The SUN workstation was a modular computer system designed at Stanford University in the early 1980s. It became the seed technology for many commercial products, including the original workstations from Sun Microsystems .
51-661: The Sun Community Source License ( SCSL ) is a community source software licensing model designed by Sun Microsystems that covers the J2SE and J2EE software development kits. Sun introduced the SCSL in 1998 to maintain compatibility within the Java platform and make code available for commercial use. In 2004, Sun began to favor the simpler Java Research License for noncommercial use. The SCSL includes elements similar to an open-source license , but it has significant differences, such as
102-465: A 20% stake in Sun. UNIX System V Release 4 (SVR4) was jointly developed by AT&T and Sun. Sun used SVR4 as the foundation for Solaris 2.x, which became the successor to SunOS 4.1.x (later retroactively named Solaris 1.x). By the mid-1990s, the ensuing Unix wars had largely subsided, AT&T had sold off their Unix interests, and the relationship between the two companies was significantly reduced. In
153-416: A consistent design philosophy. Sun's first workstation shipped with UniSoft V7 Unix . Later in 1982 Sun began providing SunOS , a customized 4.2BSD Unix, as the operating system for its workstations. SunOS included suntools , an early GUI window system . In the late 1980s, AT&T tapped Sun to help them develop the next release of their branded UNIX, and in 1988 announced they would purchase up to
204-497: A line of x64 systems that support not only Solaris, but also Linux and Microsoft Windows . In January 2007 Sun announced a broad strategic alliance with Intel . Intel endorsed Solaris as a mainstream operating system and as its mission critical Unix for its Xeon processor–based systems, and contributed engineering resources to OpenSolaris . Sun began using the Intel Xeon processor in its x64 server line, starting with
255-713: A net GAAP profit of $ 126 million on revenue of $ 3.337 billion for its fiscal second quarter. Shortly following that news, it was announced that Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) would invest $ 700 million in the company. Sun had engineering groups in Bangalore , Beijing , Dublin , Grenoble , Hamburg , Prague , St. Petersburg , Tel Aviv , Tokyo , Canberra and Trondheim . In 2007–2008, Sun posted revenue of $ 13.8 billion and had $ 2 billion in cash. First-quarter 2008 losses were $ 1.68 billion; revenue fell 7% to $ 12.99 billion. Sun's stock lost 80% of its value November 2007 to November 2008, reducing
306-682: A primary developer of the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), joined soon after and is counted as one of the original founders. The company was the second, after rival Apollo Computer , to specialize in workstations. The name "Sun" is derived from the initials of the Stanford University Network (SUN). Sun was profitable from its first quarter in July 1982. By 1983, Sun was known for producing 68k-based systems with high-quality graphics that were
357-437: A reputation as one of Microsoft 's most vocal antagonists, Sun entered into a joint relationship with them, resolving various legal entanglements between the two companies and receiving US$ 1.95 billion in settlement payments from them. Sun supported Microsoft Windows on its x64 systems, and announced other collaborative agreements with Microsoft, including plans to support each other's virtualization environments. In 2005,
408-423: A requirement that code is compatible with Java standards and commercial derivative works are subject to licensing fees. The SCSL is not considered a free software license . Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. ( Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers , computer components , software , and information technology services and created the Java programming language ,
459-621: A single chip. The graphics display controller was the first board designed, published in 1980. A Motorola 68000 CPU, along with memory, a parallel port controller and a serial port controller, were included on the main CPU board designed by Bechtolsheim. The third board was an interface to the 2.94 Mbits/second experimental Ethernet (before the speed was standardized at 10 Mbits/second). The Multibus computer interface made it possible to use standard enclosures, and to use circuit boards made by different vendors to create other configurations. For example,
510-691: A suite of software products, including the Solaris operating system , developer tools, Web infrastructure software, and identity management applications. Technologies included the Java platform and NFS . In general, Sun was a proponent of open systems, particularly Unix. It was also a major contributor to open-source software , as evidenced by its $ 1 billion purchase, in 2008, of MySQL , an open-source relational database management system . At various times, Sun had manufacturing facilities in several locations worldwide, including Newark, California ; Hillsboro, Oregon ; and Linlithgow, Scotland . However, by
