Sun has donated the source code for the Sun StorageTek 5800 System, the first integrated digital archive storage system that is powered by the Solaris OS and built using open source software. Developers can freely download the Sun StorageTek 5800 binary code that runs on virtually any x86 system.

The latest effort in Sun’s commitment to open source and open storage solutions, the Sun StorageTek 5800 (previously known as “Project Honeycomb”) code has been donated to the OpenSolaris storage and Java.net communities. In addition, it has been submitted to the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) and is under consideration. The Fedora Commons open source group will both contribute its software into OpenSolaris and Java.net and use the Sun StorageTek 5800 source code for its development efforts.

The increasing need to digitize and preserve business images, records, consumer- and corporate-created digital content, e-science work and high-performance computing (HPC) data for hundreds of years is making file-based data and the management of file-based storage assets a serious challenge.

“The popular Sun StorageTek 5800 ‘Honeycomb’ system has revolutionized the economics of storing, managing and archiving fixed content data,” said Graham Lovell, senior director, storage servers and appliances, Sun Microsystems. “Sun now makes fixed content object storage free and open – We’ve donated the source code for this next-generation technology to help create communities that will more easily find answers to fixed-content data storage issues and save customers money over closed, proprietary technologies.”

The StorageTek 5800 open source has been offered to three core communities: SNIA for use with standards developments around the exciting new XAM object access standard (still under review), the growing OpenSolaris storage community, and the Java.net community.

One popular open source group, the Fedora Commons, will add their software into the Java,net and OpenSolaris communities and, at the same time, use the newly available source code from the StorageTek 5800 in its own product development. In addition, leading library technology solutions company VTLS has ported its VITAL application to the Sun StorageTek 5800, which is based on Solaris 10 OS or Linux and the Fedora open repository framework.

Here you are some Sun StorageTek 5800 System pictures.