---------------------------------------------------------------------------- NEW HARDWARE PRODUCTS FURTHER ENHANCE SUN'S SPARCSERVERS UNDERSCORE SUN'S LEADERSHIP IN BALANCED PERFORMANCE SunFLASH Vol 19 #8 July 1990 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Products Boost NFS, I/O Performance, Memory Capacity MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. --July 9, 1990-- Sun Microsystems today introduced three new hardware products that dramatically increase the I/O performance and capacity of Sun's SPARCserver(TM) family. These products further demonstrate Sun's unique approach to workgroup computing, in which balanced performance is achieved through innovative software and hardware products and the employment of sophisticated technologies not available from other vendors. Sun Prestoserve(TM), the industry's first Network File System (NFS(R)) accelerator board, increases the number of workstations that can be supported by the SPARCserver 470 and 490, improving response time of these systems as file servers by up to 75 percent. A faster new Intelligent Peripheral Interface (IPI) disk drive doubles I/O transfer rate to 6 megabytes per second. Sun's new 128-megabyte memory board gives SPARCservers twice the capacity of competing systems. Additionally, Sun is now including its SunCD(TM) CD-ROM disk drive as a standard feature on many of its SPARCservers and SPARCstations and has reduced the price of its 32-megabyte memory board from $19,000 to $13,000. "Customers consistently ask for more than MIPS when they evaluate servers," said Cheryl Vedoe, director of marketing for Sun's General Systems Group. "Users buy servers for a variety of tasks that require a balance of CPU power, I/O throughput, responsiveness and internal memory capacity. The enhancements introduced today, along with our recently unveiled server software products, further strengthen our leadership in workgroup computing." "Workgroup computing" refers to the way companies and organizations are boosting productivity in the '90s. They share resources and information using "clients" powerful desktop workstations linked to servers that store and manipulate information. Sun's singular focus is on easy workgroup computing. It does this with high-performance hardware, superior networking products and ease of use through the OPEN LOOK(TM) graphical user interface. Industry's First NFS Accelerator Sun Prestoserve enables heavily loaded file servers to support many more clients by dramatically improving NFS write performance. NFS, part of Sun's Open Network Computing (ONC(TM)) technology, has become the de facto standard for file sharing in multivendor networks, with an installed base of more than one million users. Sun Prestoserve includes both hardware and software. This new product is ideally suited to traditional Sun markets such as electronic computer-aided design, mechanical computer-aided design, computer-aided software engineering and electronic publishing, where frequent writes and saves to the disk are typical. Highest-Performance Industry-Standard Drive Sun's new IPI hard disk drive doubles the transfer rate compared to Sun's existing IPI drive to 6 megabytes per second. Both the new 6-megabyte/second and existing 3-megabyte/second drives are supported by Sun's IPI disk controller. The new disk drive utilizes sophisticated parallel head I/O technology, previously found only in mainframes and supercomputers. The fast transfer rate of the 8-inch, 911-megabyte drive is critical for applications that rely on servers to transfer large amounts of data, such as imaging applications, in which a single file may use 3 to 4 megabytes of disk space. The 6-megabyte/second IPI also boosts the random I/O performance of file server and database server applications by up to 25 percent. Unlike proprietary disk drives, Sun's IPI drive offers the fastest data transfer rate while adhering to open industry standards. New Memory Affords Higher Capacity, Reliability The new 128-megabyte memory board gives the SPARCserver 470 and 490 up to 672 megabytes of error correcting code (ECC) memory, more than four times the previous maximum at 25 percent less cost per megabyte. It more than doubles the memory capacity of competing offerings from DEC, IBM and HP, at a much lower price per megabyte. Higher-capacity ECC memory improves overall system performance for large simulation and database applications, increasing expandability by freeing additional VME slots. Combined with Sun's fast 64-bit private memory bus, the new memory board enhances the balanced performance of Sun's high-end servers. Besides introducing the new 128-megabyte memory board, Sun has reduced the price of its 32-megabyte memory board by 32 percent, to $13,000. CD-ROM Technology Becomes Standard Feature SunCD, Sun's CD-ROM storage device, is now a standard feature on many of its SPARCservers and SPARCstations(TM), offering customers additional functionality and storage at no additional cost. Sun is committed to distributing its software exclusively on CD-ROM by 1991. The benefits of CD-ROM technology, such as lower media cost, reliability and on-line access, make it an attractive feature in a typical server environment. SunCD can store up to 644 megabytes of data and is ideally suited for distribution of SunOS(TM), popular databases, application software and system documentation that require great amounts of disk space. Sun Prestoserve, priced at $5,995, is designed for the SPARCserver 470 and 490 and will be shipped in the fourth quarter of 1990. The 911-megabyte IPI subsystem, priced at $14,500, is offered for the SPARCserver 490 and is available immediately. The 128-megabyte memory board, for the SPARCserver 470 and 490, is available immediately and is priced at $45,000. SunCD will be bundled with the SPARCserver 1+, 330, 470 and 490 and the SPARCstation 370 and 470 beginning in 30 days. A SunCD upgrade is available for the SPARCstation 370, 470 and the SPARCserver 370, 390, 470 and 490. Priced at $1,500, the SunCD upgrade will be shipped August 31. Sun Microsystems, Inc., headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., is a leading worldwide supplier of network-based distributed computing systems, including professional workstations, servers and UNIX operating system and productivity software. ### SunCD, SPARCserver, SPARCstation, ONC and SunOS are trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. NFS is a registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. SPARC is a registered trademark of SPARC International, Inc., based on a technology developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. Prestoserve is a trademark of Legato Systems, Inc. OPEN LOOK is a trademark of AT&T. UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T. All other products or services mentioned in this document are identified by the trademarks or service marks of their respective companies or organizations. For reader inquiries, telephone 1-800-821-4643 outside California. Inside California, call 1-800-821-4642. Press Contact: Carrie Dillon (415) 336-3564 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Sunflash is an electronic mail news service from Sun Microsystems, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA. It is targeted at Sun Users and Customers. As a field sales and support office, we try to keep SunFlash useful and interesting to you. If you have any comments or suggestions for enhancing SunFlash, please send them to us. SunFlash is ditributed via a hierarchy of aliases. 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