561-484: A variety of pricing bases, including per-employee and per-socket. A 2006 report prepared for the EU by UNU-MERIT stated that Sun was the largest corporate contributor to open source movements in the world. According to this report, Sun's open source contributions exceed the combined total of the next five largest commercial contributors. Sun is best known for its Unix systems, which have a reputation for system stability and
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#1732790724207612-499: Is Solaris 10 1/13. SUN workstation In 1979 Xerox donated some Alto computers, developed at their Palo Alto Research Center , to Stanford's Computer Science Department, as well as other universities that were developing the early Internet . The Altos were connected using Ethernet to form several local area networks . The SUN's design was inspired by that of the Alto, but used lower-cost modular components. The project name
663-518: Is an SMP capable version of UltraSPARC T2, available in 2 or 4 processor configurations. It was the first CoolThreads CPU with multi-processor capability and it made possible to build standard rack-mounted servers that could simultaneously process up to massive 256 CPU threads in hardware (Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440), which is considered a record in the industry. Since 2010, all further development of Sun machines based on SPARC architecture (including new SPARC T-Series servers, SPARC T3 and T4 chips)
714-604: Is an increasing need to reduce power and air conditioning demands, much of which comes from the heat generated by CPUs. The T1 was followed in 2007 by the UltraSPARC T2 , which extended the number of threads per core from 4 to 8. Sun has open sourced the design specifications of both the T1 and T2 processors via the OpenSPARC project. In 2006, Sun ventured into the blade server (high density rack-mounted systems) market with
765-509: Is done as a part of Oracle Corporation hardware division. In the late 1980s, Sun also marketed an Intel 80386 –based machine, the Sun386i ; this was designed to be a hybrid system, running SunOS but at the same time supporting DOS applications. This only remained on the market for a brief time. A follow-up "486i" upgrade was announced but only a few prototype units were ever manufactured. Sun's brief first foray into x86 systems ended in
816-824: The SUN workstation for the Stanford University Network communications project as a personal CAD workstation . It was designed around the Motorola 68000 processor with an advanced memory management unit (MMU) to support the Unix operating system with virtual memory support. He built the first examples from spare parts obtained from Stanford's Department of Computer Science and Silicon Valley supply houses. On February 24, 1982, Scott McNealy , Andy Bechtolsheim , and Vinod Khosla , all Stanford graduate students, founded Sun Microsystems . Bill Joy of Berkeley,
867-482: The Solaris operating system , ZFS , the Network File System (NFS), and SPARC microprocessors . Sun contributed significantly to the evolution of several key computing technologies, among them Unix , RISC processors , thin client computing, and virtualized computing . Notable Sun acquisitions include Cray Business Systems Division , Storagetek , and Innotek GmbH , creators of VirtualBox . Sun
918-688: The Stanford University Drawing System (SUDS) to design the SUN boards on the SAIL system. SUDS had been originally developed for the Foonly computer. The Structured Computer Aided Logic Design (SCALD) package was then used to verify the design, automate layout and produce wire-wrapped prototypes and then printed circuit boards . VLSI integrated circuits finally allowed for a high-level of hardware functionality to be included in
969-646: The Sun Blade (distinct from the Sun Blade workstation). In April 2007, Sun released the SPARC Enterprise server products, jointly designed by Sun and Fujitsu and based on Fujitsu SPARC64 VI and later processors. The M-class SPARC Enterprise systems include high-end reliability and availability features. Later T-series servers have also been badged SPARC Enterprise rather than Sun Fire. In April 2008, Sun released servers with UltraSPARC T2 Plus, which
1020-556: The Sun-1 through Sun-3 computer series. The Sun-1 employed a 68000 CPU, the Sun-2 series, a 68010 . The Sun-3 series was based on the 68020 , with the later Sun-3x using the 68030 . In 1987, the company began using SPARC , a RISC processor architecture of its own design, in its computer systems, starting with the Sun-4 line. SPARC was initially a 32-bit architecture (SPARC V7) until
