HP Ships Superdome on Schedule, Breaks Key Application Performance Benchmark.

Business Editors and High Tech Writers

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 3, 2001

HP's High-end UNIX Server Outperforms IBM by 92% in the SAP ATO 

Standard Application Benchmark and Eclipses Sun with TPC-C Result

Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HWP), today announced that it has begun worldwide, volume shipments of its HP 9000 Superdome server. Unveiled in September, the high-end UNIX(R) server is the world's most powerful, flexible and available UNIX computing platform, and is the only system that combines complete partitioning capabilities with comprehensive "beyond-the-box" services, support and utility-based pricing options.

HP also announced initial benchmark performance results including the world's highest assembly-to-order (ATO) standard application benchmark(1), measuring the real-world demands of a typical supply-chain management environment, and an outstanding TPC-C benchmark, used to indicate on-line transaction processing speed.

"Today, as promised, HP is meeting commitments to our customers with both outstanding performance and on-time shipments," said Mark Hudson, worldwide marketing manager, HP Business Systems and Technology Operation. "HP customers get Superdome's next-generation technology with comprehensive services, and can take immediate advantage of the outstanding performance it provides. And this is only the beginning -- Superdome performance levels will continue to lead the market for years to come."

The ATO benchmark is considered one of the industry's most challenging performance evaluation tests, as it demonstrates a server's capacity to process business transactions in an integrated fashion as opposed to measuring isolated chains of processes or simply counting total users. The benchmark is characterized by high-volume sales, short production times and individual assembly per order.

The ATO standard application benchmark result of 16,480 fully business-processed assembly orders per hour for SAP's mySAP.com e-business solution establishes the high-end HP 9000 Superdome server as the world's fastest platform for customers using mySAP.com. This result nearly doubles IBM's p680 result of 8,570 assembly orders per hour(2). This record performance was achieved with the combination of Superdome's high-performance system design, superior memory latency, flexible partitioning capabilities and the high-speed crossbar architecture of the HP Surestore Disk Array XP512.

HP also announced that the HP 9000 Superdome server achieved a 71% performance improvement over Sun's E10000 in the on-line transaction processing TPC-C benchmark. In a single-system comparison using the Oracle8i (R) database, the HP 9000 Superdome server delivered 197,024 transactions per minute using 48 processors versus 115,395 transactions per minute(3) for Sun's high-end E10000 using 64 processors.

The HP 9000 Superdome server is winning praises from customers for its superior performance, scalability and reliability, multi-OS capabilities, extensive professional services, support and financing features. HP's focus on providing a world-class total customer experience has resulted in successful on-site implementations in as few as four hours. Customers including Talk.com, General Mills, and the German Cancer Research Institute have ordered HP 9000 Superdome servers and are integrating them into their mission-critical environments.

"Superdome will provide Telcordia and its customers high-volume, high-performance transaction capability, as well as improved availability, critical requirements for our telecommunications customers," said Bill Mansfield, director, Solution Performance, Telcordia Technologies.

About HP

Hewlett-Packard Company -- a leading global provider of computing and imaging solutions and services -- is focused on making technology and its benefits accessible to individuals and businesses through simple appliances, useful e-services and an Internet infrastructure that's always on.

HP has 88,500 employees worldwide and had total revenue from continuing operations of $48.8 billion in its 2000 fiscal year. Information about HP and its products can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.hp.com.

(1) The SAP ATO standard application benchmark is a standard benchmark designed to represent the real-world demands of supply-chain management and manufacturing installations. ATO imitates the typical system load expected in a sales order-related manufacturing environment, such as PC assembly.

(2) Certification Nr. 2000010 details are available posted at http://www.sap.com/solutions/technology/pdf/50020428.pdf. HP achieved 16,480 fully business-processed assembly orders per hour on a 64-way HP 9000 Superdome central server with 552 MHz PA-8600 CPUs and 128 GB memory. IBM's p680 results were 8,570 assembly orders per hour. The two-tier SAP ATO standard application benchmark was run with 600 GB of HP Surestore Disk Array XP 512 and HP Surestore Disk System FC10 storage. The benchmark environment consisted of 64-bit HP-UX 11i, SAP R/3 release 4.6B and Oracle 8.1.6, and the results were attained with CPU utilization rates of 84 percent.

(3) HP 9000 Superdome TPC-C Benchmark (Oracle) 197,024 tpmC, $70.56/ tpmC, available May 1, 2001. Sun E10000 TPC-C Benchmark (Oracle) 115,395 tpmC, $105.63/tpmC, available March 24, 1999. Sun E10000 TPC-C Benchmark (Sybase) 156,873 tpmC, $48.81/tpmC, available Aug. 29, 2000. Results posted at http://www.tpc.org/ or http://ideasinternational.com/benchmark/tpc/tpccnc.html.

UNIX is a registered trademark of the Open Group.

Oracle is a registered U.S. trademark of Oracle Corporation, Redwood City, California.

HP-UX Release 10.20 and later and HP-UX Release 11.00 and later (in both 32- and 64-bit configurations) on all HP 9000 computers are Open Group UNIX 95-branded products.