Sun launches new network services offerings

SAN FRANCISCO: Sun Microsystems Inc. on Monday announced new services that run on its grid of Sun networks computers, the latest move by the network computer and software maker to transform itself.

The Santa Clara, California-based company introduced Sun Connection, the first of many services that will be delivered over the Sun Grid, a vast linking of computers, software, storage and networking equipment.

Sun prospered during the dot-com and telecommunications boom of the late 1990s but then fell on harder times in the bust than did its rivals, such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc.

Since the bust, Sun continued to invest heavily in research and development and expects bundled offerings of computer servers, storage equipment, software and service offerings such as Sun Connection to return it to sustained profitability.

"This service will allow people to run a smarter enterprise," said Larry Singer, a Sun senior vice president, in a telephone interview, referring to large companies and government organizations.

Along with recently rolling out Solaris 10, the latest version of its operating system, Sun has talked up the idea of revamping network computing as a service model. That model carries specific subscription-based offering of computing and services rather than the outright purchase of hardware, software and storage, which has traditionally been the case in high technology.

All the big U.S. server vendors like Sun, IBM and HP have long talked about network computing or utility computing, though with different names. Sun has called its efforts N1, HP has used the adaptive enterprise and IBM calls its offering on-demand computing.

Sun also introduced Java StorEdge Software, a storage subscription product that Sun said removes the complexity of licensing storage software and support services.

The company also announced the availability of pay-per-use computing delivered via the Sun Grid, which costs $1 per microprocessor per hour. Microprocessors are the computing engines of computer servers, which have one or more of the chips per box.

Sun announced the pay-per-use computing power in January and said then it expected its grid centers will be up and running with some financial and oil and gas companies as customers in the coming months.