XM Satellite Radio Selects Sun as Sole Supplier of UNIX, Storage Data Center Solutions and Support
During its quarterly
Network Computing ‘05 (NC05Q1) launch today, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
(Nasdaq: SUNW) and XM Satellite Radio today announced a long-term agreement
for Sun to be the company’s sole supplier of UNIX(R) and storage technology
and support services.
The new agreement expands an already successful partnership designed to
maximize the performance of XM’s business infrastructure applications. Sun
will be the sole supplier of technology solutions — including storage,
servers and technical support — for XM’s back office data center, which
powers the company’s business, operations and marketing systems. The first
implementation under the new agreement includes an enhancement of XM’s back
office data center with a comprehensive Sun data management and consolidation
solution.
“The data center solutions Sun has delivered have proven to be a key
enabler of XM’s success over the years, allowing us to meet our service-level
commitments, keep costs down and achieve our millions of satisfied customers,”
said Frank Patry, vice president, Enterprise Information Technology at XM
Satellite Radio. “Sun designed a growth-ready, cost-effective storage network
architecture that has provided the performance and around-the-clock
availability that is essential to our growing business. We have a strong
relationship with Sun, and expect our new enhancements to provide an even more
robust environment with the scalability and manageability we’ll need as we
continue to rapidly increase our subscriber base and extend our leadership
position.”
“After a vendor review in 2004, XM Satellite determined that Sun’s rock-
solid reliability and growth-ready systems positioned us as the best partner
to take them to the next level of business growth,” said Juan Dewar, vice
president, Media and Entertainment at Sun. “Sun is delighted to have XM
Satellite provide this level of commitment to our systems approach, and look
forward to expanding our partnership and helping XM Satellite exceed their
goals.”
New products in XM’s back office data center enhancement implementation
include the Sun StorEdge(TM) 9990 System, Sun StorEdge Enterprise Storage
Manager (ESM) software, a Sun Fire(TM) 25K high-end server, Sun Fire 2900
midrange servers and Sun Fire V440 entry-level servers, all running the
industry-leading Solaris(TM) Operating System.
Working with XM prior to its startup in 2001, Sun assisted with the
architecture of the company’s initial infrastructure, which has provided solid
and consistent performance, reliability, scalability and support, forming a
technology partnership that has served as a backbone for the company’s
expanding business. This was demonstrated most recently during the height of
the 2004 holiday season, a time of unprecedented growth for the radio service.
During the fourth quarter, XM signed up more than 700,000 new subscribers, and
the Sun infrastructure performed without a single instance of downtime or
service interruption.
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