1071-582: The dot-com bubble , Sun began making more money, with its stock rising as high as $ 250 per share. It also began spending much more, hiring workers and building itself out. Some of this was because of genuine demand, but much was from web start-up companies anticipating business that would never happen. In 2000, the bubble burst. Sales in Sun's important hardware division went into free-fall as customers closed shop and auctioned high-end servers. Several quarters of steep losses led to executive departures, rounds of layoffs, and other cost cutting. In December 2001,
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#17327907242071122-448: The $ 10,000 estimated price was called the fourth "M" — a "Megapenny". Director of Computer Facilities Ralph Gorin suggested other configurations and initially funded the project. Graduate student Andy Bechtolsheim designed the hardware, with several other students and staff members assisting with software and other aspects of the project. Vaughan Pratt became unofficial faculty leader of the project in 1980. Three key technologies made
1173-564: The CPU board combined with a multi-port serial controller created a terminal server (called a TIP, for Terminal Interface Processor) which connected many terminals to the Digital Equipment Corporation time-sharing systems at Stanford or anywhere on the Internet. Configuring multiple Ethernet controllers (including commercial ones, once they were available) with one CPU board created a router . William Yeager wrote
1224-797: The Japanese company's processor chips in mid-range and high-end Sun servers. These servers were announced on April 17, 2007, as the M-Series, part of the SPARC Enterprise series. In February 2005, Sun announced the Sun Grid , a grid computing deployment on which it offered utility computing services priced at US$ 1 per CPU/hour for processing and per GB/month for storage. This offering built upon an existing 3,000-CPU server farm used for internal R&D for over 10 years, which Sun marketed as being able to achieve 97% utilization. In August 2005,
1275-532: The LX50, based in part on previous Cobalt system expertise. This was also Sun's first system announced to support Linux as well as Solaris. In 2003, Sun announced a strategic alliance with AMD to produce x86/x64 servers based on AMD's Opteron processor; this was followed shortly by Sun's acquisition of Kealia, a startup founded by original Sun founder Andy Bechtolsheim , which had been focusing on high-performance AMD-based servers. The following year, Sun launched
1326-525: The Newark campus was put on the market. In 2004, Sun canceled two major processor projects which emphasized high instruction-level parallelism and operating frequency. Instead, the company chose to concentrate on processors optimized for multi-threading and multiprocessing , such as the UltraSPARC T1 processor (codenamed "Niagara"). The company also announced a collaboration with Fujitsu to use
1377-738: The Opteron-based Sun Fire V20z and V40z servers, and the Sun Java Workstation W1100z and W2100z workstations. In September 2005 Sun unveiled a new range of Opteron-based servers: the Sun Fire X2100, X4100 and X4200 servers. These were designed from scratch by a team led by Bechtolsheim to address heat and power consumption issues commonly faced in data centers. In July 2006, the Sun Fire X4500 and X4600 systems were introduced, extending
1428-433: The SUN workstation possible: very large-scale integration (VLSI) integrated circuits , Multibus and ECAD . ECAD (Electronic Computer Assisted Design, now known as Electronic design automation) allowed a single designer to quickly develop systems of greater complexity. The Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL) had pioneered personal display terminals, but the 1971 system was showing its age. Bechtolsheim used
1479-544: The Sun Blade X6250 server module introduced in June 2007. In May 2008 AMD announced its Operating System Research Center (OSRC) was expanding its focus to include optimization to Sun's OpenSolaris and xVM virtualization products for AMD processors. Although Sun was initially known as a hardware company, its software history began with its founding in 1982; co-founder Bill Joy was one of the leading Unix developers of
1530-596: The aim of building network appliances (single function computers meant for consumers). Sun also marketed a Network Computer (a term popularized and eventually trademarked by Oracle ); the JavaStation was a diskless system designed to run Java applications. Although none of these business initiatives were particularly successful, the Cobalt purchase gave Sun a toehold for its return to the x86 hardware market. In 2002, Sun introduced its first general purpose x86 system,
