Sun's Workstation Rises To The Task

The Ultra 20 Workstation offers seamless migration to 64-bit computing, as it supports both 64-bit and 32-bit applications; this provides investment protection for any expensive application. In certain cases, customers may need many traditional desktop systems and perhaps just one or two workstation-class systems. By offering Sun Ultra 20 Workstations in lieu of a couple of traditional systems, not only will the customer save money, but the reseller will realize better profits off the workstations. With the single Sun platform, customers can run demanding development, engineering, simulation and analysis applications right along with standard office productivity applications. Customers also will be better aligned with future technology by being able to run 64-bit applications on the Sun workstations whenever necessary.

Most impressive is the fact that this workstation can be purchased for less than $1,000; it starts at $895 for a system containing a DVD/CD-RW drive, 256 Mbytes of RAM, 80 Gbyte SATA hard drive, onboard ATI Rage graphics, a 1.4GHz Opteron processor and various software. A maxed-out system containing a 2.6GHz Opteron processor, 4 Gbytes of ECC memory, a DVD burner and 3-D NVIDIA 1400 graphics costs $2,695. Resellers can easily incorporate this system into high-end (and high-profit) engineering solutions. Pricing for all other configurations falls in between those two price points.

The Ultra 20 Workstation can run Solaris, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and Windows. Nothing has to be added—it comes pre-installed with Solaris 10 and bundled with Sun Studio 10, Sun Java Studio Creator, Sun Java Studio Enterprise 7 and Sun StarOffice. Included at no cost, these fully licensed development tools typically would cost thousands of dollars. Sun Studio 10 software is a suite of developer tools for C, C++ and Fortran application development. Sun Java Studio Creator is a visual development environment for creating Java technology-based applications. Sun Java Studio Enterprise 7 is a software package that helps develop, debug, test and deploy Web applications and services.

The Sun Ultra 20 is the first workstation from Sun to feature PCI-Express graphics, which effectively doubles the bandwidth of AGP 8x. The base model comes with an on-board ATI Rage graphics controller, and higher models include an NVIDIA Quadro NVS 280 or NVIDIA Quadro FX 1400 PCI-Express graphics; this supports high-performance OpenGL graphics and multiple displays at maximum resolution. The workstation also can be purchased with two internal 250-Gbyte hard drives for a total capacity of half a terabyte.

The Sun Ultra 20 Workstation comes in the form of a silver-finished, minitower chassis with a single exterior drive bay housing an optical drive. The chassis features six USB 2.0 ports, two FireWire ports, one Gigabit Ethernet port and if upgraded video is chosen, two DVI connectors. A standard VGA connector is used for video output on the base model workstation. Inside the chassis, the motherboard features seven expansion slots, consisting of one PCI-Express x16, two PCI-Express x1 and four 32-bit PCI slots operating at 33MHz.

The Sun Ultra 20 Workstation is a more powerful alternative to everyday Pentium 4 systems, and at a price that remains quite competitive. Solution providers can load up these Opteron-powered systems with Windows XP and Office if those are the customers& current requirements, but the systems will be prepared to run 64-bit operating systems and applications when the time comes to make the migration, and customers won&t have to make anymore of a cash investment to do so.

Sun&s Solar Edge Elite program is designed to promote the sales of x64 systems. Benefits include free demo systems, opportunity registration with no revenue minimum in top accounts, participation in joint demand-generation events and the Solar Edge Elite Partner Portal Resource Center. Partners generate profits from margins, services and options. Partners must undergo Sun x64 training and test completion, must maintain a minimum demo system pool and meet first-year unit volume commitments. Training is Web-based. One demo unit is offered upon entering the program and additional free systems are offered based on unit volume sales.