🚀 go-pugleaf

Source: http://www.ibm.com/news

[IBM Information and Services]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

IBM Adds SMP Capabilities to OS/2 Warp Server

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

September 17, 1996

New OS/2 SMP Feature is Twice as Fast as Previous SMP Offering

ATLANTA, Georgia, September 17, 1996 . . . IBM announced today at
Networld+Interop a symmetric-multiprocessing (SMP) feature for OS/2 Warp
Server Advanced. This offers significant performance enhancements and
allows for consolidation of network servers, which reduces overall cost of
ownership and simplifies network administration for customers.

IBM internal testing on Lotus Notes has shown that OS/2 Warp Server
Advanced with SMP outperforms Microsoft Windows NT Server 3.51 by more than
25 percent in capacity. The SMP feature will be available by the end of the
month as a free upgrade to OS/2 Warp Server Advanced users.

"The addition of SMP to OS/2 Warp Server offers customers investing in
multiprocessor hardware a high performance, scalable solution, and further
distances OS/2 Warp Server from the competition," said Art Olbert, vice
president of server products, IBM Personal Software Products. "With OS/2
Warp Server, the Directory and Security Server for OS/2, and now an SMP
solution, we are providing unmatched network and server scalability to our
customers, who range from small businesses to large enterprises."

"More and more of our customers require the increased performance and
scalability that symmetric multiprocessing offers," said Bonnie Crater,
vice president of Oracle's Workgroup Products division. "Because Oracle has
been working closely with IBM, we will exploit the advantages of an
SMP-enablement feature for OS/2 Warp Server with products optimized for
this high-performance platform."

Increased Capacity

Symmetric-multiprocessing provides support for more users by allowing
software servers to exploit multiple processors with the same server
software installed. The SMP feature for OS/2 Warp Server Advanced is
optimized for 2-way and 4-way SMP systems, the dominant SMP platforms
today, but has the ability to support up to 64 processors -- more than any
other SMP offering in the market.

Previously published and certified results from NotesBench, Lotus'
benchmarking tool for measuring Notes server performance, show that OS/2
Warp Server running on a uniprocessor has the ability to support 1,000
active Lotus Notes users. This already-impressive stability and performance
has been further extended with IBM's newly announced support for SMP.

IBM internal testing on a Compaq ProLiant 4500 4-way 133 MHz processor
system indicates that OS/2 Warp Server Advanced with SMP is able to support
2,000 Notes mail users: 25 percent greater in capacity than Windows NT
Server 3.51, which supports 1,560 Notes mail users on equivalent hardware,
according to benchmark results published in May by Compaq Corp. These test
results demonstrate that OS/2 Warp Server is an industry-leading platform
for Lotus Notes servers on both uniprocessor and SMP hardware.

"Lotus' and IBM's intensive development resources enable our OS/2 customers
to harness the power of Notes, OS/2 Warp Server SMP, and scalable hardware
systems," said Eileen Rudden, senior vice president, Communications
Products Development, Lotus Development Corp. "These efforts clearly
demonstrate the cooperation and commitment to investment protection for our
extensive Notes for OS/2 customer base."

Benchmark results published by Compaq Corporation in June show that Windows
NT Server 3.51 running on a ProLiant 5000 2-way 166 MHz processor can
support 1,630 Notes mail users. IBM internal testing done on the same
Compaq hardware shows that OS/2 Warp Server Advanced with SMP is able to
support 1,800 users, outperforming Windows NT Server by more than 10
percent in capacity.

IBM plans to publish certified NotesBench test results of the SMP feature
for OS/2 Warp Server Advanced on both IBM and Compaq hardware.

"IBM PC Servers is happy to provide OS/2 Warp Server SMP to our customers
across our PC Server product lines," said Angelica Horaitis, director of
worldwide marketing, IBM PC Servers. "We ship OS/2 Warp Server with our
ServerGuide CD, giving our customers the choice to use the strong
functionality and rich features OS/2 Warp Server has to offer."

"Compaq and IBM have a long history of working together to ensure that OS/2
is highly optimized on Compaq's industry-leading family of ProLiant
servers," said Mary McDowell, director of server marketing at Compaq
Computer Corp. "As a leading provider of OS/2 Warp Server, which is
included in Compaq SmartStart -- our software installation and integration
management tool -- we will continue to provide our customers with increased
scalability, reliability, and optimized performance from OS/2 Warp Server
SMP on our platforms."

Improved Scalability and Performance

The scalability provided by the SMP feature for OS/2 Warp Server Advanced
adds significant value to customers' investments in multiprocessor
hardware. In July, Ziff-Davis Labs, using its ServerBench benchmarking
tool, observed a 90 percent improvement in throughput when adding one
processor, and a 300 percent improvement when adding three processors.