1581-576: The amounts indicated when the acquisition closed. For the first decade of Sun's history, the company positioned its products as technical workstations , competing successfully as a low-cost vendor during the Workstation Wars of the 1980s. It then shifted its hardware product line to emphasize servers and storage. High-level telecom control systems such as Operational Support Systems service predominantly used Sun equipment. Sun originally used Motorola 68000 family central processing units for
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1632-403: The company released Solaris 10. The new version included a large number of enhancements to the operating system, as well as very novel features, previously unseen in the industry. Solaris 10 update releases continued through the next 8 years, the last release from Sun Microsystems being Solaris 10 10/09. The following updates were released by Oracle under the new license agreement; the final release
1683-418: The company's current strategy. Sun's logo, which features four interleaved copies of the word sun in the form of a rotationally symmetric ambigram , was designed by professor Vaughan Pratt , also of Stanford. The initial version of the logo was orange and had the sides oriented horizontally and vertically, but it was subsequently rotated to stand on one corner and re-colored purple, and later blue. During
1734-472: The company's market value to $ 3 billion. With falling sales to large corporate clients, Sun announced plans to lay off 5,000 to 6,000 workers, or 15–18% of its work force. It expected to save $ 700 million to $ 800 million a year as a result of the moves, while also taking up to $ 600 million in charges. As of May 11, 2009, the following shareholders held over 100,000 common shares of Sun and at $ 9.50 per share offered by Oracle, they received
1785-738: The early 1990s, Brian P. Dougherty , founder of Berkeley Softworks (which would go on to be re-incorporated as the GeoWorks Corporation ) accused the Java development team at Sun for studying GeoWorks's PC/GEOS operating system and incorporating features of PC/GEOS into their Unix-based operating system. Brian claimed that the object-oriented and flexible UI of PC/GEOS was "to this day the most sophisticated UI technology ever built into an OS". From 1992 Sun also sold Interactive Unix , an operating system it acquired when it bought Interactive Systems Corporation from Eastman Kodak Company. This
1836-402: The early 1990s, as it decided to concentrate on SPARC and retire the last Motorola systems and 386i products, a move dubbed by McNealy as "all the wood behind one arrowhead". Even so, Sun kept its hand in the x86 world, as a release of Solaris for PC compatibles began shipping in 1993. In 1997, Sun acquired Diba, Inc., followed later by the acquisition of Cobalt Networks in 2000, with
1887-441: The first commercial use of this grid was announced for financial risk simulations which were later launched as its first software as a service product. In January 2005, Sun reported a net profit of $ 19 million for fiscal 2005 second quarter, for the first time in three years. This was followed by net loss of $ 9 million on GAAP basis for the third quarter 2005, as reported on April 14, 2005. In January 2007, Sun reported
1938-431: The four-processor SPARCserver 600MP. This was followed by the 8-processor SPARCserver 1000 and 20-processor SPARCcenter 2000, which were based on work done in conjunction with Xerox PARC . In 1995 the company introduced Sun Ultra series machines that were equipped with the first 64-bit implementation of SPARC processors ( UltraSPARC ). In the late 1990s the transformation of product line in favor of large 64-bit SMP systems
1989-627: The introduction of the SPARC V9 architecture in 1995, which added 64-bit extensions. Sun developed several generations of SPARC-based computer systems, including the SPARCstation , Ultra , and Sun Blade series of workstations, and the SPARCserver, Netra , Enterprise , and Sun Fire line of servers. In the early 1990s the company began to extend its product line to include large-scale symmetric multiprocessing servers, starting with
2040-526: The most powerful, enterprise class high-end CC-NUMA servers developed by Sun, such as the Sun Fire E15K and the Sun Fire E25K . In November 2005, Sun launched the UltraSPARC T1 , notable for its ability to concurrently run 32 threads of execution on 8 processor cores. Its intent was to drive more efficient use of CPU resources, which is of particular importance in data centers , where there
2091-632: The new UltraSPARC CPUs based on the SPARC V9 architecture. Within the next four years, the successors Solaris 8 and Solaris 9 were released in 2000 and 2002 respectively. Following several years of difficult competition and loss of server market share to competitors' Linux-based systems, Sun began to include Linux as part of its strategy in 2002. Sun supported both Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server on its x64 systems; companies such as Canonical Ltd. , Wind River Systems and MontaVista also supported their versions of Linux on Sun's SPARC-based systems. In 2004, after having cultivated
