Sun and Microsoft give Birth to new Datacentre
Sun and Microsoft give Birth to new Datacentre
March 11, 2008: Two giants of the IT world have expanded on their alliance with the announcement of a joint data centre in Redmond to test interoperability between their respective technologies.
For the once bitterest of enemies, Microsoft (MS) and Sun Microsystems are roaring full steam ahead with their alliance and have officially opened the Interoperability centre that will see Microsoft applications optimized on Sun Fire x64 server systems and make the Sun Infrastructure Solution available for Exchange Server 2007.
"The centre will provide a setting for hands-on testing and tuning of Sun/Microsoft solutions and help our joint customers achieve unprecedented performance results for their standardized and home-grown solutions,” said Bob Kelly, corporate vice president at Microsoft.
The centre will function as a full-serving lab for interoperability projects, among which is:
- A demonstration and testing area for Windows on Sun x64 systems and storage;
- A lab space for customer proofs-of-concept focused on Windows Server 2008 on Sun x64 systems and storage;
- The ability to certify Java Platform Enterprise Edition (Java EE) and Java Platform Standard Edition (Java SE), including Sun's Java Runtime Environment (JRE) software for and with Microsoft operating environments and applications;
- Joint work to help enable cross-platform server virtualization, including Windows Hyper-V and Sun xVM software;
- Cross-company collaboration to allow Sun Ray thin client software to provide a first-rate virtual desktop for the Windows environment and supports Windows technologies.
According to Lisa Sieker, VP of systems marketing at Sun Microsystems, the centre will provide a key testbed for running MS applications on x64 servers to help ensure a more seamless integration between the technologies.
“With the new Infrastructure Solution for MS Exchange Server 2007, Sun's expertise in x64 servers, storage and 64-bit database architectures will enable customers to significantly reduce email TCO and ease the transition to the new 64-bit product,” said Sieker.