Open source database lights up solar

REDWOOD CITY, USA: The sun is shining brighter than ever at SunPower Corp!

Ingres Corp., a leading provider of open source database management software and support services, announced that its open source technology will support the manufacturing of solar power energy.

SunPower, known for its high-efficiency solar power systems, which include solar cells, panels, roof tiles, and multi-megawatt solar power systems, relies on Ingres as the backbone of three mission critical applications, including its manufacturing execution system (MES). The MES manages all of SunPower's production lines within its factories in the United States and Europe. All total, Ingres will support company revenue at SunPower projected to exceed $1 billion in 2008.

SunPower designs, builds, and delivers solar power solutions to residential and commercial customers, and power plants in the United States and Europe. While the MES application manages SunPower's production lines, the company's Cell Test (CT) application manages test data from finished products, and the Statistical Process Control (SPC) application provides SPC capability and analysis to the factories. Each of these applications depends on Ingres.

"Ingres has exceeded SunPower's expectations in reliability, scalability, and usability," said Greg Reichow, vice president of operations at SunPower. "We needed a rock-solid stable database that is scalable and cost-effective. Since we use the applications to manage the factories and the engineering data analysis, they are critical to assuring timely customer delivery, low cost, and high performance." Today, more than 2,500 of SunPower's 4,000 employees use Ingres.

"Our factories have exceeded our expectations," said Reichow. "The ability to easily generate applications on top of the Ingres Database has allowed us great flexibility and speed. The stability provided by Ingres has allowed our factories to run with minimal interruption."

SunPower also plans to implement the Ingres Icebreaker BI Appliance to enhance operational reporting, provide staff with critical data analysis capabilities, and implement dashboards and other real-time indicators for executive management. The Ingres Icebreaker BI Appliance integrates smoothly into SunPower's existing environment, connects with a variety of existing applications, and offloads reporting workloads from existing operational systems.

"The Ingres Icebreaker BI Appliance is an innovative business intelligence solution that is robust, comprehensive and cost effective for organizations seeking to become more competitive, respond quickly to market demand, and ultimately impact the bottom line," said Deb Woods, vice president of product management at Ingres. "Conventional BI deployments can be costly. SunPower is one of many organizations looking for an alternative solution, and the Ingres Icebreaker BI Appliance addresses decision making challenges."