Sun and Microsoft announced two new milestones in their alliance – the official opening of the Sun/Microsoft Interoperability Center on Microsoft’s Redmond campus for optimizing Microsoft applications on Sun Fire x64 server systems and storage, and the availability of the Sun Infrastructure Solution for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007.
“The new Sun/Microsoft Interoperability Center will help provide our joint customers with a testbed for running key Microsoft applications on Sun’s x64 servers and help ensure more seamless integration between the technologies,” said Lisa Sieker, vice president of Systems Marketing, Sun Microsystems. “Additionally, with the new Infrastructure Solution for Microsoft 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.”
Objectives of the Sun/Microsoft Interoperability Center will include optimization of Microsoft applications on Sun x64 systems and storage, and promotion of full interoperability in application areas such as virtualization, Java technology, systems management, and identity. Additionally, the Center will collaborate with authorized Sun Solution Centers to support customers in running their own proofs-of-concept testing. Customers can minimize their risk and shorten time to deployment by simulating their own environment, with access to top architects from both Sun and Microsoft.
One of the first results of the recently increased collaboration is the availability of the Sun Infrastructure Solution for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. This solution will help enable enterprise customers to better manage e-mail growth and realize the benefits of Exchange Server 2007. Pre-tested end-to-end system and storage configurations allow customers to easily migrate to Exchange Server 2007 – achieving up to 85% in rack space, power and cooling savings and reducing total cost of ownership (TCO) for e-mail by up to 70% over three years.
The Interoperability Center expands Sun’s three-year presence on the Microsoft main campus, focused on testing customer scenarios on Sun systems in the Microsoft Enterprise Engineering Center. Microsoft and Sun have collaborated in a number of interoperability areas including: Web services, identity management, thin clients, systems management and Windows Server engineering.
The two companies have also created a basis for tighter interoperability between Java Platform Enterprise Edition (Java EE), the .NET Framework 3.0 and Windows Communication Foundation in Sun’s Web services interoperability technologies (Project Tango). Companies can also evaluate the Sun Fire X4600 server with Microsoft SQL Server 2005. Sun became a Windows Server OEM in September 2007 and is also a founding member of the Microsoft Interoperability Vendor Alliance and a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner.