Sun Microsystems has announced its "Galaxy" line of Sun Fire x64 (x86, 64-bit) servers powered by Next-Generation AMD Opteron processors and the Solaris 10 Operating System (OS), the most advanced operating system on the planet. The Sun Fire X4100 M2, Sun Fire X4200 M2 and Sun Fire X4600 M2 servers with on-chip virtualization support set new standards for reliability and energy efficiency.

Sun was the first vendor to ship systems powered by the latest AMD Opteron processors with the release of the Sun Fire X2100 M2 and Sun Fire X2200 M2 servers in August.

"Sun changed the marketplace when we announced the 'Galaxy' Sun Fire X4100 and X4200 servers a year ago, and our x64 portfolio keeps picking up speed and getting stronger every quarter," said John Fowler, executive vice president, Systems Group, Sun Microsystems. "Now Sun's x64 server business has a completely refreshed product lineup, and we continue to deliver the stellar systems that our customers demand and love."

Designed for virtualization, web infrastructure and high performance computing (HPC), the Sun Fire X4100 M2, Sun Fire X4200 M2 and Sun Fire X4600 M2 servers deliver a combination of performance, manageability and longevity that is unmatched by competing x64 systems. These qualities make the Sun Fire server line an ideal solution for a variety of consolidation and virtualization projects that are common in enterprise datacenters, and often act as competitive differentiators. For example:

The Sun Fire X4600 M2 server is a powerful 16-way 4U server that is capable of consolidating applications that have been running on more than 50 legacy x86 servers today, onto just one system. It offers twice the compute density in the same size footprint compared to 4-processor servers from HP and IBM. The Sun Fire X4600 M2 server offers similar performance and greater software choice than the Itanium-based HP rx7640 -- at half the price.

The Sun Fire X4100 M2 and Sun Fire X4200 M2 servers utilize the advantages of AMD's Direct Connect Architecture and are more efficient and scalable by design than competitive Intel-based systems. Integration of memory controllers and use of less power-hungry components allows for much lower power consumption when compared to Intel Xeon "Woodcrest"-based servers.

Additionally, under full load, the 2-socket Sun Fire servers demonstrate better scalability and higher performance than similarly sized Intel "Woodcrest"-based servers, with the ability to consolidate up to 22 legacy servers using VMware.