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Sun's New Pricing Models and Services

Posted on: Thursday, 10 June 2004, 06:00 CDT

SUN Microsystems Inc has announced new pricing models and services to provide customers with flexible subscription and utility- based structures.

The new pricing models and services are Sun Preventive Services and Sun Utility Computing for StorEdge Systems.

Sun Preventive Services is a subscription-based services delivery model which offers an integrated portfolio of more than 100 services capabilities at a single price for all Sun equipment in a customer's data centre.

This service is aimed at helping customer to identify and mitigate problems before they affect the system, thus reducing the operating costs and increasing service levels in the data centre.

Sun's executive vice president for global sales operations Robert Youngjohns said subscription service includes on-site assessment, customised key performance indicators, remote with online monitoring and predictive alerts to any device.

"One of our customers using Sun Preventive Services is Motorola. By implementing this service, Motorola's availability on mission- critical systems has improved to 99.9 per cent from 99.3 per cent. This is a reduction from 61 hours to less than six minutes," he said at the SunNetwork 2004 Conference in Shanghai, China.

He added that other notable achievements included 60 per cent reduction in severity one service calls while 55 per cent of actions carried out were proactive versus reactive.

Youngjohns named another major customer, General Motors, where its users were assured 100 per cent availability on 159 of 160 mission-critical systems in three months. Another notable achievement was 67 per cent reduction in severity one service calls, lower operational costs and enhanced efficiencies, he said.

Youngjohns said Sun Utility Computing for StorEdge Systems is a pay-for- use solution which delivers storage capacity when needed at a price.

Its foundation is the Sun StorEdge 9980 array, a storage system for large data centre class environments. Here, the pricing is based on Sun StorEdge Power Units, which starts at two cents (7.6 sen) per megabyte per year.

The Sun StorEdge Power Units delivers a combination of hardware and software infrastructure and associated services, including installation services, SunSpectrum Platinum service support, Sun StorEdge management portal (including the SunFire V240 server) and essential software licences.

Sun's executive vice president for network storage products group Mark Canepa said customers using the Sun Utility Computing for StorEdge Systems could expect to spend up to three times less compared to purchasing or leasing physical storage assets over a three-year period. "The service offers customers hassle-free management."

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