[1872] in comp.os.os2.announce archive
IBM PR: IBM Adds SMP Capabilities to OS/2 Warp Server
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Timothy Sipples)
Fri Sep 20 00:17:54 1996
To: os2ann.DISCUSS@bloom-picayune.MIT.EDU
Date: 20 Sep 1996 03:37:37 GMT
From: tsipple@vnet.ibm.com (Timothy Sipples)
Reply-To: tsipple@vnet.ibm.com (Timothy Sipples)
Reply-to: tsipple@vnet.ibm.com (Timothy Sipples)
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IBM Adds SMP Capabilities to OS/2 Warp Server
New OS/2 SMP Feature Is Twice as Fast as Previous SMP Offering
ATLANTA, GA., Sept. 17, 1996 ... IBM announced today at Networld+Interop a
symmetric-multiprocessing (SMP) feature for OS/2 Warp 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 has shown that OS/2 Warp Server Advanced
with SMP outperforms Microsoft Windows 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 offers," said Bonnie 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 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 Server 3.51,
which supports 1,560 Notes mail users on equivalent hardware, according to
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 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 marke iment 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 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 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 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 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 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."
OS/2 Warp Server Advanced with SMP will be a leading application server
platform for each of the seven IBM Software Servers: the IBM Database Server,
Lotus Notes, the IBM Internet Connection Server, the IBM Systems Management
Server, the IBM Directory and Security Server, the IBM Transaction Server, and
the IBM Communications Server.
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 clustering technology. As previously stated,
IBM intends to leverage its expertise in high availability solutions on the
RISC 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 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 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 support, advanced print function and LAN
Internet access. Global directory and security services 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.
###
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.
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