Sun Microsystems has outlined its three-pronged approach to virtualization: harnessing commodity technologies, delivering Sun's own advanced products and technologies, and leveraging Sun's global expertise in providing systems and software. Sun will continue to help customers use virtualization to cost-effectively gain better synergy and productivity out of their computing infrastructure.

The cornerstone of Sun's virtualization strategy is the Solaris 10 Operating System (OS); its cross-platform capabilities, Solaris Containers; and the fact that it is both free and open source makes it ideal for eliminating the physical and cost barriers associated with datacenter growth and management.

"Virtualization is a layer of lubrication that unifies previously siloed areas of computing," said John Fowler, Sun's executive vice president, Systems Group. "As server sprawl accelerates and power and cooling costs grow, we see an opportunity to apply our years of expertise in network computing/virtualization to help customers solve these challenges. The Solaris OS is the foundation of our approach, and we build on it with Sun servers, storage, services, and partner services as well."

New Virtualization Offerings

As a complement to Sun's existing virtualization products and services, Sun is announcing six new offerings today:

LDoms: virtualization technology for Sun Fire T1000 and T2000 servers with CoolThreads technology that lets customers run multiple OSes simultaneously with Solaris Containers; it helps customers to reduce server footprint, while increasing server utilization and datacenter efficiency.

Solaris on Xen: In 2007, Sun will deliver fully supported Xen functionality in an update to the Solaris 10 OS. This means that customers will be able to run concurrent Solaris 10, Linux and Microsoft Windows OSes as "guests" on a Solaris 10 OS-based Virtual Machine. In addition to the system flexibility this offers, the fact that Sun's Xen hypervisor is based on the Solaris 10 OS means that customers can benefit from unique Solaris 10 features such as Predictive Self-Healing, DTrace, Solaris ZFS and Solaris Trusted Extensions, even if they aren't running their applications on the Solaris 10 OS, the most advanced OS on the planet.

Sun Fire x64 Servers: "Galaxy" Sun Fire X4000 server line powered by Next-Generation AMD Opteron processors and the Solaris 10 OS.

Solution Customer Workshops: a two-day collaborative session designed to assess a customer's current business requirements, match them to technology, and determine actionable next steps. This complimentary workshop (estimated $10,000 USD value) delivers a high-level total-cost-of-ownership analysis that estimates the potential long-term savings for the customer.

Life Cycle Services for Virtualization: consulting, education, and support services to help architect, implement and manage a customer's virtualization solution investment.

Extended VMware Support: support for VMware ESX 3.0.1 on the Sun Fire X4600 server and Sun Blade modular systems.