IBM Announces New Powerful CMOS Server; New S/390 G5 Server Offers Outstanding Performance

Wal-Mart Commits to IBM CMOS Technology

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FISHKILL, N.Y. - 07 May 1998: - IBM today announced its most powerful S/390 computing system yet, a versatile enterprise server with double the performance of previous models. When compared with competitive systems using older, larger and more costly technology, these new IBM S/390 servers provide greater performance and capacity -- especially when linked together in a ``cluster.''

The IBM S/390 - Generation 5 Server (S/390 G5) performs at more than 900 MIPS (Million Instructions Per Second) when configured with 10 microprocessors. Customers who need even larger systems can employ IBM's S/390 Parallel Sysplex clustering technology to gain nearly unlimited scale and capacity. The new family of S/390 G5 servers can provide more than 1,000 percent capacity growth from its smallest to largest model.

In other announcements, IBM today also unveiled: -- The Enterprise Assurance Program -- Directions, Improvements for S/390 Software Pricing -- New Application Solutions for S/390 Customers

``The IBM S/390 continues to define the standard in enterprise computing,'' said David R. Carlucci, general manager, IBM S/390 Division. ``The S/390 enterprise-class server can handle unpredictable workloads in an ever-changing global economy. Our S/390 G5 Server brings customers the advantage of 30 years of technology leadership integrated with advanced computing capabilities. Customers know that when we talk about S/390 classic strengths, we are talking about manageability, scale, availability, security and the power to support multiple applications. CMOS technology continues to build upon those strengths while delivering additional capacity at a low cost to help customers build their businesses.''

Wal-Mart Shops at IBM

``Parallel Sysplex has enabled Wal-Mart Stores' passion for outstanding customer service to advance one more step. The S/390 G5 will give Wal-Mart the flexibility and capacity to support our growth plans,'' said Randy Mott, senior vice president & chief information officer, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Wal-Mart will take delivery of two S/390 G4 Servers and upgrade them to S/390 G5 Servers as soon as they are available.

S/390 G5 Server -- More Performance, Advanced Security, Greater Scalability

The S/390 G5 Server family offers 16 new models built on the fifth generation of IBM S/390 CMOS technology, with performance boosts of up to two times over S/390 G4 Servers, depending on the model. The microprocessors at the heart of the S/390 G5 Server can run at speeds of up to 465 MHz. Clustered microprocessors can work together to provide accelerated performance and power. The IBM S/390 G5 Server also offers expanded memory, balanced system design and increased I/O bandwidth to facilitate customers' connections to enterprise networks while increasing data access. The new S/390 G5 Server family is expected to ship in volume in August.

IBM also enhanced its cryptographic coprocessor security for Triple DES, a high-level data encryption implementation, on the S/390 G5 Server to provide customers with a significant performance improvement in encryption and decryption than what is currently offered by comparable systems. The hardware/software implementation of Triple DES offers 20 times the speed for digital signature encryption, compared with software-only implementations. IBM recently received U.S. government approval to export Triple DES on both the S/390 G4 and S/390 G5 Servers to banks worldwide in accordance with U.S. export laws and regulations.

In Web Serving, all of the classic strengths of the S/390 come together. The new S/390 G5 Server, running the latest release of OS/390, could enable customers to handle approximately 800 million Internet hits a day.

Customers also will be able to leverage the power of the S/390 G5 Server in their Parallel Sysplex clusters to achieve even higher levels of scale, performance and availability, IBM continues to extend its clustering leadership by enhancing Parallel Sysplex's performance, scale and flexibility with each new CMOS generation. At the same time, IBM is reducing the cost of Parallel Sysplex clustering, while making the implementation simpler.

S/390 Technology Roadmap

Moving into the 21st Century, IBM will continue to offer customers the latest and most advanced developments in CMOS technology. Performance of the CMOS technology-based high-end turbo models has grown 15 times since IBM first started shipping the servers in 1994.

In addition, IBM will bring customers the benefits of balanced system design through continuing developments in CMOS technology and advances in network bandwidth, clustering technologies and new application support. IBM expects to continue introducing a new generation of S/390 CMOS processors every 12 to 18 months. IBM also will continue to enhance bandwidth by supporting fibre channels, utilizing fibre optic technology. IBM also intends to incorporate Gigabit (Gb) Ethernet capabilities into S/390 servers for data-intensive applications. Gb Ethernet is designed to provide high-speed LAN connectivity with 10 times the bandwidth of Fast Ethernet. The combination of these changes is expected to enable exponential performance improvements for large data applications, such as business intelligence, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and e-business.

Enterprise Assurance Program

IBM also announced its Enterprise Assurance Program for S/390 customers. This unique program is specifically designed to help reduce a customer's risk when implementing a SAP R/3 solution on the S/390 platform. IBM will work with the customer to help the customer receive the correct sizing and server capacity needed to deliver their business objectives. The Assurance Program covers the S/390 platform acting as the database server, the IBM RS/6000 acting as the application server and the IBM software and maintenance associated with the installations.

