Sun tries to outshine EMC

NEWS

Sun Microsystems tried on Wednesday to elevate the status of its storage strategy, introducing new software and hardware that the company argues beats out the top dog in the storage market, EMC. For several years, EMC has capitalised on building powerful standalone storage systems with data-protection features and other perks of their own. But Sun believes that tightly joining storage systems, servers and software is a better strategy -- and that companies with server products will be able to meet that need better than EMC. "We have said we felt standalone storage companies would have a very difficult time as companies like us, Compaq and IBM got better at storage," said Sun chief operating officer Ed Zander as he opened a three-day analyst conference here. "All the traditional systems competitors are getting stronger at storage and gaining market share." Well, almost all, anyway. For storage that's separate from servers, EMC sold $3.8bn in storage systems in 2001 -- 21 percent of the market -- according to a projection by IDC. Sun, by contrast, had only $1.1bn in sales, or 6 percent, lagging second-place Compaq Computer, third-place IBM and fourth-place Hewlett-Packard. That's a slide from 2000, when Sun had led both IBM and HP. Wednesday's new products include software that runs on a server and helps customers back up and restore data quickly; two new storage systems that accommodate as much as 11 terabytes of data; and file system software used to govern how data is written on storage systems. Collectively, the announcements improve Sun's high-end features. Sun acknowledges it's playing catch-up in the storage market. "It's hard. We had put a lot of our research and development in the mid-1990s around servers, around Solaris, around Java," Zander said. Five years ago, when Sun decided to take on EMC -- its third big competitor after IBM and Microsoft -- "It was a daunting challenge." Sun has been trying to elevate its storage division for years, with numerous acquisitions and initiatives but not much progress. The acquisitions of Encore, HighGround Systems, LSC Software, Red Cape and MaxStrat cost Sun more than $1bn, Zander said. But Jonathan Schwartz, who oversaw the acquisition of HighGround Systems and LSC Software, each costing tens of millions of dollars, argues that the acquisitions already have paid off. Salespeople are able to make more compelling arguments about Sun technology, he said. The company has already run through a list of product launches for the storage market, including the A7000 from Encore, which was considered a dud, and the T3 from MaxStrat, which was released in June 2000. Those products didn't compete effectively with EMC, though. Sun eventually took the same route as Hewlett-Packard and began selling the high-end storage system from Hitachi subsidiary Hitachi Data Systems. Sun has sold 200 HDS systems, said James Staten, director of competitive intelligence and strategy at Sun, and "we believe there's so much interest that we're on track to sell 500 of these systems by June." The HDS systems start at $400,000 and typically cost hundreds of thousands of dollars more, said Mark Canepa, executive vice president of Sun's network storage division. EMC, unsurprisingly, scoffs at Sun's latest challenge. "They've got a credibility problem," said spokesman Greg Eden, referring to the repeated storage product overhauls over the years. Sun's "priority remains server sales." EMC has seen some improvement in the harsh environment that led to layoffs and other drastic measures last year. Competition from HP, IBM and HDS in 2001 crushed EMC's gross margins, a key measure of profitability. But gross margins increased from 30 percent in the third quarter of 2001 to 37 percent in the fourth, Eden said, boosted by success toward the company's goal of cutting $200 million in fixed expenses each quarter and by better sales of software and networked storage systems. Among Sun's new products announced on Wednesday: SAM-FS and QFS, two new file systems software that governs how information is written to hard disks. The products are designed for maximum speed and for quicker recovery when a server crashes. Prices range from $15,000 to $20,000 per terabyte. Veritas has a rival file system that has long been popular with Sun servers, and indeed is a component of a strong partnership among Sun, Veritas and database maker Oracle. Zander acknowledged that the new products compete with Veritas' software, but that Sun thinks only Sun's largest customers would be interested. Disney and AOL Time Warner are using the new file systems. The StorEdge 3900, a high-speed storage system based on Sun's T3 line. The new system is designed to pump data to servers as fast as possible for customers. Speeds run as high as 1.6 gigabytes per second. The higher-end StorEdge 6900, which adds features such as balancing work loads with other storage systems and dealing with larger numbers of database transactions. The 6900 also includes "virtualization" technology. The goal of virtualisation -- all the rage among storage companies -- is to pool storage systems together instead of having individual islands of storage that often have lots of unused capacity. Through virtualisation, jobs that need the capacity can use it, and it's easier to increase or decrease how much capacity is available without having to turn off computers and storage systems. The 3900 and 6900 have "phone home" capabilities, so Sun can diagnose and sometimes fix problems over the network. Four software packages that consolidate earlier software offerings. One new feature is the StorEdge Network Data Replicator (SNDR), which lets a server take a "snapshot" of a storage system at a specific point in time that can be restored if problems crop up after the snapshot has been taken. SNDR also lets a server write to two storage systems simultaneously so that services are available even if one system fails.

Everybody needs storage. And almost every week some company manages to squeeze more storage into less space for a lower price. For the latest news, reviews and price checks on everything from USB flash cards and PCCard hard disks to storage area networks, see ZDNet UK's Storage News Section. Have your say instantly, and see what others have said. Go to the ZDNet news forum. Let the editors know what you think in the Mailroom.

Post your comment

In order to post a comment you need to be registered and logged in.

