Mumbai: Tata Sky Ltd has selected Sun Microsystems, Inc. to provide IT infrastructure and support for the launch of its direct-to-home (DTH) television service in India in mid-2006.

Tata Sky is investing in building a high quality digital infrastructure in the country and has ambitious plans to become India''s largest digital television platform offering programming with interactive features.

"Sun''s offerings will enable us with a technology infrastructure that is best-of-class and geared to deliver high service level standards that we are targeting," says Vikram Kaushik, CEO, Tata Sky Ltd.

"We are proud to be chosen to offer the technology infrastructure needed by Tata Sky," said Bhaskar Pramanik, Managing Director, Sun Microsystems, India. "Our products are highly scalable and reliable, making it easier for us to deliver mission critical applications for the most exciting new DTH TV project in the world".

Tata Sky will be powered by a combination of Sun Fire E20K servers running UltraSPARC(R) IV+-based processors and Sun Fire Workgroup servers. The servers will run the Solaris(TM) 10 operating system with Sun N1(TM) System Manager to ensure maximum up-time, fault recovery and load management. In the lead up to the launch, Sun Services will provide installation, engineering expertise and support to Tata Sky. Sun data management products will store, manage and backup all the data on SE9990, SE6130, NAS, and Tape Library. Tata Sky Ltd. is a joint venture between the Tata Group and Star.