---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Florida SunFlash SMCC Lowers Price Of Multiprocessor Servers SunFLASH Vol 39 #14 March 1992 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. --March 24, 1992-- Sun Microsystems Computer Corporation (SMCC) has made significant price reductions within the SPARCserver(TM) 600MP Series, its popular family of multiprocessor servers introduced last September. The price cuts make these servers the least expensive such systems available today. SMCC has slashed the cost of all configurations except the base configurations of the three models within this product family, with price reductions up to $7,000. In the case of the high-end SPARCserver 690MP system, SMCC has also added two 1.3-gigabyte IPI disk drives at no additional cost, increasing the system's functionality. In addition, SMCC has cut add-on memory prices for these servers by as much as 48 percent and had reduced the price of all add-on, 1.3-gigabyte disk drives by $1,000. Also lowered in price by $2,300 was a special configuration of the SPARCserver 630MP computer aimed at system administrators. It includes a 19-inch color monitor and graphics accelerator. These price cuts reaffirm SMCC's commitment to provide value. For example, the high-end SPARCserver 690MP system offers the industry's best UNIX(R) database price/performance on the TPC-A benchmark. Running the SYBASE(R) SQL Server(TM) 4.8 relational database management system (RDBMS), this Sun(TM) server delivers 95.41 transactions per second (tps), with a cost/tps of just $8,854. This result is better than all TPC-A price/performance results for all UNIX systems. The SPARCserver 690MP is the first system ever to break the $9,000/tpsA barrier. The SPARCserver system's TPC-A results demonstrate its suitability for OLTP functions within markets such as financial services, hotel and airline reservations, healthcare and insurance. In addition, technical areas such as manufacturing that need OLTP can also take advantage of the SMCC server. "The reception by users toward our family of MP servers has been even better than we expected," said Doug Kaewert, SMCC's director of server product marketing. "We've already shipped more than 4,000 systems worldwide, which shows how well customers are responding to the superior performance and easy upgrade-ability of these servers." Industry analyst Mark Stahlman of Alex. Brown & Sons, Inc., predicted last September that there was a high probability that SMCC would ship more multiprocessing systems this year than all its competitors put together. According to Kaewert, the numbers so far show that this prediction is right on track. Industry Acceptance The SPARCserver 600MP servers have been sold into a wide variety of commercial and technical markets worldwide. One industry trend that has increased server sales is rightsizing, which means optimizing the efficiency of an organization's computing resources -- matching the right computer power with the right tasks. Several SMCC customers worldwide, including San Francisco-based Pacific Gas & Electric, United Kingdom-based AT&T Network Systems Group and The Malaysian State Economic Development Corporation, have put this concept to work, downsizing from minicomputers and mainframes to SPARCserver 600MP Series server-based networks. Reducing the cost of processing claims and delivering faster, more accurate claims adjustments than its competitors were the reasons Fremont Pacific, Inc., a Northern California-based insurance conglomerate, traded in its outdated minicomputers for SPARCserver 600MP servers. With its new client-server configuration, Fremont Pacific is enjoying an increase in productivity, as well as the 70 percent reduction in the time it takes to process claims. Increasing database performance also was the impetus for two leading international charities, Friends of the Earth and ActionAid, which have installed several SPARCserver 600MP servers to improve their in-house databases, the lifeblood of their fundraising and support operations. By adding SPARCserver 630MP servers to its existing network of Sun computers, Friends of the Earth has reduced agency costs and maintenance, thus increasing efficiency. ActionAid reports that by moving from its six-year-old proprietary database system to the SPARCserver 670MP server, the organization has reduced ongoing database maintenance costs, as well as streamlined the process. New Version of Database Excelerator Available Cost-effectively increasing database performance is vitally important to a variety of server users. Thus SMCC just introduced and is now shipping a new version of Database Excelerator (DBE), an unbundled product that dramatically increases the database performance of the SPARCserver 600MP Series. DBE 1.2 boosts system throughput and reduces response times, which enables applications for Informix, Ingres, Oracle and SYBASE DBMS software to see immediate performance improvements. For example, users running DBE will increase their systems' peak transaction throughput (measured in transactions per second) by up to 60 percent. DBE also increases the number of concurrent users by 400 percent (or up to four times the current number of users), further strengthening SMCC's price/performance leadership in UNIX database server market. In fact, DBE was used to obtain SMCC's industry-leading TPC-A results for UNIX. Available immediately, DBE 1.2 is priced at $300 per site license. For reader inquiries, telephone 1-800-821-4643. Sun Microsystems Computer Corp. Carol Sacks (415) 336-0521 Sun Microsystems Computer Corporation, a subsidiary of Sun Microsystems, Inc., is the world's leading supplier of client-server computing solutions, which feature networked workstations and servers that store, process and distribute information. Used for many demanding commercial and technical applications, SMCC's products command the largest share of the computer industry's fastest-growing market segment: workstations and servers. Sun Microsystems, Inc., founded in 1982 and headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., is a multi-billion dollar corporation doing business worldwide. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ For information send mail to info-sunflash@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. Subscription requests should be sent to sunflash-request@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. Archives are on solar.nova.edu, paris.cs.miami.edu, uunet.uu.net, src.doc.ic.ac.uk and ftp.adelaide.edu.au All prices, availability, and other statements relating to Sun or third party products are valid in the U.S. only. Please contact your local Sales Representative for details of pricing and product availability in your region. Descriptions of, or references to products or publications within SunFlash does not imply an endorsement of that product or publication by Sun Microsystems. John McLaughlin, SunFlash editor, flash@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. (305) 776-7770.