SUN BEEFS UP SIMULATION CENTERS
by Evan Koblentz

Sun Microsystems Inc is adding a data warehousing component to its customer infrastructure simulation centers, officials said.

The new functionality, built by Sun with help from Informatica Corp, will enable enterprise customers to test their warehousing plans before implementing them, checking such things as interoperability, scalability, speed and systems transparency, said Sun Senior Solutions Manager A.J. Mahajan.

"Our customers keep telling us that they have to collect all this data to extract some information from it ... it's an enormously complex task. To keep up, they have to do architectural changes. We can eliminate some of that initial startup time," Mahajan said.

The service is available immediately in Sun's Menlo Park, Calif., facility, and there are plans to expand to 50 locations worldwide in the next few quarters. Future upgrades will include simulated instant mirroring and data marts, Sun officials said.

The testing facilities will also include non-Sun technology to represent real-life environments, such as mainframes and Windows systems, and with a variety of networking types and conditions. "They're also tested to interact in heterogeneous environments," Mahajan said.

Autodesk Inc, of San Rafeal, Calif., and Merrill Lynch & Co Inc, of New York, were beta testers who have signed up for the service, Sun officials said.

Managing the flow

"Certainly customers and IT managers are looking for better ways to manage the flow of their data," said John Madden, an analyst with Summit Strategies in Boston. "It certainly shows how they're trying to use the existing programs to gain more mind share. They can just customize the last 20 percent of it for customers' needs."

As for Sun's future plans for the service, "It ... needs to tie into an overall design and deployment of storage area networks," Madden added.

Separately, Sun executives will announce a mid-fourth-quarter update. The company expects revenues for the quarter to be down slightly from those reported in the third quarter, or in the $3.8 billion to $4 billion range, officials said in a release. Earnings per share, on a pro forma basis, are now estimated to be in the range of 2 cents to 4 cents.