PRESS INFORMIX-ONLINE DYNAMIC SERVER VERSION 7.1 AVAILABLE ON ELEVEN UNIX PLATFORMS

INFORMIX-ONLINE DYNAMIC SERVER VERSION 7.1 AVAILABLE ON ELEVEN UNIX PLATFORMS Latest Release of Parallel Database Technology Adds Greater Scalability, Extended High Availability and Increased System Management Capabilities Customer Benchmark Tests Confirm Dramatic Performance Increases Over Rival Database Servers MENLO PARK, Calif., (December 6, 1994) -- Informix Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:IFMX), the leader in parallel processing database technology, today announced the availability of INFORMIX(R)-OnLine Dynamic Server(TM) 7.1 on eleven leading symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) and uniprocessor hardware platforms. OnLine Dynamic Server 7.1 is an enhanced version of OnLine Dynamic Server version 7.0 introduced in February 1994, and until the third quarter of this year, available exclusively on Sequent Computer Systems, Inc.'s SMP platform. Version 7.1 enhancements provide greater scalability, extended high availability and increased system management capabilities. By December 31, 1994, OnLine Dynamic Server 7.1 will be available on UNIX(R) platforms from AT&T Global Information Solutions, Cray Research Superservers Inc., Data General Corp., Digital Equipment Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM Corp., Pyramid Technology Corp., Siemens/Nixdorf Informationssysteme (SNI), Sequent Computer Systems Inc., Silicon Graphics Inc., and Sun Microsystems Inc. INFORMIX-OnLine Dynamic Server is based upon Informix's next generation, multithreaded parallel processing database architecture, Dynamic Scalable Architecture (DSA). OnLine Dynamic Server version 7.1 includes all the features of version 7.0 including: -Parallel Data Query (PDQ) -- Enables significant performance increases for complex queries, batch processing and database maintenance operations, especially for very large databases. PDQ enables tasks such as scans, sorts, joins, aggregates, index builds, backups, recovery, updates, inserts and deletes to be processed in parallel. -Database Partitioning -- Provides table and index partitioning for optimal parallel processing performance and online manageability of very large databases. -Dynamic System Configuration -- Allows for high availability through on-line tuning and reconfiguration of database and server processes. -Memory Grant Manager -- Enables users to dynamically allocate system resources given varying system workloads. In addition, OnLine Dynamic Server 7.1 includes the following new product enhancements: - New GUI database administration tools -- Improve system manageability through the provision of GUI-based utilities and event alarm mechanisms. - Improved System Availability -- Allows applications to be tolerant to server or disk failure by finding available system resources, and enables database administration tasks to be done online, rather than requiring system downtime. - Parallel Load -- Enables fast loading of large amounts of data especially useful for data warehouse applications and distributed replication. - Discrete Distributed Data Replication -- Extends current high availability replication capabilities with additional support for multisite replication. OnLine Dynamic Server Makes the Difference for Customers Since its introduction in December of 1993, customer benchmark tests have revealed OnLine Dynamic Server's ability to successfully scale and demonstrate dramatic performance increases over rival database servers. "We have participated in over a dozen large-scale customer benchmark tests with OnLine Dynamic Server 7.x and have not lost one," said Steve Sommer, vice president of marketing at Informix. "DSA's ability to handle large volumes of data permits customers to implement applications such as data warehouses, and perform decision support queries in seconds on their UNIX platform of choice." Outstanding results in customer benchmark tests with the beta version of OnLine Dynamic Server 7.1 have translated into significant customer wins including American Medical Association, GTE, Holiday Inn, Home Depot, MCI, Transamerica Commercial Finance and Wells Fargo. Through testing, customers discovered that OnLine Dynamic Server was the superior RDBMS by demonstrating the scalability and optimal performance to manage their OLTP and data-intensive processing requirements, as well as providing a level of support to ensure a successful and smooth implementation of their business-critical applications. "Informix was the only database vendor to offer the product scalability and the technical direction to effectively meet our IT needs to get us into the next decade," said Ron Griffin, CIO of Home Depot. OnLine Dynamic Server runs all of Home Depot's In-Store Processing systems, which enables each Home Depot store to act as a business within itself by performing its own purchasing, receiving, labor scheduling and inventory management. "Informix was selected due to its scalability, outstanding performance and ability to handle large amounts of data," said Mark Marcus, manager of Advanced Applications Information Technology for Holiday Inn. OnLine Dynamic Server runs Holiday Inn's Reservation Optimization system, which is a mission-critical application that automates hotel inventory management tasks. SMP Provides Superior Performance, Excellent Scalability According to the Gartner Group, although most of today's relational database management systems (RDBMS) are on UNIX uniprocessors, the majority of these configurations will grow to UNIX SMP over the next five years. Informix is focusing its parallel processing database technology initially on the SMP market for three reasons: SMP provides an administrative infrastructure that allows easy migration from a uniprocessor system environment; SMP offers extremely cost-effective mainframe-caliber performance; and SMP provides a familiar programming environment so users can write applications as if they were writing for a uniprocessor system. In addition to providing SMP platform support, Informix is well underway in developing its DSA implementation for clusters and massively parallel processing (MPP) systems. OnLine Dynamic Server 8.0 with support for MPP systems is now scheduled to be available in the second half of 1995. Data Warehousing Due to its core PDQ technology, table partitioning and mainframe-caliber administration tools, OnLine Dynamic Server 7.1 is ideally suited for a data warehousing environment. Data warehousing has traditionally been done on a mainframe environment, where large amounts of data have been stored and manipulated. With OnLine Dynamic Server, companies can move their data off the mainframe and into a more flexible, cost-effective, open systems environment -- and take advantage of improved price/performance and enhanced scalability. OnLine Dynamic Server's advanced parallel capabilities allow users to build data warehouses that better serve end user needs, analyze historical data to make strategic decisions, and research trends on markets and competition by consolidating data from various sources into one easy to reference database. According to Wayne Eckerson from the Patricia Seybold Group, "Informix is making a surg