Sun beefs up cloud computing and OpenSolaris

Sun is to launch a consulting and planning service for cloud migration

Sun Microsystems has made a number of product announcements on the eve of its annual JavaOne Conference.

The company is to launch a consulting and planning service for cloud computing migration to help enterprises adopt new cloud systems, and has unveiled the latest version of its OpenSolaris operating system.

The new Sun Cloud Strategic Planning Service will utilise Sun's consultancy and cloud computing systems to provide companies with customised plans for migrating to cloud systems.

Sun hopes that the programme will allow for the faster and more efficient adoption of cloud services among enterprises of all sizes.

"Cloud computing has been billed by the industry as the answer to today's IT woes, but without much clarity on how to get there," said Amy O'Connor, vice president of services marketing at Sun.

"We are applying our industry-specific consulting and technology expertise to offer secure, practical guidance to companies looking to drive new levels of efficiency by leveraging this emerging computing model."

Meanwhile, the newest version of Sun's OpenSolaris operating system has been updated with improved support for iSCSI and Fiberchannel connections, as well as Microsoft's CIFS and Sun's ZFS file systems.

Other improvements included better virtualisation tools, and the addition of the 'Project Crossbow' networking component.

"This preview of the next generation of Solaris demonstrates that Sun has the leading platform designed for the latest hardware technologies that power scalable and secure multi-threaded applications in a virtualised and networked world," said John Fowler, Sun's executive vice president of systems.