Monthly Report: 01/16/2002 - 02/15/2002

Name: Honglin Su, Technology Account Specialist, Central Ontario Region

1. SUMMARY

Over last few months, through focused reading and web-based learning, I have gained very knowledgeable understanding on SunONE. Started to sell SunONE centered vision and architecture to AT&T Canada and Rogers.

It's a productive month in December. We moved forward with another 1.1 M from both Rogers Cable and Wireless sides, and a few UltraSPARC-III based systems have been deployed, e.g. F280R and V880. Given such a bad economic environment, with John Wellwood, we are in a better position than last year, but there is much work to do in order to achieve the sales quota.

2. Accounts Activities (AT&T, Rogers, and Sun Life Financial)

2.1 AT&T Canada

1. We invited some senior executives to our office and did a half day briefing on SunONE, they were CIO: Muriel Prentice, VP of service delivery: Bob Emard, VP of system Integration: John Smits, and VP of shared services: Ian Cambel.

2. There is some good indication that AT&T Canada wants to take back their data centre instead of using IBM Global Services. It could not happen over night, but AT&T Canada's engineers will take the servers one by one. The owner is Sr. UNIX manager Gary Lee. (The server consolidation project will definitely add more value to Gary's team, and it will also help Sun's position at AT&T Canada.)

3. IBM has delivered some message to AT&T Canada with an IBM turn-key solution (IBM hardware, DB2, services, and so on), the initial hardware acquisition might be trivial, but everybody knows the consequent cost for AT&T Canada is not a small number. And I don't think that anyone wants to be engrossed in IBM. (AT&T Canada has a tight budget this year. But we can help AT&T Canada migrate their IBM AIX or HP UX systems to Sun Solaris 8 by leveraging ACE though funding based on ROI, this would significantly lower their total cost of management and maintenance, and eventually more business for Sun.)

4. John Vacheresse's new department (Infrastructure and Architecture Design) seems to focus on computer platform and the infrastructure standards across the enterprise, he has some influence over the new computer system acquisition. He is quite new and has been with AT&T Canada for about 8 months and his former title was project manager. I scheduled a meeting and met him with John Wellwood, it was quite informative, and set the tone for the ongoing cooperation.

2.2 Rogers

Rogers’ organization is complex, their several business units are disparate, however we managed to sell some UltraSPARC-III based systems into the Cable IT and Wireless. But this account is critical for us, and I definitely will drive more business from Rogers, since this is the company who is still buying …

1. Rogers Cable IT: Over last two months, after discussing the product and technology, Cable IT has decided to invest more on Sun, such that order was placed, and they received the new V880s, F280R, and the components to upgrade the existing E4500s

2. Rogers Cable Gateway IT: To help them migrate the Windows based environment (Protocol hub and VRU/IVR applications) to Sun based infrastructure, I have been keeping in touch with the IT manager Albert Chan, and clarified all kinds of questions and concerns on features, advantages over Windows, and high availability. After careful consideration, Sun Fire 280 (x 2) and Netra T1 AC200 (x 4) will be a good combination to replace the PC (Intel) systems.

3. Rogers Cable Engineering: The customer is struggling with their network management software Spectrum, such as new version and required patches. Help the customer solve the problem over the weekend. A few more E420R were ordered, but I have to do more in order to guide them to UltraSPARC-III based environment. (the existing management software Spectrum is only running on Solaris 2.6)

4. Wireless: two V880s were ordered for the engineering site, and I am also helping them evaluate Sun Management Center 3.0.

5. Rogers Media: 680news and other radio stations are hosted at Q9 network by using E220R and a few Netra T1 AC200s. They reported problems of Netra T1. The systems froze for no specific reason. The Netras are covered under the service contract, and Barry Keane of ES is involved. Q9 is an egregiously secure web hosting company that has implemented biometrics measurement in the data centre, which gives some concerns to our field service staff. My gut tells me that it might not be the problem of Netra T1 itself, and I encouraged Barry Keane to schedule a meeting with Q9 and got the first-hand knowledge on Netra T1 since it might be a cabling problem.

2.3 Sun Life Financial

Followed up the Lotus Notes messaging project and Financial/HR projects. However, the news of Sun Life to acquire Clarica in mid-December brings some uncertainty to the IT team of Sun Life financial, and the projects are held on for the time being.

3. TRAINING SUMMARY

3.1 Web based learning on SunONE, and new product. It’s very flexible and valuable.

4. MISCELLANEOUS ACTIVITIES

4.1 Broken Sun Ray. This is the second time of such an experience. I called the resolution centre, and got it replaced.

5. PLAN FOR THE UPCOMING MONTH

5.1 Spend more time at Rogers for any revenue generating opportunity;

5.2 Continue to work with IT staff/manager of AT&T Canada for the ongoing projects;

5.3 Follow up Sun Life Notes and Financial/HR project, hopefully it turns good for us after any uncertainty on the merger is gone.

5.4 Sun System Performance management training at Markham Woodbine training centre.