RELEASE AT&T System 3000 Servers Achieve World Class Performance

This was written and released by AT&T Global Information Solutions ================================================================== AT&T System 3000 Servers Achieve World Class Performance Dayton, Ohio -- March 2, 1994 -- AT&T Global Information Solutions today announced record results for on-line transaction processing (OLTP) benchmark, TPC Benchmark C. The benchmark, performed on AT&T's NCR System 3555 using INFORMIX-OnLine, demonstrates AT&T's sustained industry leadership for world class price/performance. The System 3555, with four Intel Pentium(R) processors running INFORMIX-OnLine and TOP END, achieved a peak performance of 1296.03 transactions per minute (tpmC) and beat all competitive results to date with a record price/performance of $976 per tpmC. "With this result, AT&T continues our long term commitment to deliver the best in price/performance for providers of enterprise database solutions," said Mark Hurd, vice president, server marketing for AT&T Global Information Solutions. "Combined with AT&T's complete solutions support, our performance enhances our customers' ability to get, move and use the information technolog y so critical to their business and their customers' needs." more -2- The AT&T System 3555, currently scalable from two to eight Pentium processors, is designed for decision support and on-line transaction processing applications. This mainframe-class system is marketed to financial , retail, commercial, industrial, telecommunications, government and other markets with mission critical needs. The complete benchmark environment consisted of a network of 1200 simulated users connected to two System 3350s running as clients with a System 3555 server. All systems were running UNIX SVR4 MP-RAS with TOP END, AT&T's distributed transaction processing monitor, also running on the client systems. By doubling the number of CPUs from two to four, the 3500 system workload demonstrates the industry leading scalability, producing 666 tpmC at $1288 per tpmC (based on a previously released TPC-C benchmark) and 1296 tpmC at $976 per tpmC respectively. Informix choice for comparing benchmark tests INFORMIX-OnLine has been used for more than 17 TPC-C performance tests to date and is the only relational database server for open systems chosen by hardware vendors for their published TPC-C benchmarks. "With this latest benchmark result, Informix reiterates its leadership in providing real-world database solutions for major UNIX platforms," said Tim Shetler, vice president, product management, Informix. "Users of AT&T's NCR System 3555 running INFORMIX-OnLine now have additional assurance that they have an industry-leading combination for their database server needs." AT&T Global Information Solutions develops, manufactures, markets, supports and services enterprise-wide information systems for worldwide market s. # # # Pentium processor is a trademark of Intel Corporation INFORMIX is a registered trademark of Informix Software, Inc. TOP END and MP-RAS are registered trademarks of AT&T Global Information Solutions UNIX is a registered trademark, now licensed exclusively by X/Open Company, Lt d. more -3- BACKGROUND INFORMATION The TPC Benchmark C TPC-C industry standard for benchmarking The TPC Benchmark C (TPC-C), developed in 1992 by the Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC), is considered to be the best OLTP worklo ad benchmark test for evaluating real-world application performance. It is a mixture of read-only and update-intensive transactions that simulate the activities found in complex OLTP application environments. It does so by exercising a breadth of system components associated with such environments. The performance metric reported by TPC-C is a "business throughput," measuring the number of orders processed per minute. Multiple transactions are used to simulate the business activity of processing an order, and each transaction is subject to a response time constraint. Results are expressed in transactions-per-minute (tpmC). AT&T adds value with Pentium and TOP END AT&T's NCR System 3555 is based on Intel's Pentium technology and is designed to support up to 16-way symmetric multiprocessing. Based on open systems and industry standards, the System 3555 runs the NCR UNIX SVR4 MP-RAS operating system. When combined with the INFORMIX-OnLine and AT&T's own TOPEND product, the System 3555 provides the power and functionality to perform departmental and mainframe-class applications for the corporate data center. TOP END is AT&T's scalable, robust software platform for the real-time, mission-critical systems required by enterprises today. It answers the need for providing end users with reliable, secure access to service and informatio n located anywhere in the enterprise. TOP END implements the X/OPEN DTP model with a completely "database neutral" system which offers dynamic load balancing, fault resilience, graphical system s administration, multiple platform support, network transparency, seamless legacy systems support and internationalization capability -- in short, everything needed to do high-volume geographically distributed transaction processing with extreme system stability. -- -- %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% William Daul Advanced Support INFORMIX SOFTWARE INC. 4100 Bohannon Dr. (415) 926-6488 - wk Menlo Park, CA. 94025 uunet!infmx!billd or billd@informix.com