Solstice Partners Product Guide


Introduction

This guide is intended to serve as a central source of information on the vendors and products included in the Solstice Partners Program from SunSoft. This strategic base of third party developers and integrators provides significant added value to the Solstice platforms.

There are nine functional categories that constitute enterprise management, and the Solstice product line strategy addresses each these functional areas:

About SunSoft

SunSoft, Inc., headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., is a subsidiary of Sun Microsystems, Inc. SunSoft's charter is to design, market, sell and support the industry's highest-quality software environment for enterprise rightsizing and network computing applications. The company, which is the industry's highest-volume UNIX vendor, has offices in North America, Europe and Asia, and is a leading supplier of 32-bit system software solutions for SPARC, Intel 386/486 and Pentium based computers. The products are licensed by SunSoft and distributed through major computer manufacturers and resellers worldwide.

Solstice Products Overview and Application Areas

SunSoft's Solstice is the industry's first fully integrated solution to harness the complexity of distributed computing. Its powerful product family simplifies enterprise management and lowers the cost of operation. A partners program delivers a wide range of solutions for enterprise-wide computing needs.

There are nine functional categories that constitute enterprise management, and the Solstice product line strategy addresses each functional area:

Fault/Event, Performance Management: Solstice SunNet Manager, Solstice Cooperative Consoles, Solstice Enterprise Manager

Fault/event and performance management is generally defined as live performance data analysis, historical logging and trend analysis, and automated event definition and management that allows software to attempt to refine problem definitions before an operator becomes involved. The Solstice SunNet Manager, Solstice Cooperative Consoles and Solstice Enterprise Manager products meet these needs in domains, extended workgroups and distributed network environments.

Storage Management: Solstice DiskSuite, Solstice Backup, and a future high availability product suite

Data management includes technologies that provide data protection and enhanced availability and failover features. In addition, networked environments require a network-based backup capability, and performance/scalability such as disk mirroring, striping, journaling, RAID and failover features. The Solstice DiskSuite, Solstice Backup and our future high availability products meet the needs of protecting data and enhancing availability and scalability in enterprise computing environments.

Software Management: Solstice JumpStart and Solstice AutoClient

Software management in an enterprise network installation is comprised of operating system installation, software distribution, software license management and version control. The Solstice JumpStart and Solstice AutoClient products provide the automated capabilities to centralize data on the server, establishing clients as management-free desktops, with the maximum local performance.

Configuration Management: Solstice AdminTools and Solstice PC Management

Configuration management is what is generally considered "system administration" activities including configuring hosts, users, groups, printers, serial ports, and databases. Managing classes and topologies in a complex virtual network is also a key capability in this category. The Solstice AdminTools and Solstice PC Management (SolarNet) products provide distributed administration tools to simplify the system administration tasks across the enterprise installation.

Workload Management

Workload management and task distribution in a network environment is very complex. However it is very effective for the environment's performance. SunSoft is currently evaluating industry leading technologies in this area for integration into the Solstice product line strategy. Specific product details will be available when a product is introduced in Q3CY95.

Security Management: Solstice FireWall-1

Security management in the network environment goes beyond simple login passwords and encryption to several new points of security provisions. A strategic component is providing a "firewall" to prevent hacker access from the Internet. The Solstice FireWall-1 product defines high-level security for Internet access.

Help Desk

Help Desk tools include trouble-ticketing systems, bug database browsing, and associated tools to gather intelligence about problems and track repairs. Specific product detail will be available when a product is introduced in Q3CY95.

Support Services

Generally outsourced services, such as disaster recovery services, are an important facet of the comprehensive enterprise management solution. As the telecommunications industry continues to grow, many telecommunications companies will provide more data networking services and many of the other management services included in the enterprise management categories.

Accounting/Chargeback

A facility which allows system administrators to conduct inventory management across the network from a single site. Specific product detail will be available when a product is introduced in Q3CY95.

Solstice Partners Program Overview

The Solstice Partners Program is a SunSoft Catalyst technology program and includes all of the benefits of membership in the Catalyst Program, the industry's premier developer assistance program. Membership in the Catalyst Program is a prerequisite for participation in the Solstice Partners Program.

The Solstice Partners Program was developed to meet the specific needs of Catalyst developers who are focused on the application of advanced enterprise management technologies. Catalyst provides expert technical assistance, access to timely information, developer kits, and a host of marketing and sales programs to help a diverse developer community build and deliver client/server solutions. Customized offerings such as the Solstice Partners Program provide additional, focused support to strategic vendors working with key technologies.

The goal of the Solstice product line is to enable IS managers to deliver complete enterprise management solutions for network and system management. Solstice Partners are key to achieving this goal; they are strategic vendors who work with Solstice SunNet Manager, Solstice Backup, Solstice Enterprise Manager, and other leading enterprise management applications to provide comprehensive management solutions that ease operational/administrative issues faced by organizations today.

The Solstice Partners Program provides an awareness and support for vendor applications while enabling customers to choose third party products compatible with the Solstice product line. The primary objective of the program is to create business opportunities in the enterprise management market for these strategic vendors. The program creates these opportunities through marketing events that increase partner visibility, and development activities that facilitate partner efforts to develop on the Solstice platform.

A second objective of the program is to encourage a cooperative relationship between Partners and SunSoft. Becoming a "Solstice Partner" means establishing a true alliance, whereby SunSoft and the Partner share information and ideas for expanding the market for enterprise management. Most important to the customer, the alliance means that Solstice platforms, Solstice tools and partner applications work together to solve the complex problems faced by clients.

A third objective of the program is to ensure that the benefits match the needs of a broad range of Solstice Partners. Device vendors and independent software vendors (ISVs), depending on the level of integration with the enterprise management products, have different needs and support requirements. The Solstice Partners Program is designed to met these diverse needs with a specific set of benefits for each type of partner.

The program is structured to meet the diverse needs of these partners, offering specialized benefits to two categories of Solstice Partners:

Program Description

SunSoft actively recruits and supports partners who add value in one or more of the following application areas:


 Fault/Event, Performance Management	 Help Desk
 Workload Management			 Software Management
 Security Management			 Support Services
 Accounting/Chargeback			 Storage Management
 Configuration Management

Overview: Solstice Preferred Partners

Preferred Partners are an important group of members who provide added value to Solstice platforms through their applications or services. These applications are launched from the menu bar and/or include agents and MIBs which are integral for a complete enterprise management solution. Preferred Partners are vendors developing applications for the Solstice platform, but whose applications may not use the Solstice APIs or be available on the latest release of the Solstice platform. Preferred Partners may also be integrators whose documented experience with the Solstice platforms provides added value to customers implementing enterprise management solutions.

Overview: Solstice Power Partners

Power Partners are a key group of members who tightly integrate their applications with a Solstice platform to provide key components of a complete enterprise management solution. These partners agree to certify their applications with latest releases of the Solstice product to ensure compatibility and functionality. Power Partners may also be vendors developing and delivering integrated applications for the Solstice platform. These applications will be integrated with the Solstice products, certified with the latest release of the Solstice products and are currently shipping or scheduled to ship within 9 months.