Sun ignites Sun Fire services
The servers, based on Sun's new UltraSPARC III-processor, are important products for the company, making it a natural move to add services to back up the new hardware.
Sun executives expect Sun Fire server sales eventually to account for the bulk of the company's sales.
The services include installation and data center planning for IT personnel working with the new hardware. They also include services aimed at monitoring and keeping the hardware up and running.
Sun's Sun Fire Application Readiness Service will tap the company's consulting services to offer Sun Fire customers assistance with configuration and implementation of a new Sun Fire server.
Sun's New Sun Fire Data Center Readiness Service, to be rolled out in the second half of the year, will offer help installing Sun Fire servers in an existing data center.
Sun also will offer training for Sun Fire servers. Using its Education Consulting Services, the company will offer customers classes on the new features in Sun Fire servers. Those classes will cover, among other things, Sun's Solaris 8 operating system. The classes, as well as professional certification programs for IT personnel, will begin this summer, the company said.
Finally, Sun will offer its RAS (reliability, availability and serviceability) Profile Service to its most demanding customers. The service works to increase availability of the servers through analysis of their reliability and availability, the company said.
Sun Fire servers, released March 21, range in price from $80,000 to $250,000 or more. Sun has dubbed them midframes, because the company says they provide the performance and reliability of a mainframe at the cost of a regular high-end server.