There were many of you out there wondering if Oracle was going to keep and add to the Sun Ray and Sun virtualized desktop product suite, there have been a number of affirmative statements over the last many months. However, none of them resound like this; the introduction of a new product pretty much proves the point.
A couple minutes before 3:00, local time yesterday, Oracle announced the release of a new Sun Ray, appliance, the Sun Ray 3 Plus. This is the unit that will replace the SR 2 FS (which has been for sale now since the middle of last decade). Physically it is about the same size as the 2 FS but there are some significant differences...
As you can see there is no smart card reader in the front - that has moved to the top to ensure only one hand is required to insert the card. There is also a larger surround on the card reader that lights up to show the user the card is being read (properly). A new power on/off switch is on the front which essentially brings power consumption to ~0 watts, but there is also a new 'sleep' timer looking for 30 minutes of inactivity and then will drop the power consumption down to ~ 1watt. There are also 2 USB 2.0 ports are accessible on the front instead of one. The standard mic in and headphone out ports are there as well.
There is even more interesting stuff on the back. From the top down there are two more USB 2.0 ports for a total of four, but then the Oracle "Peripheral Kit" keyboard includes a 3-port USB Hub, too. There's a 10/100/1000 Ethernet port as well as a 1000 Mb SFP port. Standard DB-9 Serial port and then two DVI ports. Then there is the really big news. Two DVI ports driving 2560 x 1600 resolution, each. Most PCs can't do that without adding an adapter card.Now the images I have here are ones taken on a prototype a couple months back. They are essentially the same as the Production unit, but if you would like to see an image of the Production Sun Ray 3 Plus unit you can see one here.
There is a full data sheet available here.
So this is the first Oracle Sun Ray desktop appliance. Proof that the product line lives on. A very good start!
