New UltraSPARC IV+ microprocessors from Sun Microsystems power world's best-performing, best-selling server line

The world's leading UNIX server vendor (1), Sun MENA plans to target the Middle East's fast-growing mid-range sector as well as the server consolidation efforts of its enterprise customers with the new range.

Available for purchase immediately, the new Sun Fire V490, V890, E2900, E4900 and E6900 servers are powered by 1.5 GHz UltraSPARC IV+ processors and run the most advanced operating system in the world, Solaris 10. Sun also announced a series of world-record benchmarks for performance and scalability that surpasses competing products from IBM and Hewlett-Packard.

"There isn't a customer in the Middle East that couldn't benefit from a performance increase of up to five times over previous SPARC generations, as well as an upgrade path that's 'on the fly' to help significantly reduce overall data center management costs," said Chris Cornelius, managing director of Sun Microsystems MENA.

"This tremendous increase in performance is coupled with the same power consumption, footprint and price as previous generations, make these new Sun Fire servers the ideal platform for both the region's mid-range market as well as server consolidation projects."

"Unlike competing offerings, we can mix and match processors with the new Sun Fire server range. Other vendors' customers have to go through what we call a 'forklift upgrade,' plus change the operating system version, which also impacts the application - resulting in costly downtime."

Sun on Fire with New Servers

Sun continues to set the standard for system innovation through enhancements to its SPARC and Solaris-based platforms. The combination of innovative chip design and the world's most advanced operating system, Solaris 10, gives customers a way to easily navigate the system upgrade process over the lifecycle of applications.

Analysts have already highlighted the end-user benefits of the new Sun Fire range. "This announcement of yet another no-hassle SPARC system upgrade provides great asset protection to Sun's huge base of applications and customers," said Gordon Haff, senior analyst, Illuminata.

The new UltraSPARC IV+ Sun Fire servers are unique in the industry:

• Only Sun gives customers the ability to mix-and-match CPU speeds from different generations in the same system;

• Only Sun provides patented uniboard technology, with up to four processors and 32 gigabytes of memory per board: Customers can simply "hotplug" the new uniboards into existing systems and without having to swap out their entire system;

• Only Sun offers binary compatibility across multiple generations of SPARC-Solaris systems.

The new Sun Fire Servers running the USIV+ processors are immediately available and began shipping in late August.