Sun also announced the Sun Managed Storage Services programme and provided updates to its Sun Grid Storage Utility offering of $1 (USD) per gigabyte (GB) per month. These new programmes are designed to provide customers greater choice and flexibility for managing their storage assets, reducing cost and complexity and getting the most out of their data.

"When customers purchase storage hardware, software and services from separate companies, they have difficulty making it work all together. On top of that, they have to deal with complicated pricing, support and licensing structures, which just make it even more confusing to manage", stated Mark Canepa, executive vice president of Network Storage at Sun. "Customers are demanding simpler, lower-cost ways to best leverage today's storage technology to manage their environments. With our new offerings, such as Sun Java StorEdge Software and suites, Sun Managed Storage Services and the Sun Grid Storage Utility, Sun is dramatically simplifying how customers locate, acquire, and manage solutions to meet their data challenges while reducing overall costs."

Modelled after the successful Sun Java Enterprise System, with almost half a million subscribers today, the new Sun Java StorEdge Software and suites represent an industry breakthrough in storage software pricing, licensing, delivery and service. The innovative subscription-based pricing model brings the power of the complete Sun StorEdge software portfolio to market with a simple, predictable and more affordable licensing model.

The new Sun Java StorEdge Software and suites package can be purchased in its entirety, or in its four separate software suites, each designed to address customers most significant data management challenges:

• Sun Java StorEdge Consolidation Suite simplifies storage management by bundling core Sun StorEdge software products that address heterogeneous storage resource management, Storage Area Network (SAN) management, application-aware modules and automated provisioning to provide customers with improved application performance and availability.
• Sun Java StorEdge Continuity Suite ensures continuous access to business data with software that performs back-up, snapshot, mirroring, replication, migration and virtualization.
• Sun Java StorEdge Content Suite helps customers manage the lifecycle of their data, based on its business value, with core functionality that includes: content and e-mail archiving, content search and high performance file serving, policy-based data management across storage classes and the ability to create policy-based archiving in a heterogeneous environment.
• Sun Java StorEdge Compliance Suite helps customers satisfy requirements for record retention by packaging tools such as e-mail and document retention software into a suite that enables policy-based data management across heterogeneous tiers of storage and provides the ability to automate policy-based migration and archiving.

All suites include the main console, which allows for complete heterogeneous SAN management of all devices and systems.

"Our research supports user demand for bundled storage software solutions; users want to reduce the complexities associated with purchasing and maintaining software", stated Nancy Hurley, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. "Sun is providing a cost-effective, simple way for customers to acquire comprehensive, end-to-end storage and data management solutions. By including services and maintenance in the Sun Java StorEdge Software and suites, Sun is also helping to address the pain points users experience when implementing and maintaining software solutions."

The Sun Java StorEdge Software and suites package is available with two different subscription pricing options, per-employee and per-terabyte (TB), and is suitable for customers of all sizes. For the complete Java StorEdge Software package, customers can pay either $350 per employee per year, or purchase storage capacity beginning at $400,000 for five TB per year. Each suite also has it's own similar subscription model. This new model offers customers a potential cost savings of at least 30 percent in comparison to typical, point-product offerings. During the term of the subscription customers will receive new products and upgrades at no additional cost.

In addition to this new offering, Sun will also continue to offer each of the component software products a la carte, including: heterogeneous storage management, application management, content archiving, data availability and more - all with the goal of providing customers a greater choice of purchasing options to meet their requirements.

For customers who prefer to outsource their storage management needs, Sun is expanding its managed services portfolio with the new Sun Managed Storage Services offering. Sun Managed Storage Services give customers customizable ways to outsource their biggest storage problems including daily storage management, "on the fly" provisioning, data lifecycle reporting and SAN infrastructure management. Sun Managed Storage Services leverages Storage Network Industry Association (SNIA) certified staff and Sun StorEdge monitoring and management software for remote storage management.

With Sun Managed Storage Services, customers can easily scale their resources to meet unique and evolving needs, without the cost and time of adding or reducing head count, or buying new software, all with a phone call to Sun. Customers reduce the risk of over- or under-hiring storage management personnel, buying software they don't need, human error due to lack of experience, and also avoid the weeks of delays inherent in the hiring process.

Sun Managed Services also provide customers with the ability to outsource not just management, but their entire storage infrastructure. Sun Managed Storage Services give customers access to the full range of Sun StorEdge systems, from the entry level Sun StorEdge 3000 series systems to the enterprise-level Sun StorEdge 9000-series systems. In addition, customers are not obligated to use only one class of storage, further reducing costs and ensuring they are getting a storage solution that is right for their needs.