PRESS: INFORMIX SUPPORTS DIGITAL TRUCLUSTERS 64-BIT SOLUTIONS

INFORMIX SUPPORTS DIGITAL TRUCLUSTERS 64-BIT SOLUTIONS MENLO PARK, Calif., (April 17, 1996) -- Informix Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:IFMX), the leading provider of innovative database technology, today announced its support of Digital Equipment Corporations new UNIX TruCluster Solutions environment. The company is scheduled to deliver INFORMIX(R)-OnLine Extended Parallel Server (OnLine XPS), its high-performance relational database management system (RDBMS) for shared nothing computing architectures, on the new environment in the second half of 1996. OnLine XPS will take advantage of the performance benefits of Digital's TruCluster Solutions environment by exploiting the power of the large memory addressibility inherent in 64-bit environments. Sixty-four bit environments provide customers with significant performance increases for very large database (VLDB) and business-critical applications such as OLTP, decision support and data warehousing, thereby enabling customers to capture vital information and utilize it to make quicker strategic business decisions. The shared-nothing design of OnLine XPS also offers near-linear scalability across the Digital Memory Channel cluster interconnect. With Digital's TruCluster Solutions, Digital is taking full advantage of the outstanding performance of the company's powerful AlphaServer systems and High-speed Memory Channel interconnect, its industry-leading 64-bit UNIX operating system, and 13 years of clustering expertise to deliver new standards of performance, scalability and system and applications availability. Informix recently demonstrated record-breaking TPC-C performance on Digital's open systems platform with INFORMIX-OnLine Dynamic Server(TM) version 7.2. OnLine Dynamic Server delivered 13,646 tpmC at an outstanding price/performance level of $277/tpmC, running the Digital AlphaServer Model 8400 5/350. "OnLine XPS running on TruCluster will enable as many as eight similarly configured servers to be clustered into a single group," said David Watson, director of database marketing, Informix. "This solution, with its near-linear scalability, will fully utilize all available resources to deliver massive transaction processing power, capable of running the most demanding OLTP applications such as airline reservation systems." "We are very pleased that Informix, a recognized leader in the database arena, has chosen to make OnLine XPS available on Digital's UNIX clustering platform," said Patrick Smyth, Digital's Director of UNIX Marketing. "UNIX TruCluster Solutions is a major step forward in Digital's ongoing commitment to deliver the most comprehensive high-performance UNIX systems to the customer community." Digital and Informix: Strong Partnership, Technologies, Customer Base Informix has worked closely with Digital to optimize OnLine Dynamic Server and OnLine XPS to take full advantage of Digital's large memory address capability. OnLine Dynamic Server on Digital Alpha provides for I/O efficiency and query optimization techniques for both OLTP and data warehousing applications with key features such as multithreading, asynchronous read-ahead, row-level locking, database partitioning, hash joins, and parallel data query. The performance of INFORMIX-OnLine Dynamic Server on Digital has driven joint customer implementations of the technologies for OLTP and data warehousing applications. Some of these customers include: 3Com Corporation, a pioneer of data networking solutions; the Legislative Service Center for the State of Washington, which provides information technology services to the Legislature and other organizations requiring access to legislative information; Nash Finch, the third largest wholesaler in the U.S.; Sumitomo Bank, the worlds fourth-largest bank; Tele-charge, the second largest provider of electronic ticketing services in the U.S., and the United Kingdoms Royal Navy. Informix and Digital have also extended their partnership to include a joint data warehousing initiative with systems integrator KPMG. The initiative exploits the capabilities of the three companies technologies and services for the data warehouse market. A competency center and lab where customers may test their applications, as well as cross-training for technical staff to increase their knowledge about each companies products, has been established at KPMGs Radnor, PA. facility. OnLine XPS OnLine XPS is the third in an ongoing series of database products based on Informix's Dynamic Scalable Architecture(TM) (DSA) parallel database technology. OnLine XPS extends the architecture to loosely coupled or shared-nothing computing architectures, including clusters of symmetric multiprocessors (SMPs) and massively parallel processors (MPPs). OnLine XPS is designed to support large database environments for OLTP, data warehousing, imaging, document management, and workflow database applications. The product also offers new features including enhanced parallel SQL operations, high availability capabilities, and a suite of systems management tools based on the Tivoli Management Environment (TME).