NetFRAME Sets New Standard For Lotus Notes/Windows NT Server Performance and Availability; Notes MessageCluster Supports Up To 1500 Lotus Notes Users; Provides Industry-Leading Speed and Performance in Continuously Available Platform

Business Wire, April 29, 1996

MILPITAS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 29, 1996--NetFRAME Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:NETF), the leading supplier of continuous availability network servers, today announced Notes MessageCluster, the industry's most scalable integrated Lotus Notes server.

With Notes MessageCluster, corporations can support up to 1500 Lotus Notes 4.0 users on a single continuously available and manageable platform. Consolidating the functionality of multiple PC-class Notes servers into a single Notes MessageCluster significantly improves Notes performance by reducing database replication and network traffic, and makes enterprise Notes installations easier to manage.

NetFRAME's Notes MessageCluster is based on new, 150MHz versions of the company's award-winning ClusterServer 8500 series platform, configured with Microsoft Windows NT 3.51 and Lotus Notes 4.0. With support for a two- or four-way Windows NT SMP host complex and NetFRAME's innovative MPSA intelligent I/O clustering technology, a single MessageCluster can be configured with up to 12 processors. This unique clustering design provides the processing power and throughput required to support the large volumes of message and database traffic created by Notes users. At the same time, MessageCluster is unique in offering on-line scalability and manageability, and continuous 24-hour per day availability. In addition to offering a comprehensive hardware and software Notes solution, NetFRAME also offers optional configuration, installation, capacity planning, system tuning and support services.

"The Notes MessageCluster is the ultimate in Notes throughput, scalability and availability," said Randy Meyer, Director of Solutions Marketing at NetFRAME. "While other server suppliers claim to support large numbers of users, only NetFRAME offers the combination of throughput and availability that make large scale Notes consolidation a practical reality. The Notes MessageCluster high-throughput architecture delivers outstanding Notes client response times, even at very high load levels. This is particularly important given the current industry discussion of Notes performance and scalability problems with PC-class Windows NT servers -- even with small numbers of users. Notes is both processor and I/O throughput intensive, which strains the capacity of PC server I/O subsystems. The MessageCluster, on the other hand, provides the parallel throughput Notes requires. Plus, with a large number of users on a single platform, database replication is minimized, further increasing performance. Finally, the Notes MessageCluster is unique in offering the high-availability design necessary for the reliable consolidation of 1500 users in a single platform."

In addition to delivering industry-leading Lotus Notes performance, NetFRAME's Notes MessageCluster also provides very aggressive per-seat pricing. By consolidating large volumes of Notes users on a single platform, Notes MessageCluster is less expensive to install, and significantly less expensive to own, than an equivalent PC server approach. A single MessageCluster can consolidate ten or more Notes 3 servers into a single robust platform.

The Notes server consolidation approach is supported by Lotus, who claim that server consolidation can result in significant cost savings. In a recent Lotus Notes White Paper they write, "It is a good idea (during migration) to consider changes related to hardware, operating systems, networking protocols, and LAN/WAN architecture... An organization might want to consolidate servers and take advantage of the increased scalability in Notes R4... Notes R4 can support up to 1,000 (or more) users, offering huge manageability and cost efficiency gains over Notes R3."

"The right way to determine the cost of deploying a Notes infrastructure is to evaluate the cost-per-user, not the cost of individual servers," said Meyer. "With its high-capacity architecture, the NetFRAME MessageCluster is highly scalable, bringing down the cost-per-seat for Notes users. Much as telephone companies use large-scale switches to build a high-performance, cost-effective nationwide telephone network, corporations can now use large-scale Notes servers to bring down the cost of building a high-performance, high-availability Notes infrastructure."

Lotus Notes is a fully integrated groupware system that enables users to take advantage of their corporate network to more effectively communicate, coordinate and collaborate. Release 4.0 of Notes has been very well received by analysts, the media and customers. According to Meta Group and the Yankee Group, the number of Lotus Notes users is expected to more than triple over the next two years, growing from 4 million users to 13 million users by 1997.

"Powerful groupware products such as Notes are changing the way businesses work," continued Meyer. "By reducing organizational hierarchies and improving communication and collaboration, Notes helps make organizations more efficient. So much so, that users often come to rely on Notes as much as they do on the telephone. It is easy to see why 24-hour access is key to a successful Notes installation. With continuous availability hardware and software, and on-line management, configuration and scalability, NetFRAME is unique in its ability to deliver the non-stop access Notes users demand."