HP Introduces HP 9000 K-class Server for Commercial and Technical Environments; Powerful, Highly Expansive Symmetric Multiprocessing Platform Design Offers Unprecedented Midrange Performance and Lasting Value.

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 27, 1994--Building on its proven track record of open-systems innovation and development, Hewlett-Packard Company today introduced its UNIX(R) system-based HP 9000 K-class midrange server with up to four-way symmetric multiprocessing (SMP).

Based on HP's latest microprocessor technology, recently introduced HP-UX(1) 10.0 enterprise-class operating system and state-of-the-art balanced system design, the K-class server provides the performance and expandability required by commercial and engineering customers to run complex mission-critical applications.

The new HP 9000 K-class server, priced from $21,270 (U.S.), delivers the following:

o more than 50 percent better OLTP performance than the

nearest midrange competitor with 2,616 tpmC at

$544/tpmC based on the TPC-C(2) benchmark Revision 3.0

running HP-UX 10.0 and Informix 7.1;

o breakthrough NFS file-server performance of 4,363 IOPS

for clear midrange-server leadership and nearly three

times better price/performance than any high-end or

midrange competitive system;

o outstanding midrange compute- and application-server

performance with up to 12,316 SPECrate_int92(3) and

17,819 SPECrate_fp92; and

o up to four-way SMP with outstanding scaleability,

increased memory capacity and substantially improved

I/O throughput for quick completion of the largest,

most complex applications.

"One of the reasons HP has maintained greater than 40 percent growth in its server business is because we have been able to successfully help customers apply innovative IT solutions to solve their real-world business problems," said Willem P. Roelandts, HP senior vice president and general manager of the Computer Systems Organization. "The HP 9000 K-class server represents yet another piece of the total solution, with the performance and price/performance needed for complex commercial and engineering environments."

SERVER IDEAL FOR COMMERCIAL MARKETS

"HP's new K-class server provides the type of performance, availability capabilities, expandability, upgradability and price/performance that is needed in a department-level application server," said Thomas Kucharvy, president of Summit Strategies. "The modular architecture provides unsurpassed investment protection and a logical, attractive complement to HP's Model E-class workgroup server and Model T-class enterprise server."

Recognized as a leader in open enterprise computing, HP delivers the innovative technology its commercial customers need to remain competitive in their industries. The outstanding OLTP performance and expandability inherent in the K-class server make it an ideal solution for telecommunications, financial services, retail, manufacturing and general business computing.

An example of a demanding environment in which the K-class server will be implemented is the Financial Services Operation of Mesbla, one of the largest department-store chains in Brazil.

"HP's new K-class server provides us high-end performance at midrange prices," said Mr. Antonio Maia, IT director of Mesbla's Financial Services Operation. "HP provides the type of technology solution we need to enable us to implement an entirely new suite of applications that will increase our competitive advantage in the financial industry."

The HP 9000 K-class servers' industry-leading price/performance and conformance to industry standards make them ideal as an open alternative to proprietary host-based midrange systems -- particularly IBM's AS/400 and Digital's VAX. Companies migrating from these legacy environments to the HP 9000 typically can reduce IS costs while providing users with the benefits of true client/server computing and today's state-of-the-art software applications.

SERVER IDEAL FOR TECHNICAL MARKETS

The three key technical market opportunities for the K-class server are NFS file serving, engineering data management, and compute and application serving. The strength of the product in these areas makes it ideally suited for a range of engineering markets, including mechanical and electronic design automation; software development; geographic information systems; oil and gas; and architecture, engineering and construction.

MSC/NASTRAN, a key application in the mechanical-design market, is a demanding finite-element-analysis program used to analyze the stress, vibration and heat-transfer characteristics of mechanical components.

"We were excited to see that preliminary benchmarks of MSC/NASTRAN on the HP 9000 K-class server showed a level of performance that was similar to other high-performance machines costing many times more than the K-class systems," said Thomas Curry, president of the MacNeal-Schwendler Corporation. "And due to its binary compatibility with Series 700 workstations, we were able to run our applications without any modification."

Today's announcement of a new industry-leading server platform further strengthens HP's Empowered Engineering environment -- the industry's most comprehensive and powerful set of technical-computing solutions. Empowered Engineering, comprising leadership hardware platforms, an extensive breadth of engineering software applications, collaborative tools and connectivity solutions, and industry-leading service and support, is designed to solve the most challenging problems in a customer's engineering enterprise.

