Amdahl and Informix Performance Benchmark Signals Windows NT Scalability into the Enterprise Data center; TPC Benchmark Result Marks the World's Fastest Windows NT-Based Database Implementation

Business Wire, July 24, 1997

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 24, 1997--In an announcement that defines "best in class" performance among Windows NT(TM) server platforms, Amdahl Corporation (AMEX:AMH), the world's leading integrator of multi-platform data center environments, and Informix Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:IFMX), the leading provider of innovative database technology, today announced record performance results for Windows NT based servers using the TPC-D industry-standard benchmark. The Amdahl EnVista(TM) FS/R server, coupled with the high-performance LVS 4500 Storage System and the new INFORMIX-OnLine Extended Parallel Server (XPS) Database, achieved the best Windows NT TPC-D result ever.

"As our customers demand Windows NT scalability into the enterprise data center, we are constantly investing both in performance and availability technologies, with key technology partners like Informix and Intel," stated Charles Foley, Vice President, Systems Marketing, Amdahl Corporation. "Today's result signifies the benefit of that investment for our customers, in both of those areas. By combining the world-class EnVista and LVS 4500 platforms with our Informix partnership to leverage their powerful XPS architecture, we bring industry-standard Windows NT solutions to our customers with the scalability and availability they need to be competitive."

This benchmark is another example of the Amdahl tradition of bringing robust solutions to the open system environment. This TPC benchmark indicates that Amdahl and Informix have the fastest Windows NT database implementation, providing true data center-class computing.

"Informix's TPC-D result with Amdahl demonstrate that OnLine XPS provides the highest performance of any NT database," said Brett Bachman, vice president, general manager of Enterprise Products at Informix. "This ensures that NT-based data marts and data warehouses running on Informix will have the power that they need to drive the most demanding decision support applications on NT."

The TPC-D result was based on an EnVista FS/R Server configured with four 200 MHz Pentium Pro processors, each with 512KB cache, 2 GB of memory, using the INFORMIX-Online Extended Parallel Server 8.20TC1. The 100 GB TPC-D database was implemented using the Amdahl LVS 4500 Storage System that, in fact, contained several hundred gigabytes of data.

This outstanding Amdahl and Informix result represents a significant performance improvement over all published Windows NT TPC-D results. This result is 56.6% performance improvement over an identically configured Compaq and Oracle(R) result. A Data General and Oracle result with six CPUs was exceeded by 24%. This result also exceeded the Digital and Oracle Windows NT TPC-D result by 14.5% even though the Digital result utilized non-Intel processors with much faster CPU clock speeds.

Following are comparable test results as of 07/23/97. -0-

                                                          No.  Avail-
Vendor  Database  Version  Power  Throughput  Price/Perf  CPU  able
                                                               Date
                           QppD@    QthD@       $/QphD@

                           100 GB   100 GB      100 GB


Amdahl  Informix   8.2     460.8    152.4       $2801      4   1/1/98

Compaq  Oracle     7.3    294.20    147.80      $2050      4   6/30/97

DEC     Oracle     7.3     402.3    203.2       $1873      4   immed.

DG      Oracle     7.3    370.90    194.60      $2163      6   7/1/97