Amdahl Corporation Press Release

AMDAHL AND SUN DELIVER HIGH-PERFORMANCE ENHANCEMENTS FOR SOLARIS

Amdahl Corporation and Sun Microsystems Computer Company (SMCC) today introduced the first product created as a result of the Amdahl-Sun strategic alliance. The new product, A+Edition for Solaris Enterprise Server, is a system software extension specifically designed to enhance throughput and scalability on large multiprocessor SPARC servers running the Solaris 2.3 software environment.

The product, immediately available from both Amdahl and SMCC, optimizes performance of Sun's SPARCserver 1000 and SPARCcenter 2000 servers under database and multiuser workloads with hundreds of users and thousands of simultaneous software processes. According to J. Phillip Samper, president of SMCC, "A+Edition gives large-scale SPARC server customers mainframe-class performance, security, and availability -- necessities for enterprise computing environments."

A+Edition extends data center performance and features to the Solaris environment, providing a foundation for SMCC and Amdahl to deliver more new products that support mission-critical client-server applications. "This partnership leverages Amdahl's strengths in high-end commercial solutions and Sun's expertise in client-server technology. It also accelerates our move into client- server open systems computing," said Joseph Zemke, Amdahl president and chief executive officer.

Performance, Security, and Serviceability Enhancements

The A+Edition has demonstrated substantial performance improvements in high-volume multiuser environments through application-specific tuning of the Solaris environment for the heaviest commercial workloads. Amdahl streamlined algorithms and fine-tuned the Solaris software specifically for SPARCserver 1000 and SPARCcenter 2000 servers, taking advantage of the SPARC V8 multiprocessor architecture, large memory configurations, and the latest Sun peripherals. Lock and memory management as well as temporary file handling were also enhanced, contributing to highly scalable multiprocessing and providing more predictable performance and shorter response times.

The A+Edition performance modifications become increasingly significant as the number of users and processors increase. For example, on a 16-processor system, the performance improvement is as much as 200 percent in SDET benchmark tests and 500 percent in KENBUS benchmark tests.* SDET benchmarks also revealed 97 percent scalability on a 16-way SPARCcenter 2000 system. "A+Edition was engineered to improve performance on the high-end SPARC servers at a cost that can be less than 3 percent of the overall system price," Zemke noted.

Customer benchmarks for popular database systems such as Oracle and Informix have shown meaningful performance improvements in commercial applications with the A+Edition enhancements.

In developing the A+Edition, Amdahl also addressed other key data center issues such as security and serviceability to make Solaris even stronger in large-scale multiprocessor environments. The A+Edition for the Solaris environment adds new security administration tools, enhanced File Transfer Protocol (FTP) authentication, and extended error logging. "Amdahl's 15 years of experience working with data-center UNIX systems, combined with our experience in the client-server arena, have enabled us to meet customer requirements in unusually heavy commercial environments," said Edward J. Zander, president of SunSoft, Inc.

Compatibility, Applications, and Standards

By conforming to Solaris operating system interfaces, the A+Edition for the Solaris Enterprise Server is fully compatible with the Solaris 2.3 environment, allowing applications currently supported on SPARCserver 1000 or SPARCcenter 2000 servers to run unchanged. Commercial customers can use the thousands of native 32-bit applications, middleware, and tools available for the Solaris 2.3 environment today. The A+Edition passed a thorough review as part of SunSoft's Software Development Framework, a process that ensures consistency in the overall architectural direction of the Solaris environment and conformance to all application compatibility requirements.

DSC Communications of Dallas, Texas, a longtime Amdahl customer, recently participated in the beta testing of A+Edition on its SPARCcenter 2000 server. "Our existing Oracle financial and manufacturing applications ran with A+Edition without any modifications," noted Jim Myckleby, DSC's vice president of information systems. DSC also plans to use A+Edition to optimize the performance of a network of SPARCcenter 2000s recently acquired to serve as a data repository for the company's new document management system.

Pricing and Support

The A+Edition for Solaris Enterprise Server is immediately available from Amdahl and SMCC for SPARCserver 1000 and SPARCcenter 2000 customers. Amdahl's pricing for A+Edition is $1,500 to $2,500 per CPU, with typical system costs ranging from $3,000 up to $50,000 on a fully configured 20-processor SPARCcenter 2000 system. Support for A+Edition will be provided by both Amdahl and SMCC.

Based in Sunnyvale, California, Amdahl is a major supplier of large-scale mainframe computers, UNIX system software and servers, data storage subsystems, data communications products, application development software, and a variety of educational and consulting services. The company's products are sold in more than 30 countries for use in both open systems and IBM-compatible computing environments. Amdahl's Open Enterprise Systems Division is committed to providing open systems products and technologies for flexible, cost-effective management of computing resources throughout a business enterprise.

Sun Microsystems Computer Company (SMCC), the world's top supplier of open network computing solutions, is a division of Sun Microsystems, Inc. Built on Sun's legacy of "The Network is the Computer," SMCC's SPARC/Solaris workstation and server family leads the UNIX market. The company has its headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.


*SDET and KENBUS benchmarks will be published by SPEC in the fourth quarter of 1994.

Amdahl and the Amdahl logo are registered trademarks and A+Edition is a trademark of Amdahl Corporation. Sun, the Sun logo, Sun Microsystems, SunSoft, the SunSoft logo, Solaris, and The Network is the Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. All SPARC trademarks, including the SCD Compliant logo, are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. SPARCserver and SPARCcenter are licensed exclusively to Sun Microsystems, Inc. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based on an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries, exclusively licensed through X/Open Company, Ltd. All other product or service names mentioned herein are trademarks of their respective owners.


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