SUN AND INFORMATICA DELIVER DATA WAREHOUSING REFERENCE ARCHITECTURE FOR HARNESSING THE POWER OF INFORMATION TO HELP IMPROVE BUSINESS DECISION MAKING New iForce(SM) Data Warehousing Reference Architecture Helps Reduce Risk, Accelerate Time-to-Deployment in Building Scalable Data Integration Environments PALO ALTO, Calif., May 30, 2001-Sun Microsystems, in conjunction with Informatica, today announced a designed, tested and tuned integratable data warehousing solution, known as the iForce(SM) Data Warehousing Reference Architecture. This Reference Architecture is aimed at helping enterprises design and develop data integration environments with reduced complexity and risk. The data integration and data warehouse phase of Sun's Data Warehousing/Business Intelligence Reference Architecture solution is part of Sun's iForce(SM) program. This designed, documented, pre-tested and tuned architecture helps provide enterprises with a quick and easy deployment path for building analytic infrastructures. The Reference Architecture is scheduled to be available in Sun's iForce(SM) Ready Centers worldwide. Reference Architectures are designed to provide flexibility while protecting customer investment. They help simplify the customer decision-making process about their IT infrastructure by allowing customers to make informed architectural decisions and providing enterprises with a quick and easy deployment path to help reduce risk and complexity in implementation. These solutions leverage existing IT architectures while allowing for customization to help meet a company's unique needs. The iForce Data Warehousing/Business Intelligence Reference Architecture is designed to provide companies with a blueprint for implementing an enterprise-based solution for collecting, integrating, managing, analyzing and delivering data. Reference Architectures meet today's performance and workload needs and are designed to provide transition to a heavier load in the future as a given service or capability succeeds. Building an infrastructure for warehousing data can take several months to more than a year. With Reference Architectures, enterprises are able to dramatically reduce this time by leveraging the extensive design, testing and integration work conducted by the companies and shared with customers via Scalability and Implementation Guides. These guides characterize what goes into each Reference Architecture to minimize customers' risk and complexity in architectural deployment, including load configurations, testing and sizing. "With the proliferation of information brought about by the Net Effect - or the opportunities created with the exponential increase in Internet availability and bandwidth - it has become a business imperative that companies harness the massive quantities of disparate data to provide information that helps make better-informed decisions in real time," said Shahin Khan, vice president of marketing for Computer Systems at Sun Microsystems, Inc. To help enterprises meet this need, Sun teamed with the industry-leading data integration solution provider Informatica to develop the first phase of its Data Warehousing/Business Intelligence Reference Architecture. The combination of Sun's industry-leading Solaris(TM) Operating Environment (Solaris OE) and UltraSPARC(TM) technology with Informatica PowerCenter data integration software will allow enterprise customers to build data warehouses that leverage the best of both technologies. Informatica provides integration among eBusiness and enterprise data sources, including ERP, CRM, procurement, XML, mainframe and legacy systems. The Informatica data integration platform also delivers high performance and scalability to meet the data integration needs of the most demanding enterprises. For example, Dennis Dantona, director of enterprise application services at Autodesk, appreciates the "rich analytic architecture" offered by Sun's industry-leading server technology coupled with Informatica's best-of-breed data integration platform. "Informatica addresses the challenges of integrating data from disparate sources, while Sun has provided high-speed and reliable access to our data," he says. "Both technologies have lived up to our expectations, in terms of data integration, scalability and real-time computing." "As the leading eBusiness analytic solutions provider, we understand the risk and complexity involved in developing a viable IT infrastructure for gaining business insight," said Girish Pancha, senior vice president and general manager of platform technologies with Informatica Corporation. "Partnering with Sun to develop the iForce Reference Architecture has allowed us to seamlessly integrate our technology with Sun's to develop a superior architecture that will support existing and potential customers." This Reference Architecture's documented architecture is based on a framework of the Solaris OE, Sun Enterprise(TM) servers, Sun StorEdge(TM) T3 arrays and Informatica PowerCenter. Sizing and Implementation Guides will be available to customers through traditional Sun and Informatica sales channels. Customers can get a demonstration of the Reference Architectures and build a proof-of-concept around their unique environment in Sun's iForce Ready Center in Menlo Park, Calif. Sun expects to make this Reference Architecture available at its international iForce Ready Centers within the next year. Sun's iForce Reference Architectures are the result of the dynamic relationships within the iForce(TM) community. Sun's iForce program brings together under one umbrella Sun systems, software, services and best-of-breed iForce partners to create and deliver customer-driven solutions that help enable large and small customers to leverage the network to improve business processes such as decision support systems, supply chain management, product design and development, email and communications. Also available today are Reference Architectures to build ISP Messaging and Enterprise Wireless Content Delivery solutions. About Sun Microsystems, Inc. Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision-"The Network Is The Computer(TM)"- has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW), to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that power the Internet and allow companies worldwide to take their businesses to the nth. With $19.2 billion in annual revenues, Sun can be found in more than 170 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com. About Informatica Corporation Informatica (NASDAQ: INFA) provides eBusiness analytic solutions that enable companies to leverage business insight for competitive advantage. More than 1,200 global customers, including over half of the Fortune 100, leverage the Informatica Insight Network to integrate, analyze and personalize critical business information to improve business performance and responsiveness across the entire business value chain. Informatica products include a comprehensive family of analytic applications, the industry's most powerful data integration platform and a wide range of supporting services and partnerships. The company's list of leading customers includes 3Com, AMD, American Airlines, BMW, Boeing, Borders Group, Chevron, Cisco, CNET, Deutsche Bank, eBay, General Electric, Merck, Merrill Lynch, MetLife, Motorola, Philips Semiconductor, Polo Ralph Lauren, Sprint and UBS. For more information, call 1.800.970.1179, or visit the Informatica Web site at http://www.informatica.com. ### Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, iForce, Sun Enterprise, Sun StorEdge, Solaris and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and in other countries. All SPARC trademarks are used under license and are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. Informatica, PowerCenter and Informatica Insight Network are trademarks or registered trademarks of Informatica Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. Other company names may be the trademarks of their respective owners.