HP 9000 K-CLASS SERVER FEATURES

The HP 9000 K-class server line includes the uniprocessor Model K100 and the SMP Models K200 and K400, which support up to four processors. Based on a newly designed architecture, the K-class server includes a 960-MB/s peak processor-memory bus bandwidth; all-new multichannel I/O subsystem, which can provide up to 256 MB/s I/O throughput; standard high-speed 20-MB/s fast/wide differential SCSI-2 disk channel; and optional high-speed networking capabilities, such as FDDI, ATM and, in the future, Fibre Channel.

The K-class server is based on HP's highly integrated 100-MHz PA-7200 microprocessor, and provides lower-cost SMP, more efficient cache performance, and faster system-level bandwidth. In addition, the server offers a path to 64-bit computing starting with 64-bit features of today's PA-RISC(4) processors and expanding these features with the recently announced PA-8000 processor.

The Models K100 and K200 can be upgraded easily to the more expansive Model K400 with a simple board swap. With future board upgrades to the 64-bit PA-8000 processor, the K-class server will provide users with a tenfold performance range within this same affordable system cabinet, as well as long-range investment protection.

The server runs on HP's recently announced HP-UX 10.0 enterprise-class operating system, which incorporates several features that contribute to the demonstrated industry-leading performance. These features include memory subsystem tuning, improved operating-system concurrency and significant improvement in the number of I/Os per second. In addition, HP offers a broad set of cost-effective high-availability solutions that address the needs of mission-critical environments.

U.S. PRICES AND AVAILABILITY

The HP 9000 K-class server models are priced from $21,270 for the uniprocessor Model K100 to $90,350 for the four-way SMP Model K400. The server is orderable immediately with an estimated four-week delivery after receipt of order.

SERVER CONFIGURATION                       PRICE

HP 9000 Model K100                         $21,270
     32MB RAM, 1GB SCSI-2 F/W/D
     disk, CD-ROM, LAN, two-user HP-UX
HP 9000 Model K200                          33,650
     64MB RAM, 2 GB SCSI-2 F/W/D
     disk, CD-ROM, LAN, two-user HP-UX
HP 9000 Model K400                           60,350
     128MB RAM, 2 GB SCSI-2 F/W/D
     disk, CD-ROM, LAN, two-user HP-UX
Additional PA-7200 processors                10,000

In addition, HP today announced that it now offers a four-hour on-site hardware-maintenance response time bundled with the one-year limited warranty (United States) on its PA-RISC-based servers. This improved on-site warranty better matches the needs of customers whose servers run critical business applications. Coverage is limited to the system processing unit and its internally integrated hard disk, CD-ROM and backup devices, as well as the system console.

HP is recognized as the leader in providing service and support for enterprise, client/server computing environments. More than 400 service and support offices are located in more than 110 countries and deliver solutions from planning through design and implementation, and ongoing support and operations for client/server solutions that meet the business needs of companies competing in fast-changing, global marketplaces.

HP is the second-largest computer supplier in the United States, with computer-related revenue of $19.6 billion in its 1994 fiscal year. HP has been delivering PA-RISC-based computers since 1986 with high reliability, data integrity, data availability and system availability.

Hewlett-Packard Company is a leading global manufacturer of computing, communications and measurement products and services recognized for excellence in quality and support. HP has 98,200 employees and had revenue of $25 billion in its 1994 fiscal year. -0-

NOTE TO EDITORS:

(1) HP-UX 9.X and 10.0 for HP 9000 Series 700 and 800 computers are X/Open(tm) Company UNIX 93 branded products. UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries, licensed exclusively through X/OpenCompany Limited. X/Open is a trademark of X/Open Company Limited in the UK and other countries.

(2) TPC-C is a benchmark developed by the industrywide Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC). The TPC-C benchmark defines a rigorous standard for calculating performance and price/performance measured by transactions per minute (tpmC) and $/tpmC, respectively. TPC-C is considered the best standard measure of OLTP performance.

(3) SPEC stands for System Performance Evaluation Cooperative, in an industry-standard benchmarking group.

(4) PA-RISC stands for Precision Architecture, HP's name for its reduced-instruction-set computing (RISC) technology.

CONTACT: Hewlett-Packard Co.

Terri Powell, 408/447-1673

Lynn Wehner, 508/436-5017