NetFRAME Announces Fully-Integrated Intranet Server Solution; Company's Innovative Site Architect Software Jump-Starts the Process of Creating Production-Ready Intranets.

MILPITAS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 19, 1996--NetFRAME Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:NETF), the leading supplier of continuous availability network servers, today introduced the ClusterServer 8560is, a fully-integrated Intranet server solution.

The new system is comprised of a high-capacity NetFRAME server, best-of-breed Intranet tools, Web server software, and NetFRAME's own Site Architect software and a comprehensive range of templates, wizards, tutorials and scripts. Using this suite of products, corporations can create the structure for an Intranet and have their web on-line in as little as sixty minutes. The street price of the server will start at less than $25,000 for a fully configured system, including software.

NetFRAME's Intranet server is based on the company's award-winning ClusterServer platform, Windows NT, the Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS), Microsoft FrontPage authoring and web site management software, Microsoft Access database, and the Excite search engine, in addition to NetFRAME's own software. NetFRAME's Site Architect software provides an easy-to-use wizard developed specifically to help users design their site for manageability and growth.

Additionally, NetFRAME provides a comprehensive library of page templates, forms and tutorials. Users simply design their web structure with Site Architect, then begin adding content. NetFRAME even provides out of the box content for such useful web information as delivery tracking, airline and hotel contact information, and industry news and information.

"While most companies know that there are tremendous business benefits in deploying an Intranet, many do not have the in-house expertise required to get started," said Randy Meyer, Director of Solutions Marketing at NetFRAME.

"With this product, virtually any company can design the structure of their Intranet and begin publishing valuable content on their enterprise network within minutes. With our innovative Site Architect software, we have captured the knowledge and experience of a number of world-class Intranet designers including Aslan Computing, and made it easy for companies to use. The company's webmaster simply answers a series of short questions in a standard HTML-based wizard.

"Plus, with production-ready templates and scripts, NetFRAME makes it easy to create a standard, consistent corporate look-and-feel, and add sophisticated web features, such as form entry and routing, text searching and database integration."

In addition to simplifying the task of getting an Intranet up and running, the NetFRAME Intranet server provides the reliability and scalability that enterprise-class Intranets require.

Based on the NetFRAME ClusterServer system, the Intranet server can grow in place to handle the dramatic increases in Intranet traffic that is being predicted. A recent report by the Gartner Group projected that the data downloaded per hit would grow from 20KB to 300KB over the next three years, while hits per day on corporate web servers would grow from 10,000 per day to 100,000 per day during the same time.

The NetFRAME platform is designed to scale to meet these increasing requirements, and is capable of expanding from a single host processor and single I/O server combination, to a clustered system with a four-way SMP host processor complex and eight high-capacity I/O servers providing 100MB/sec aggregate I/O. Additionally, the NetFRAME server can be managed and scaled on-line, without disrupting existing traffic or users.

"The NetFRAME 8560is uses Windows NT, the Internet Information Server and FrontPage to provide a high-capacity, scalable server, forming the basis for an enterprise-class Intranet solution," said Mike Nash, Intranet Group Product Manager at Microsoft.

"Corporations are increasingly turning to Intranets to enhance company communication and collaboration, and to control costs. With this popularity comes new demands on the Intranet server. Today, companies require a server that can support ever-growing numbers of users and increasingly data-intensive applications, while providing high levels of reliability."

"History is repeating itself as the rapid growth of Intranet usage puts a strain on a company's server infrastructure," continued Meyer. "In the past, the expansion of departmental LANs and electronic mail led to an unmanageable explosion of department-level servers. As the management and reliability problems that resulted from the proliferation of smaller servers became clear, many companies decided to consolidate these systems into larger-scale platforms.

"We believe that the same phenomenon will happen in the Intranet market, with companies quickly moving from PC-based servers to enterprise-class servers as their requirements grow. With this product, a company can get the best of both worlds -- a cost-effective server that meets today's requirements and scales to handle tomorrow's increased Intranet throughput requirements: power, with simplicity."

The NetFRAME 8560is also provides a secure development and production environment using Windows NT and Microsoft Internet Information Server security features. Windows NT security is utilized to control access to all network services and resources, with the Microsoft IIS delivering Intranet-specific security features, such as control over network access and secure Intranet authentication.

Pricing and Availability

The NetFRAME Intranet server is available now, priced under $25,000 for a system with one Pentium host processor, one i486-based I/O server with one fast/wide SCSI bus and two Ethernet interfaces, 64MB of ECC memory, 4.2GB of Live-Drive(TM) storage, and a full suite of pre-configured software.

The pre-installed software includes Windows NT 3.51, Internet Information Server, FrontPage and Access from Microsoft; the Excite search engine; Adobe Acrobat Reader; and NetFRAME's Site Architect and Design Center software. The platform can scale in place to support a four-way SMP complex, up to eight I/O Server modules, 1GB of memory and over 500GB of on-line storage.

About NetFRAME Systems

Founded in 1987, NetFRAME Systems Incorporated is a leader in enterprise-class multiprocessor servers offering continuous availability and scalability while supporting industry standard software. NetFRAME's servers provide a compelling price/performance alternative to networked server proliferation and are field upgradable as a customer's needs grow. NetFRAME ClusterServers are sold through resellers and system integrators worldwide. For information, contact NetFRAME via the world wide web at www.netframe.com, or call 408/474-1000.

CONTACT: Dave & Bairey Communications

Peter Dave, 415/882-9905

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