled to be working with IBM to bring the Solaris OS to the broadest market possible - they are a natural partner for Sun,' said Jonathan Schwartz, president and CEO of Sun Microsystems. 'Solaris adoption continues to accelerate, among both the open source and commercial communities -- driven by bundled virtualization for servers and storage, support for thousands of ISVs, including nearly the entirety of IBM's software portfolio, and outstanding operational economics. Solaris is clearly a choice customers are demanding.'

Chris Cornelius, managing director for Sun Microsystems MENA commented: 'In line with our theme for FY08 -'Open for Business'- this announcement illustrate Sun's openness, not only to our customers, but for the customers with our competitors, that this is their choice. Sun Solaris has been the mainstay of Operating Systems, stable and with unmatched functionality.'

As part of the expanded support, Sun and IBM will invest in testing and system qualification so joint customers will realize Solaris' leading performance and reliability on BladeCenter and System x servers. IBM servers that will support the Solaris OS include: IBM BladeCenter HS21 and LS41 servers; and IBM System x3650, System x3755, and System x3850 servers.

'IBM provides the broadest choice of server platforms and operating systems to customers with AIX, Linux for x86 and Power, Microsoft Windows Server and now Solaris,' said Bill Zeitler, senior vice president & group executive, IBM Systems & Technology Group. 'IBM is the first major x86 vendor to have such an agreement with Sun; and the first big vendor apart from Sun to offer Solaris on blade servers. Today we expand that agreement to help clients migrate to Solaris on IBM x86-based System x servers.'

The Solaris OS offers a unique feature set, including Solaris ZFS, Predictive Self-Healing and Solaris Dynamic Tracing (DTrace) to help customers improve uptime, cut costs and speed time to market. The Solaris OS allows BladeCenter and System x customers to get excellent application performance on today's and tomorrow's multi-core 64-bit x86 processors. The Solaris OS and IBM System x and BladeCenter servers bring to market a mission-critical platform with a wide array of leading configuration options such as native 10G Ethernet, InfiniBand and IBM-attached storage.