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2142-464: The only computers other than DEC 's VAX to run 4.2BSD . It licensed the computer design to other manufacturers, which typically used it to build Multibus -based systems running Unix from UniSoft . Sun's initial public offering was in 1986 under the stock symbol SUNW , for Sun Workstations (later Sun Worldwide ). The symbol was changed in 2007 to JAVA ; Sun stated that the brand awareness associated with its Java platform better represented
2193-559: The software, which was later adopted and evolved by Cisco Systems on its version of the hardware. Les Earnest licensed the CPU board for one of the first commercial low-cost laser printer controllers at a company called Imagen. The processor board was combined with a prototype high performance graphics display by students of James H. Clark . That group later formed Silicon Graphics Incorporated . Eventually about ten SUN workstations were built during 1981 and 1982, after which Stanford declined to build any more. Bechtolsheim then licensed
2244-402: The stock fell to the 1998, pre-bubble level of about $ 100. It continued to fall, faster than many other technology companies. A year later, it had reached below $ 10 (a tenth of what it was in 1990), but it eventually bounced back to $ 20. In mid-2004, Sun closed their Newark, California , factory and consolidated all manufacturing to Hillsboro, Oregon and Linlithgow, Scotland. In 2006, the rest of
2295-547: The time the company was acquired by Oracle Corporation , it had outsourced most manufacturing responsibilities. On April 20, 2009, it was announced that Oracle would acquire Sun for US$ 7.4 billion. The deal was completed on January 27, 2010. The initial design for what became Sun's first Unix workstation , the Sun-1 , was conceived by Andy Bechtolsheim when he was a graduate student at Stanford University in Palo Alto , California. Bechtolsheim originally designed
2346-736: The time, having contributed the vi editor, the C shell , and significant work developing TCP/IP and the BSD Unix OS. Sun later developed software such as the Java programming language and acquired software such as StarOffice , VirtualBox and MySQL . In February 1991, the company established SunSoft, Inc., a wholly owned division of Sun dedicated to the development of operating systems and application software. Sun used community-based and open-source licensing of its major technologies, and for its support of its products with other open source technologies. GNOME -based desktop software called Java Desktop System (originally code-named "Madhatter")
2397-519: Was a popular Unix variant for the PC platform and a major competitor to market leader SCO UNIX . Sun's focus on Interactive Unix diminished in favor of Solaris on both SPARC and x86 systems; it was dropped as a product in 2001. Sun dropped the Solaris 2.x version numbering scheme after the Solaris 2.6 release (1997); the following version was branded Solaris 7. This was the first 64-bit release, intended for
2448-635: Was accelerated by the acquisition of Cray Business Systems Division from Silicon Graphics. Their 32-bit, 64-processor Cray Superserver 6400 , related to the SPARCcenter, led to the 64-bit Sun Enterprise 10000 high-end server (otherwise known as Starfire or E10K). In September 2004, Sun made available systems with UltraSPARC IV which was the first multi-core SPARC processor. It was followed by UltraSPARC IV+ in September 2005 and its revisions with higher clock speeds in 2007. These CPUs were used in
2499-411: Was derived from the initials of the campus' Stanford University Network . Professor Forest Baskett suggested the best-known configuration: a relatively low-cost personal workstation for computer-aided logic design work. The design created a 3M computer : a 1 million instructions per second (MIPS) processor, 1 Megabyte of memory and a 1 Megapixel raster scan bit-map graphics display. Sometimes
2550-523: Was distributed for the Solaris operating system, and at one point for Linux. Sun supported its Java Enterprise System (a middleware stack) on Linux. It released the source code for Solaris under the open-source Common Development and Distribution License , via the OpenSolaris community. Sun's positioning includes a commitment to indemnify users of some software from intellectual property disputes concerning that software. It offers support services on
2601-581: Was founded on February 24, 1982. At its height, the Sun headquarters were in Santa Clara, California (part of Silicon Valley ), on the former west campus of the Agnews Developmental Center . Sun products included computer servers and workstations built on its own RISC -based SPARC processor architecture , as well as on x86 -based AMD Opteron and Intel Xeon processors. Sun also developed its own storage systems and
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