IBM adds SMP capabilities to OS/2 Warp Server; New OS/2 SMP feature is twice as fast as previous SMP offering.ATLANTA, Ga.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 17, 1996-- IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) announced today at Networld+Interop a symmetric-multiprocessing (SMP (Symmetric MultiProcessing) A multiprocessing architecture in which multiple CPUs, residing in one cabinet, share the same memory. SMP systems provide scalability. As business increases, additional CPUs can be added to absorb the increased transaction volume. ) feature for OS/2 Warp The client version of the OS/2 operating system. It includes peer-to-peer networking, fax and communications programs, multimedia viewing and editing applications and IBM Works (word processing, spreadsheet, database and other office tools). Introduced in late 1994 as Version 3. 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 Messaging and groupware software from IBM Lotus that was introduced in 1989 for OS/2 and later expanded to Windows, Mac, Unix, NetWare, AS/400 and S/390. Notes provides e-mail, document sharing, workflow, group discussions and calendaring and scheduling. has shown that OS/2 Warp Server Advanced with SMP outperforms Microsoft Windows See Windows. (operating system) Microsoft Windows - Microsoft's proprietary window system and user interface software released in 1985 to run on top of MS-DOS. Widely criticised for being too slow (hence "Windoze", "Microsloth Windows") on the machines available then. 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 See SMP. (parallel) symmetric multiprocessing - (SMP) Two or more similar processors connected via a high-bandwidth link and managed by one operating system, where each processor has equal access to I/O devices. offers," said Bonnie bon·ny also bon·nie adj. bon·ni·er, bon·ni·est Scots 1. Physically attractive or appealing; pretty. 2. Excellent. 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 (MegaHertZ) One million cycles per second. It is used to measure the transmission speed of electronic devices, including channels, buses and the computer's internal clock. A one-megahertz clock (1 MHz) means some number of bits (16, 32, 64, etc. 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 (Windows New Technology) A 32-bit operating system from Microsoft for Intel x86 CPUs. NT is the core technology in Windows 2000 and Windows XP (see Windows). Available in separate client and server versions, it includes built-in networking and preemptive multitasking. Server 3.51, which supports 1,560 Notes mail users on equivalent hardware, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. 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 A PC made by IBM. IBM created the PC industry in 1981 when it introduced its first model with 16KB of RAM. However, it was way off in its estimates, projecting that 250,000 units would be sold in the first five years. In fact, about three million IBM PCs were sold in that period. 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 (1) A network of IBM or IBM-compatible PCs. (2) A network of any variety of computers. 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 Citrix's term for its centralized, multiuser technology that runs the application in the server and sends only changes in the user interface to the client machine. See MetaFrame and WinFrame. 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 SYO Sydney Youth Orchestra SYO Shonai, Japan - Shonai (Airport Code) SYO Saskatoon Youth Orchestra (Canada) SYO See You Online (chat) SYO Stuff Your Own 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 A feature of a computer or operating system that allows it to run programs written for a different system. Programs often run slower 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 Warp Server Advanced with SMP will be a leading application server platform for the IBM Software Servers. "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." 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 Also called "RAS" (reliability, availability, serviceability) or "fault resilient," it refers to a multiprocessing system that can quickly recover from a failure. There may be a minute or two of downtime while one system switches over to another, but processing will continue. clustering technology. As previously stated, IBM intends to leverage its expertise in high availability solutions on the RISC RISC in full Reduced Instruction Set Computing Computer architecture that uses a limited number of instructions. RISC became popular in microprocessors in the 1980s. 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 See 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 See Tivoli Systems Management Software. 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 TCP/IP in full Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol Standard Internet communications protocols that allow digital computers to communicate over long distances. support, advanced print function and LAN (Local Area Network) A communications network that serves users within a confined geographical area. The "clients" are the user's workstations typically running Windows, although Mac and Linux clients are also used. Internet access See how to access the Internet. . Global directory and security services Security services are state institutions for the provision of intelligence, primarily of a strategic nature, but also including protective security intelligence. Examples include the Security Service (MI5) and the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) in the United Kingdom, and the 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. -0- 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. CONTACT: Jeff Tieszen IBM Media Relations (800) 354-0978 or (512) 838-9635 tieszen@austin.ibm.com or Kathleen Zawicki Brodeur & Partners (617) 622-2838 kzawicki@brodeur.com |
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