to customers on a subscription basis, provides our customers with flexibility in deployment models and allows our customers to cost effectively handle peak computing workloads with capacity on demand.

We offer a wide range of server systems using our SPARC microprocessor. Our SPARC servers run the Oracle Solaris operating system and are differentiated by their reliability, security, and scalability. Our mid-size and large servers are designed to offer greater performance and lower total cost of ownership than mainframe systems for business critical applications, for customers having more computationally intensive needs, and as platforms for building cloud computing IT environments. Our SPARC servers are also a core component of the Oracle SPARC SuperCluster, one of our Oracle Engineered Systems.

We also offer enterprise x86 servers. These x86 servers are based on microprocessor platforms from Intel Corporation (Intel) and are also compatible with Oracle Solaris, Oracle Linux, Microsoft Windows and other operating systems. Our x86 systems are also a core component of many of our Oracle Engineered Systems including Oracle Exadata Database Machine, Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud, Oracle Exalytics In-Memory Machine and the Oracle Big Data Appliance.

Our storage products are designed to securely manage, protect, archive and restore customers’ mission critical data assets and consist of tape, disk, flash and hardware-related software including file systems software, back-up and archive software and storage management software and networking for mainframe and open systems environments.

Our networking and data center fabric products, including Oracle Virtual Networking, and Oracle InfiniBand and Ethernet technologies, are used with our server and storage products and are integrated into our management tools to help enterprise customers improve infrastructure performance, reduce cost and complexity and simplify storage and server connectivity.

The majority of our hardware systems products are sold through indirect channels, including independent distributors and value added resellers.

To produce our hardware products, we rely on both our internal manufacturing operations as well as third party manufacturing partners. Our internal manufacturing operations consist primarily of materials procurement, assembly, testing and quality control of our Oracle Engineered Systems and certain of our enterprise and data center servers and storage systems. For all other manufacturing, we generally rely on third party manufacturing partners to produce our hardware related components and hardware products and we may involve our internal manufacturing operations in the final assembly, testing and quality control processes for these components and products. We distribute most of our hardware products either from our facilities or partner facilities. We strive to reduce costs by simplifying our manufacturing processes through increased standardization of components across product types and a “build-to-order” manufacturing process in which products generally are built only after customers have placed firm orders. We continue to evolve hardware systems support