You can also log in with Facebook. Log in or create your ZDNet UK account below

By signing up for this service, you indicate that you agree to our Terms and Conditions and have read and understood our Privacy Policy. Questions about membership? Find the answers in the Community FAQ

ZDNet UK Live

How dare film makers, artists or anybody that invests in creativity stop us pirating their works for free. I want to be able to walk into my local...

3 hours ago by JCB33 on ACTA stumbles in Germany

@GrueMaster. I prefer horses for courses rather than one size fits all. I, and I suspect most other computer users, do not really wish to have...

5 hours ago by Moley on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

The product that scares me every time I have to use it is the Office 2007 version of Excel. The first bug that I found was applying the median...

5 hours ago by greycynic on Ten flawed products that derail productivity

Nice review and very informative. One thing I'd like to add (in reply to whs001's 1st question), the main reason to have the same interface from...

7 hours ago by GrueMaster on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

I'be been using Mint 12 since the RC came out, and I am far more happy with the Cinnamon, the Mate, and, yes (with extensions), theGnome 3...

7 hours ago by Frederick Wrigley via Facebook on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

Excellent article. One small correction, though--although a fresh installation of Linux Mint 12 will, indeed, provide the user with a version of...

8 hours ago by bdantas on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

In related news, the ISPs club together to get the members of the Home Affairs Select Committee (ya goofed on that part, ZDNet UK) copies of "The...

9 hours ago by Alan Ralph via Facebook on MPs urge ISPs to take down terrorist material

In related news, the ISPs club together to get the members of the Home Affairs Select Committee (ya goofed on that part, ZDNet UK) copies of "The...

9 hours ago by Alan Ralph via Facebook on MPs urge ISPs to take down terrorist material

For Gnome 2 die-hards, it is possible to add icons to the bottom panel (or top top panel, if you prefer) which provide the exact Gnome 2...

9 hours ago by Moley on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

Your comments would seem pretty naive and immature. Your 'solution' appears to be, "gee, let's all just give in to the hackers and give them...

10 hours ago by ramwellian on Cloud computing security: no more oxymoron?

"Interesting thought ... If you installed Win7 as a dual boot on a machine that previously only had Linux, and it wrecked your Linux installation,...

10 hours ago by BugStalker on Windows 7 Declares War on GRUB

This is an excellent summary of Ubuntu and Mint and the interface differences between them. Most such articles take a very partisan position for...

10 hours ago by whs001 on A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

@ewallace. Not so clear. Anyone can obtain the text, for example from here http://www.ustr.gov/webfm_send/2379. I support ACTA so long as it and...

10 hours ago by Moley on ACTA: Facts, misconceptions and questions

I think WinRT is fantastic. I just wish it was an option for people that didn't want to go through Microsoft's App Store with its attendant...

13 hours ago by 45283 on Why Windows 8 needs architectural hygiene for WOA

Nine people? £30m? Who's back pocket is that lot going in? And IF they say it is for new buildings, what about all the ones the government has...

15 hours ago by Burn-IT on Police set to launch three £30m e-crime hubs

Just to be clear, nobody knows what is in the text of ACTA, here is a photograph of the text of ACTA http://twitpic.com/8h9iju as submitted to the...

15 hours ago by ewallace on ACTA: Facts, misconceptions and questions

Unfortunately main issue is that ASUS is refusing to accept that they make some mistake on this version of asus Transformer prime. 1 - GPS sensor...

16 hours ago by fgvrg56 on Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime Wi-Fi & GPS problems?

@Marcus A fair question. Just talked with Archos which said it was working on an announcement for next week....

17 hours ago by Ben Woods on Archos confirms G9 Ice Cream Sandwich update schedule

Any update on this, considering the claimed "first week of February"?

18 hours ago by Marcus Karlsson via Facebook on Archos confirms G9 Ice Cream Sandwich update schedule

Bill Goodrich : Just as al_langevin pointed out, with Windows Server 2008 there is no Services for Macintosh anymore. It's gone, not available....

1 day ago by apexwm on Windows Server 2008 drops the ball for Mac compatibility

Featured white papers

Latest jobs

Sun tries to outshine EMC

Daily Newsletters

Topics

Related stories

EMC, Hitachi squabble over big customer

Sun looks to N1 for storage solution

Apple bucks a falling PC trend in UK and France

Apple takes top PC spot from HP

Post your comment

ZDNet UK Live

Latest in Desktop Hardware

Apple bucks a falling PC trend in UK and France

Apple takes top PC spot from HP

Featured white papers

Latest jobs

Test Analyst - Business Intelligence /Data Warehousing

Test Analyst - Business Intelligence /Data Warehousing

Technical MI Manager - 50-60k - Leeds

Inside ZDNet UK

A tale of two distros: Ubuntu and Linux Mint

2012 Predictions: VCE FastPath, VI SAN Probe & Hadoop

BlackBerry Bold 9790

Case study: How cloud enables growth

Ten factors that make Ubuntu 11.10 a hit

Toshiba Portégé Z830-10P Review

BT's archive: Pictures from the vault

News & Analysis

Reviews

Blogs

Resources

About Us

Member Services

Special Features

Advertising Features

ZDNet UK / News and Analysis / Workspace IT / Desktop Hardware

Sun tries to outshine EMC

Daily Newsletters

Topics

Related stories

Post your comment

Get ZDNet UK's daily newsletter

Enter your email address to sign up

ZDNet UK Live

Latest in Desktop Hardware

Featured white papers

Latest jobs

Inside ZDNet UK

Resources

About Us

Member Services

Special Features

Advertising Features