Sun gives away storage software

30 Apr 2008 | 08:31 BST

By Nick Farrell

SUN IS PLANNING to open sauce part of its storage technology.
The outfit said that it will give away developer tools and professional service capabilities that will allow developers to build on its OpenSolaris platform.

Sun’s Graham Lovell, senior director for storage servers and appliances, said that this will effectively turn industry-standard servers into low-cost storage appliances.

It will also mean that the Vole’s Windows Storage Server operating system, found on many low-cost storage outfits, will get a run for its money.

Lovell has promised that punters will be able to download a copy of the storage version of the Opensolaris operating system and install it on any server and have a NAS appliance within 10 minutes.

Lovell told CRN that while it would be nice if punters bought Sun x86 servers to run the software but, even if they didn't, it would still cost them nothing for software.

He described storage as the last bastion of proprietary technology, because punters usually buy hardware, software, and services from one vendor. µ

L'Inq
CRN

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