PRESS RELEASES:

SAN RAMON, Calif., May 10, 2005 - The Enterprise Grid Alliance (EGA) today announced the industry's first Reference Model for enterprise grids, laying the foundation for standardized solutions that will enable organizations to take advantage of the many benefits of grid computing.

The Reference Model provides a specific context for describing requirements, standards, comparing technologies and implementing grid solutions. The model delivers a framework and set of customer-based requirements needed to accelerate enterprise grid adoption. Included in its three main components are a common lexicon of grid terms; a model that classifies the management and lifecycles of the components required for enterprise grids; and a set of use cases that demonstrate the requirements for enterprise grid computing. Like all of the EGA's work, the Reference Model is vendor neutral, technology and implementation agnostic, and will be continuously updated as the grid marketplace evolves.

“For the past year, the Reference Model Working Group has been working to drive consensus among industry leaders, around the basic foundations of enterprise grid computing,” said Paul Strong, chairman of the EGA technical steering committee and systems architect at Sun Microsystems. “The result of EGA efforts is a Reference Model that allows highly complex data center environments to be described in simple, easy to understand terms. This Reference Model is a critical step toward achieving a set of agreed upon enterprise grid use cases and a common terminology for discussing grid-based infrastructures and management processes.”

The Reference Model will create a basis for collaboration with other organizations to ensure standards meet enterprise requirements supporting the EGA's goal. This will reduce duplication among various groups and more quickly eliminate barriers to adoption.

“EGA has a pragmatic approach to standards development, preferring to cooperate with other standards setting organizations rather than creating specifications from scratch,” said Dr. Donald Deutsch, president, Enterprise Grid Alliance and vice president, standards strategy and architecture, Oracle. “The EGA Reference Model provides the framework for working collaboratively on the development of technologies and standards necessary for accelerating the deployment of grid technology.”

The EGA was launched in April 2004 to accelerate the deployment of grids in enterprise data centers. Since its inception, the EGA has increased its membership 60 percent, founded two regional steering committees (in Europe and Japan) and established five individually chartered technical working groups to address specific areas including the reference model, component provisioning, data provisioning, security and utility accounting.

About The Enterprise Grid Alliance

The Enterprise Grid Alliance is an open consortium focused on developing and promoting enterprise grid solutions. Membership is open to all organizations via multiple participation tiers. For more information, please visit our Web site at www.gridalliance.org.

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Trademarks

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Copyright 2005 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved. Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

Contacts

Marcie Hatch
Zeno Group for EGA
415.369.8120

Devon Corvasce
Zeno Group for EGA
415.369.8110

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