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Advantage Mainframes

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DQI Bureau
New Update

Hot on the heels of announcing a major increase in server marketshare, Sun

Microsystems is launching a strong ‘Blue Away’ initiative to build up its

replacement program, targeting IBM’s abandoned mid-range mainframe (NUMA-Q)

customers. "The mid-market mainframe represents a potential $1-billion

opportunity that Sun plans to capture with its Sun Fire Midframe server

family," a senior company official has said.

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"The benefits of a mainframe must be justified in terms of its

costs," the official said. "Enterprises that use a smaller mainframe

have higher operating costs per unit of processing, primarily because they pay

more for operating software, than do enterprises with very large mainframes, or

those that are running similar workloads on Unix servers. In many cases, Sun’s

mainframe migration program will offer them lifecycle cost savings."

Fraud Busters
RSA Security, Sun Micro team up to deliver enhanced identity infrastructure


RSA Security and Sun Microsystems are teaming up to deliver an integrated 



network identity infrastructure, targeted at ‘helping enterprises increase security and reduce fraud in controlling Internet-based services and assets.’ As part of a joint sales, engineering and marketing agreement, RSA Security and Sun are working to ensure interoperability between RSA ClearTrust Web access management and Keon digital certificate management software and the SunONE directory server and portal server. Customers can now build a trusted environment for online processes, and balance Web access with the appropriate levels of security, based on the RSA Security and Sun offering. The SunONE directory server and portal server are two key elements of the SunONE platform for network identity, a combined hardware, software and services offering that helps organizations rapidly establish an open, end-to-end network identity infrastructure. RSA ClearTrust Web access management software is now interoperable with the SunONE directory server and SunONE portal server, and porting to the SunONE application server is under way. 


“Today’s Internet-based business environment requires the ability to protect information assets and secure relationships with customers, partners, suppliers and employees,” Shahram
Moradpour, Sun Microsystems senior director (market development) said. “Working with companies like RSA Security, we can deliver a comprehensive network identity infrastructure to help enterprises increase security and user convenience through integrated authentication and access management solutions.”



“We look forward to working closely with Sun Microsystems as a valued member of our RSA Secured Partner Program,” RSA security vice-president (marketing) John Worrall said. “Full support of SunONE directory server and portal server, as well as other products in the SunONE family, is key to our goal of making RSA Security solutions interoperable, helping enable our customers to achieve rapid deployment, strong integration and lower overall costs,” he added.

  


The integration is designed to allow customers to:
Utilize existing user data from across the enterprise, without replication or recreation, resulting in easier deployment and management;
Centralize access management with the existing e-business infrastructure, delivering reduced administration costs and investment protection; 
Allow both internal departments and external customers and affiliates to manage their own access with delegated administration, thus reducing administrative costs and lowering total cost of ownership. –

RN

Oracle Corporation, a Sun partner, offers leading enterprise business

solutions that can help companies significantly improve the bottom line. The

combination of the Sun Fire server family and Oracle applications and technology

provide a strong alternative for the midrange market. "In today’s

challenging economic environment, companies are taking a hard look at their

bottomline and growth strategies," Oracle vice-president (Platform

Partnerships) Doug Kennedy said. "Together, Oracle and Sun can provide

these companies with a cost-effective, high-performance alternative to their

mainframes running legacy applications that scales as their businesses

grow."

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"Sun’s Project ‘Blue Away’offers mainframe customers increased

return on investment through high availability, reliability and performance. The

Sun Fire 3800-6800 mid-frame servers are specifically designed to offer the

availability and resource management capabilities of mainframe computing at a

fraction of the cost," the Sun official added. He also pointed to benchmark

results, which claimed that Sun Fire mid-frame servers offered over four times

the price-performance advantage of an IBM mainframe.

Sun Microsystems’ chief competitive officer Shahin Khan said. "Since

IBM is the only vendor of mainframes, it has been raising prices on captive

mainframe customers and paying less attention to customers with small or

mid-size mainframes. Through ‘Blue Away’, we are offering a tried, tested

and more cost-effective solution," Khan added.

Sun was recently named by Afcom, the leading association for data center

professionals, as its ‘Vendor of the Month’ for its mainframe re-hosting

solution. According to Afcom, "Customers experience more than a 50%

reduction in cost-of-ownership, in addition to a noticeable improvement in both

online and batch performance, when they re-host mainframe applications on the

Solaris operating environment."

Rajeev Narayan in Kuala Lumpur, MY

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