There is also a marked improvement in speed. OS/2 Warp Server Advanced with
SMP is 200 to 300 percent faster than OS/2 2.11 SMP for CPU-intensive
functions such as database applications and application development. In
addition, print performance with OS/2 Warp Server Advanced with SMP is
three times faster than previous versions of OS/2.

"By adding high-capacity SMP support, IBM has clearly enhanced OS/2 Warp
Server's customer value proposition as a platform for PC LAN
consolidation," said Brad Day, vice president, Giga Information Group.
"Scaling and capacity advancements demonstrated in IBM's internal testing
of the SMP feature are impressive and should put OS/2 Warp Server on the
short list for corporations with two- and three-tier application server
computing environments."

"I was very impressed with the way my applications performed running under
OS/2 Warp Server with SMP," said Jason Gottschalk, owner of SYO Computer
Engineering in Utica, Mich. and a beta tester of the SMP feature. "This is
a solid, scalable platform for application serving. I'm looking forward to
deploying it across our servers."

Application Support and Performance Optimization Features

The SMP feature not only supports 32-bit SMP-enabled applications, but also
offers increased performance for non-SMP applications. This allows
customers to get the most out of their existing 16-bit OS/2, DOS and
Windows applications, which are able to run across multiple processors,
rather than running them in compatibility mode on a single processor, which
causes a decline in performance.

The ability of OS/2 Warp Server to support complex server environments has
been enhanced with the addition of new SMP optimization features. These
include improved memory management, increased communications performance
and capacity, performance software tools to aid in analysis, and new
interfaces to enhance application performance.

"OS/2 has long provided a stable and reliable base for DB2 customers," said
Janet Perna, director, IBM Database Technology. "The OS/2 Warp Server SMP
feature provides our customers with continued growth in scalability and
performance required for mission-critical applications."

OS/2 Warp Server Advanced with SMP will be a leading application server
platform for each of the seven IBM Software Servers: the IBM Database
Server, Lotus Notes, the IBM Internet Connection Server, the IBM Systems
Management Server, the IBM Directory and Security Server, the IBM
Transaction Server, and the IBM Communications Server.

Clustering for OS/2 Warp Server

In addition to delivering SMP support, IBM is focusing on providing even
further enhancements in performance and distributed scalability for OS/2
customers with high availability clustering technology. As previously
stated, IBM intends to leverage its expertise in high availability
solutions on the RISC architecture and extend that technology to the Intel
PC space with OS/2 Warp Server and other platforms.

This week at Networld+Interop, IBM showed a new OS/2 Warp Server clustering
demonstration. The demonstration is a prototype of a 4-way high
availability clustering solution running on OS/2 Warp Server and focuses on
the systems management capabilities provided by extensions in the prototype
to the Tivoli TME 10 Netfinity systems management software.

OS/2 Warp Server: The Complete Business Server Solution

OS/2 Warp Server, released in February 1996, is IBM's business server
solution for customers ranging from small businesses to large enterprises.
It provides a foundation for application serving and file and print
sharing, plus a wealth of integrated features, including systems
management, backup and recovery, remote access, enhanced TCP/IP support,
advanced print function and LAN Internet access. Global directory and
security services for OS/2 Warp Server are available through the IBM
Directory and Security Server for OS/2.

Availability of the SMP Feature for OS/2 Warp Server Advanced

The SMP feature will be available by the end of September as a free upgrade
to OS/2 Warp Server Advanced users. Customers can access a request form on
the World Wide Web at www.software.ibm.com/os/warp-server/ or via fax at
1-800-IBM-4FAX, document number 5670.

OS/2 and DB2 are registered trademarks of IBM Corp., Windows is a
registered trademark of Microsoft Corp., Oracle is a registered trademark
of Oracle, Corp., Lotus Notes is a registered trademark of Lotus
Development Corp., ProLiant and SmartStart are registered trademarks of
Compaq, Corp., TME 10 is a registered trademark of Tivoli Systems, Inc. All
other product and service names may be trademarks and/or service marks of
their respective owners.

For Internet users, IBM offers complete information about the company, its
products, services and technology on the World Wide Web. The IBM home page
is at http://www.ibm.com. The fastest, easiest way to find any information
about IBM software is to go to the IBM Software home page at
http://www.software.ibm.com. The IBM Fax Information Service allows you to
receive facsimiles of prior IBM product press releases. Dial 1-800-IBM-FAX,
or 415-855-4329 and enter "99" at the voice menu.

Please Note: Questions about the content or currency of this press release
should be directed to your local IBM representative.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

For IBMLink customer support, click on the Feedback icon for further
information.
All contents Copyright � 1995, IBM. All Rights Reserved.