Although Sun notes that its storage gear works with servers from many other companies, it acknowledges that its existing customer base is the source of most of the interest in its storage products. "We don't think of ourselves as a separate storage company," Canepa said, noting that the company relies primarily on its existing sales force to push Sun gear. That said, Canepa added, "We have a multibillion-dollar storage business within Sun, and it's getting bigger." As for N1, Sun will add other features, such as archiving and storage resource management, to its storage management consoles over the course of this year and next, executives said. The technology giant will upgrade N1 Data Platform next year with the ability to automatically provision storage, or add more storage capabilities, when a device hits a certain threshold, said James Staten, director of software marketing at Sun's storage division. Over the course of the next two years, the company will expand N1 Data Platform with the ability to provision storage automatically based on predefined policies. Sun will also tie the Pirus storage management technology to the server-provisioning software that it acquired from Terraspring last year, Staten said. From the Command Center management console of Terraspring, administrators will be able to set policies for storage and server resource allocation, he said. "The fact that Sun launched (N1 Data Platform) as an element of an overall N1 strategy is the important part of the announcement. It means that it's not an island," said Tony Prigmore, analyst at Enterprise Storage Group. "One of the biggest problems with storage infrastructure is having lots of points to manage." Sun has already released the first N1 products, which are designed to use automation to exploit blade servers more efficiently. In other software announcements set for Tuesday, Sun is expected to unveil a more secure version of the standard edition of its Solaris operating system. Trusted Solaris Standard Edition, which starts at $999, adds the security architecture from a version of Solaris that adheres to the Common Criteria Certification scheme, which lays down a set of security guidelines aimed primarily at sensitive government institutions. Sun also plans to introduce the Sun ONE Integration Server Secure Trading Agent, a version of its integration software that adds the ability to encrypt business documents. The software costs $2,000 per host connection. Furthermore, the company is expected to announce that it will offer Project Orion to its customers by the middle of the year. Orion is Sun's plan to simplify the purchasing and deployment of multiple products by bundling and testing compatibility among Sun software products and releasing updates on a quarterly schedule.
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