Saudi Aramco
Selects Sun
Starfire Server
and Solaris
PALO ALTO, California -- September
15, 1998 -- Saudi
Aramco, the largest oil producer in the world, has awarded
Sun
Microsystems, Inc. and Abdulla Fouad Co., one of Sun's Middle
Eastern distributors and service providers, a multi-year
contract to
supply the hardware infrastructure, operations management
and
support services necessary for the implementation of one
of the
largest SAPTM R/3TM enterprise resource planning (ERP) projects
to date.
Managed from Saudi Aramco's Dhahran headquarters, the initiative
is known as the Business Systems Integration Program. The
primary objective is to consolidate Saudi Aramco's business
applications, such as financial, human resources, sales
&
distribution, project systems, maintenance management and
materials management, into an integrated SAP R/3 application
suite
providing a single consistent view of the Saudi Aramco enterprise
and its resources. This project will provide the IT solution
required
to support a fully integrated oil business with worldwide
affiliates
for approximately 20,000 users.
SAP's R/3 software suite has been installed in more than
16,000
sites worldwide, and is accepted as the standard in key
industries
such as oil, chemicals, consumer products, high technology
and
electronics. The SAP R/3 deployment at Saudi Aramco will
be
powered by the robust SolarisTM operating environment and
the
highly scalable and reliable SunTM EnterpriseTM 10000 server,
commonly known as "StarfireTM."
"This contract marks a significant milestone for Sun,
both globally
and in the Middle East, proving Sun's incredible momentum
as the
hardware platform of choice for large, mission-critical
ERP
implementations," said Masood Jabbar, president of
Computer
Systems for Sun Microsystems. "Sun has invested heavily
in the
Middle East, and we are very pleased to be working with
Saudi
Aramco."
Sun announced in June 1998 that it had shipped more than
500
Starfire servers to customers in 37 countries, proving the
"Starfire"
server is a natural successor to data center architectures
of the past.
Sun Microsystems technology was selected after a lengthy
internal
evaluation process which began in 1996. The superior performance
of the Sun Enterprise 10000 and professionalism of Sun's
support
personnel were important attributes in the selection of
Sun as
technology provider. The installation will be managed by
the
Sun/Abdulla Fouad customer care center in Al-Khobar, Saudi
Arabia and its Dubai-based regional headquarters.
A key decision criteria for the project was the ability
of the selected
vendor to provide a local infrastructure solution, from
design
through implementation to on-site system management. Sun
Professional Services was selected for its ability to meet
these
requirements.
Sun and SAP
The Saudi Aramco ERP project is just
the latest example of the
close cooperation between Sun Microsystems and SAP. In fact,
Sun has been ranked No. 1 in customer satisfaction worldwide
by
SAP customers and has set the record for the SAP Standard
Application Benchmarks three years in a row.
About Starfire
The success of the Starfire server
in ERP can largely be attributed
to the system features and functionality that meet enterprise-scale
criteria to an unprecedented degree. The industrial strength
Starfire
server provides up to eight Dynamic System Domains. Sun
is the
only UNIX« vendor to offer this feature, which enables
network
managers with the ability to dynamically allocate system
resources
according to the demands of the applications. The Starfire
server
enables customers to run the most demanding, multi-terabyte
applications for data warehousing, decision support, on-line
transaction processing and data analytics on a single, scalable
server. In addition to SAP, the system hosts more than 12,000
applications for the Solaris operating environment.
The Starfire server was the first UNIX system to offer dynamic
reconfiguration and alternate pathing capabilities for high
availability, and the server can be clustered with up to
four nodes
for even greater uptime.
About Sun Microsystems
Since its inception in
1982, a singular vision, "The Network Is The
Computer," has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc., (NASDAQ:
SUNW), to its position as a leading provider of high quality
hardware, software and services for establishing enterprise-wide
intranets and expanding the power of the Internet. With
more than
$9 billion in annual revenues, Sun can be found in more
than 150
countries and on the World Wide Web at http://www.sun.com.
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