A major deal between Telstra and Sun Microsystems is unlikely to be replicated this side of the Tasman, mainly because TelstraClear already uses Sun servers.
“We’ve been a Sun server shop since the days of Telstra New Zealand,” TelstraClear IT manager Jenny Mortimer says.
Last month Telstra and Sun announced a deal in which Sun will supply hardware and software for Telstra’s new services and data network. A statement from Sun and Telstra says the aim is to provide an open platform for the development and hosting of applications and services and the network will be based on Java, Sun ONE and Sun’s J2EE web services platform.
Mortimer says TelstraClear and Telstra talk to each other about what technologies they’re using, but make deployment decisions independently.
The Telstra-Sun deal will make Telstra a Sun environment in both hardware and services, she says, but in New Zealand TelstraClear will continue to have services handled by Unisys for the ex-Clear part and TelstraClear itself for the ex-TelstraSaturn side.
In addition to the Sun servers, TelstraClear uses Sun’s messaging IDC (internet data centre) reference architecture for its email services.