Sun Microsystems Demos Open Source Technologies at Educause 2009

Sun Microsystems has announced that Columbia University will use an open source Sun solution to run its digital preservation project -- and also that the University of Zurich is deploying Project Wonderland projects as a global eLearning initiative.

The company is showcasing its open computing portfolio and partner solutions at the Educause Conference 2009.

The Sun Open Computing portfolio includes Sun Open Storage, OpenSolaris Operating System, Sun Open Archive solutions and the OpenSPARC T1 processor.

In a release, Sun says it will simplify the implementation of open source technologies and achieve cost-effective interoperability. These technologies, along with partner solutions, will be demonstrated at the Educause Conference.

Columbia University Libraries has selected Sun's Storage Archive Manager (SAM) solution to expand its digital library. The Libraries is combining the SAM management software with Sun servers and storage and tape technologies to enable a coherent and comprehensive technology infrastructure.

Columbia Libraries consists of 22 libraries with over 10 million volumes, 100,000 current journals and serials, and an extensive collection of electronic resources, microforms and other non-print materials.

“We are at a time of extraordinary technological and social change, when we need to implement systems and services capable of supporting 21st century teaching, learning, research and scholarship. Our goal was to find the right technology vendor to help us build a cost-effective and expandable system to support Columbia’s growing digital collections,” states Robert Cartolano, director, library info tech office, in a release.

“Sun Microsystems (News - Alert) provided everything we needed in one place. We were very impressed with their technology model, their commitment to open source and open systems, and their extensive experience in large-scale storage,” adds Cartolano.

The SAM technology, a combination of StorEdge 6140, 4500 and L500 tape storage media technologies, along with Fedora Commons Repository Software from duraspace.org (an open source project), allows the libraries to remotely locate and manage digital artifacts on three tiers of storage in geographically disparate locations for long-term content preservation.

Sun and Virtual Learning Labs supported the University of Zurich's ShanghAI Lectures in building a 3D virtual learning world based on the Project Wonderland open source toolkit. The lectures take place in a mixed reality setting, with video streaming and virtual worlds, to enable students worldwide to actively participate in presentations and lectures.

“We used the open source Project Wonderland toolkit to develop a virtual 3D environment, and it has proven to be ideal for our purposes,” explained Professor Rolf Pfeifer, director of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the University of Zurich. “Students and faculty from almost 40 universities worldwide are now able to meet and mingle in our virtual classroom and share cutting-edge research on natural and artificial intelligence through our virtual classroom.”

The University of Zurich is a member of the Sun Immersion Special Interest Group, a Sun Microsystems Inc., for advancing the state of open source technology and content for virtual worlds and gaming in education based on Sun's open source Project Wonderland, Project Darkstar and SunSPOT technologies.