"It's always rewarding when we see Sun servers being utilized to create new and revolutionary solutions," said Andy Ingram, director of marketing for Sun's Enterprise Server Products group. "We're proud that the power of the Sun Enterprise server family has helped Lockheed Martin open up a new world in digital archiving and we hope to see many more positive results spring from this relationship."

The capabilities of ILS can be expanded in concert with the capacity of the Sun servers, offering full functionality at all levels. Enterprise 450 servers provide a storage capacity of up to 5.6 terabytes (TB). For enhanced performance and capacity, the ILS 600 uses a Sun Enterprise 3500, Enterprise 4500 or Enterprise 6500 and integrates them with tape jukeboxes and redundant arrays of independent disks. The high-end ILS 1000 uses the Sun Enterprise 10000 server and is capable of handling millions of files and 5,000 TB or more of storage.

"Sun brings us not only the excellence of their products, but their formidable marketing and distribution channels worldwide. The Intelligent Library System is a new product for data management in the commercial marketplace. While our first customers are using ILS for geographic information system applications, the product is suited to any application with large files such as medical images, videos and multimedia," said Bruce Hollinger, director of Geographic Information Systems and archive products at Lockheed Martin Missiles & Space.

"We look forward to the commercial exposure Sun Microsystems can provide ILS, which will most certainly contribute to our joint success," said Hollinger.

Lockheed Martin's ILS team integrated commercially available hardware and software with its own software code to provide unique functionality for imagery management. ILS goes beyond standard applications of storage and query-based retrieval of imagery: it manages designated workflow priorities, "pushes" imagery to users based on their pre-defined requirements and incorporates smart tools that speed retrieval such as browse imagery, chipping and tiling of images. It also manages the imagery products and reports created in the system, providing output in numerous standard formats. Because of these unique features, ILS is more than a data management tool; it is a knowledge management system.

For very large or long term archiving, ILS integrates online cache, tape jukeboxes and shelf storage into one system. This allows customers to pay only for the speed of data access they need, with lesser-used assets moved automatically to offline or near line locations.

Lockheed Martin and Sun will work together to promote ILS solutions in the commercial and government markets. Lockheed Martin will resell and integrate the Sun equipment in ILS installations worldwide. Sun will also offer ILS to the U.S. government through its SASS II contract, which provides catalog prices to Department of Defense customers.

The Lockheed Martin team developed the ILS with expertise derived from a decade of developing and operating similar systems for the U.S. government.