All four of the new systems include full hardware redundancy, redundant storage and network connections and allow for live operating system upgrades, Sun said.

CNN: CeBIT: Sun puts new servers in spotlight

Puppet Labs is the developer of Puppet, software that applies declarative programming to the task of system administration of compute, network, and storage infrastructure in traditional data centers or in the cloud.

FORBES: Why Adopting the Declarative Programming Practices Will Improve Your Return from Technology

This is made possible by a new content storage and distribution system via Comcast's extensive fiber network and enables the company to offer significantly more content in the near future, including TV series, kids content, music and other special programming.

ENGADGET: Comcast's HD VOD selections continue to approach infinity, or at least 3,000

Microsoft's Distributed Systems group utilized a new file system architecture, dubbed Flat Datacenter Storage, over a full bisection bandwidth network to burn through the competition.

ENGADGET: Microsoft Research team shatters data sorting record, wrenches trophy from Yahoo

Potential participants include users and producers of systems and components for telecommunications carriers, Internet exchanges, financial markets, data centers, multiple system operators (MSOs) networking systems, high-performance computing, network storage and servers and other individuals interested in future IEEE 802.3 Ethernet wireline standards.

ENGADGET: IEEE pushes for Ethernet standard between 400Gbps and 1Tbps, hopes to head off big data crunch

Another benefit of server-side flash is that it allows system administrators to manage flash on the server side for performance, but also keep network storage (for example, the storage area network) for storage capacity.

FORBES: Why Storage Technology Is Disrupting The Enterprise