A new series of x64 servers from Sun Microsystems will contain AMD Opteron processors and will run Solaris 10, Windows, or Linux.
Sun brought back one of its founders, Andy Bechtolsheim, to help develop something different for the company. Today the firm unveiled its newest Sun Fire servers in New York at the Network Computing ’05 event in New York.
The decision to bring back Mr. Bechtolsheim seems to have paid off. He has been working as a chief architect and senior vice president of Sun’s Network Systems Group, which developed this new hardware.
Sun plans to bring the X4100 and X4200 servers to market starting at $2,195 and $2,595, respectively, according to a company statement. The company will try to grab some sales for its Secure Application Switch, along with the new Sun Fire servers.
Sun hopes its customers will want to add the N1000 device to racks where it would accompany a new server or two. They have been working to promote a service-oriented architecture, with its hardware at the center and various Java software like the Java Application server inside of that hardware.
The Secure Application Switch N1000 comes into play by sitting between the server and its users. It provides a variety of security functions and network features designed to improve access to applications on the servers. They have embedded systems to provide application protection and SSL acceleration, a factor that can enhance ecommerce applications greatly.
David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
