InformationWeek is reporting that Sun Microsystems said it has combined its storage and server product teams into a systems group focused on the convergence of computing, storage and networking.  Sun's CEO Jonathan Schwartz said combining the three technologies is exactly what datacenter administrators want to hear since they are the ones in charge of the interactions among the three technologies.   

Sun has said for a while that it sees the IT world shifting to open and general-purpose platforms, and it expects those systems to dominate growth for Sun and the market in general. The company last year started to move aggressively away from chips and systems designed for specialized tasks and toward a more multi-purpose approach with the release of three general-purpose servers based on Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron chip.

The releases included the "Thumper" server, also known as the Sun Fire X4500, which is a tight combination of server hardware and up to 24 Tbytes of disk space assembled into a rack mount unit that's about seven inches high. The X4500 was Sun's first general-purpose storage system.

If customers combine products like Thumper with Sun's recent network innovations, such as the Magnum InfiniBand switch or Crossbow network virtualization technology, and "it beings to look like we've got all the right ingredients to reinvent the datacenter," Schwartz said.

Sun's new systems team is also expected to continue development of standalone storage and networking, leveraging disk, tape and future removable media, as they are building integrated systems, Schwartz said. "I'm expecting to see more innovation, faster time to market, and a breadth of opportunities emerging from serving our current customers better than ever, while inviting new customers with a constant stream of high value innovation."

Read InformationWeek's entire article, here.