Sun Unwraps Solaris 9

Sun Microsystems Inc. Wednesday unwrapped the long-awaited new version of its UNIX operating environment, which
is aimed at making Sun’s offerings a more attractive platform for Web services through the integration of a J2EE 1.3 compliant
application server.

By bundling an application server with its new Solaris 9 OE, Sun is taking aim at rivals like BEA Systems — the
number one player in the application server market with 34 percent share in 2001 according to Gartner Dataquest — and arch-rival
IBM Corp. , which holds the number two position in the application server market with 31 percent share. Sun comes in
a distant third with 9 percent share.

The decision to bundle an app server with Solaris 9 appears to be a direct offensive against BEA, which does a strong business
selling app servers for Solaris and Sun hardware.

“By integrating the Sun ONE Application Server and other important middleware into Solaris 9 OE, Sun provides customers with a more
complete platform for developing and running applications in a J2EE environment,” said Shawn Willett, principal analyst at Current
Analysis. “The inclusion of application middleware into Solaris 9 OE can help lower the cost of operations as companies develop Web
services. However, Sun customers will still be able to work with third party applications and middleware with Solaris 9 OE, as the
company is avoiding proprietary lock-ins.”

In addition to the integration of Sun ONE Application Server 7, Platform Edition, the latest version of Solaris also integrates the
Sun ONE Directory Server as part of Sun’s push to make it easier to use Solaris to build and deploy applications and Web services
based on Java, XML and SOAP technologies.

“Solaris 9 OE is out in front and pulling away,” said Scott McNealy, chairman and chief executive officer of Sun. “The industry’s
premiere Operating Environment for the enterprise just got better, giving developers the richest industrial strength platform for
application delivery. Solaris 9 OE provides users with the most reliable, scalable, secure and manageable operating environment
today, and now we’re converging it with critical areas of Java technology and XML middleware to extend the platform for even faster
deployment. All still done in an open, standards-based world.”

The company also trumpeted more than 300 new feature enhancements in manageability, security, availability and scalability.

In data management, the new OE now incorporates new file system features, including Unix File System (UFS) and Solaris Volume
Manager, which provides storage management tools that allow users to manage large disks and large numbers of disks. Boyd Fletcher, a
systems engineer with EG&G, said the integration will provide significant savings for EG&G.

“The cost savings of having the Solaris Volume Manager integrated into Solaris 9 OE are significant, on average $50K per site, and
the UFS and Network File Systems (NFS) enhancements enable faster creation of file systems and improved performance and
reliability.”

Solaris 9 also adds new provisioning features, including Solaris Flash software, which allows users to create snapshots of an entire
software stack and copy it to another system, and Live Upgrade, which allows for upgrades while supporting production workloads.
Also, later this year, Solaris 9 will add Sun Management Center Change Manager, which will allow for automated deployment of
software stacks to groups of systems simultaneously across the network.

The new OE also attempts to enhance resource management through the introduction of Solaris software containers, which allow
customers to run multiple applications on a single server, with fault, security and resource containment built-in. Sun said
container sizes can be changed without bringing down the application. Sun plans to deliver Solaris software containers in phases,
beginning with Solaris 9 Resource Manager which is built into the new OE.

On the security front, Sun has added new security features, including the SunScreen 3.2 enterprise class firewall, Secure Shell,
IPSec, Kerberos v5 server, buffer overflow protection, security hardening scripts, extensible password encryption, and role-based
access control (RBAC).

As for availability, Sun said Solaris 9 is available immediately with full Sun Cluster 3.0 support through its latest update, data
multipathing through the Sun StorEdge Traffic Manager and enhancements to IP Multipathing, Reconfiguration Coordination Manager
(which automates dynamic reconfiguration operations), High Availability Service Packs, and Dynamic Reconfiguration.

Sun also said the new OE features improvements in configuration management services, including a Reliability Availability
Serviceability (RAS) Knowledge Database, RAS Profile, and Solaris Patch Manager.

Sun said it includes a Solaris software license in the price of each hardware system shipped, and customers with Sun support
contracts receive upgrades as part of the price of support. Others can obtain Solaris 9 for $50 and up. The OE is available for free
download for an unlimited number of systems with a maximum capacity of a single CPU.

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