``We are pleased to see IBM providing additional investment protection for our mutual customers by offering the Enterprise Assurance Program for R/3 solutions on S/390,'' said Ralph Treitz, SAP AG vice president and business alliance manager for IBM. ``We think many customers will achieve peace of mind knowing that IBM stands behind the configuration of mission-critical SAP R/3 solutions on the S/390.''

IBM Announces Directions, Improvements to S/390 Software Pricing

IBM also announced its intentions to shift over time the S/390 software pricing relationship for IBM software subsystems or middleware from capacity-based pricing to usage-based pricing. This will apply to subsystems such as DB2, CICS, IMS and MQSeries.

In addition, IBM announced improved software price performance for customers growing their large aggregated Parallel Sysplex environments by lowering the incremental cost of computing. These new Parallel Sysplex License Charges for OS/390 Version 2 for customers implementing Parallel Sysplex clustered environments, beyond 1,000 aggregated MIPS, are effective July 1. Customers adding workloads to their Parallel Sysplex environments, beyond 1,000 MIPS, will see up to a 25 percent price improvement in OS/390 Version 2 for that incremental workload. With these announcements, IBM intends to enhance further its current software price performance which provides incremental improvements of up to 20 percent per year for customers growing their platforms during the migration to both OS/390 and aggregated Parallel Sysplex clustered environments.

New Application Solutions for S/390 Customers

To help customers build and quickly deploy mission-critical applications on their S/390 platforms, IBM is offering its ERP, business intelligence, e-business and server consolidation solutions in four solution families. IBM will help customers implement these various solution families, help size the server capacity required to run them and help install the proper middleware and tools at the customer sites.

These new solution families are:

ERP Series for S/390 -- To date, there are tens of thousands of applications that have been ported to and written for the S/390 platform, including leading ERP applications, such as SAP, PeopleSoft and Oracle. ERP applications link ``front office'' and ``back office'' systems to help employees work together efficiently. Baan and IBM intend to make BaanERP, another leading ERP solution, generally available on the S/390 platform later this year. Baan offers applications that include tools for manufacturing, distribution, finance and project management.

Treasure Series for S/390 -- IBM's Treasure Series combines hardware, software and consulting services to help customers build mission-critical business intelligence (BI) applications on S/390. IBM today is making available the Business Analysis Suite for SAP R/3 on S/390. This solution gives customers the ability to analyze quickly their SAP R/3 business data residing in DB2 databases. BI solutions, such as data mining and data warehousing, help customers analyze data to discover market trends and consumer buying patterns to improve service and tailor marketing programs.

Consolidation Series for S/390 -- To simplify their networked environments and reduce the numbers of smaller servers enterprisewide, many businesses are beginning to consolidate workloads on the S/390 server platform. Server consolidation can help businesses simplify systems management, improve scalability and availability and lower total IT costs. To help customers with their consolidation efforts, IBM is offering S/390 LAN Server, a solution designed to simplify network management by consolidating multiple LAN file servers on the S/390 platform. IBM also is offering MQIntegrator for OS/390, an automated solution to help untangle and integrate software applications enterprisewide.

e-business Series for S/390 -- IBM continues to enhance its S/390 e-business product portfolio by bringing customers scalable and secure e-business tools to transact business over the Internet. The e-business Series for S/390 focuses on three key areas: collaboration (via the Lotus Domino products), commerce (via Net.Commerce) and integrated Web serving (through Domino Go Webserver). IBM also announced Domino Go Webserver Version 5.0, to be available in June. When used with connectors to existing databases, it helps customers open up that information to users with browsers. When used with Net.Commerce Version 3.0, Domino Go Webserver helps customers establish an Internet presence to showcase products and services.

IBM also plans to extend DB2 for the S/390 platform with DB2 for OS/390 Version 6.0, which provides object-relational functionality and support for multimedia data, such as text documents, images, audio and other objects for e-business applications. IBM plans for early customer testing of DB2 V. 6.0 to begin by year-end.

The enhanced power of the S/390 G5 Server will bring unprecedented performance levels to all of these applications and workloads. The new server will be able to support thousands of ERP users and hundreds of millions of Internet hits, run BI queries faster and consolidate small server workloads. Customers can manage all of these workloads through IBM's OS/390 Workload Manager, unique to the S/390 platform. OS/390 Workload Manager helps customers balance workloads across systems and set business goals for the handling of specific workloads.

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Editor's Note: IBM news releases and fact sheets are available on the Internet, via the IBM Home Page at http://www.ibm.com. S/390 releases and fact sheets are available via the S/390 Home Page at http://www.s390.ibm.com.

S/390, Parallel Sysplex, OS/390, OS/390 eNetwork Communications Server, RS/6000, DB2, CICS, IMS, MQSeries,Net.Commerce and MQIntegrator are trademarks or registered trademarks of IBM Corporation.

Domino Go Webserver and Lotus Domino are trademarks of Lotus Development Corp.

All other products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.