Unisys Sees Intel's Future IA-64 Processor Family as the Engine of Tomorrow's Data Center

Business Wire, Oct 14, 1998

BLUE BELL, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 14, 1998--Unisys Corp. Wednesday reinforced its commitment to Intel's future IA-64 architecture, beginning with the Merced processor, as the foundation of its next-generation, high-end enterprise server product line.

Unisys said that it expects Intel's future Merced microprocessors and other IA-64 processors to be fully capable of supporting very-large-scale, business-critical applications requiring uninterrupted availability.

Unisys next-generation servers, based on the Cellular MultiProcessing (CMP) architecture announced in May this year, will be designed for the power of future Merced microprocessors and initially available with Intel Pentium II Xeon microprocessors.

CMP-based servers shipped with Pentium II Xeon microprocessors will be able to use future Merced technology immediately with no other changes to the system. In addition, a single CMP system will be able to be configured with nodes based on both Pentium II Xeon and future Merced processors within the same box.

As a result, investments in early CMP-based servers will be protected as customers build on, rather than replace, their systems incorporating Pentium II Xeon microprocessors.

"The Unisys Cellular MultiProcessing architecture, using the Merced processor, will be a significant step forward in bringing data-center-class capabilities to servers built around Intel Architecture processors," said Stephen L. Smith, corporate vice president, Microprocessor Products and group general manager, Santa Clara Processor Division, Intel Corp. "Unisys CMP server technology, combined with the reliability, scalability, and performance of the Merced processor, will provide a strong foundation for next-generation servers."

"Intel-based systems have evolved to support the class of application that requires the uninterrupted availability, scalability, high-volume I/O, and security provided by the traditional enterprise server," said Don Johnson, vice president and general manager, Windows NT Server Business, Unisys Computer Systems. "We are designing our next-generation enterprise server around the power of future IA-64 product family, beginning with the Merced processor, because we are confident that Intel's IA-64 can address the toughest challenges an enterprise data center can be called upon to handle."

Scheduled to ship next year, Unisys next-generation CMP-based servers will feature a "shared-everything" design, making enormous resources -- 64 GBytes of shared memory and I/O with 96 peripheral channel interconnects (PCI) -- available to each processor.

This design feature ensures that the performance of an individual Merced processor will not be hampered by competition with other processors for system resources.

About Unisys

Unisys (NYSE:UIS) is more than 33,000 employees helping customers in 100 countries apply information technology to solve their business problems.

Unisys solutions are based on a broad portfolio of global information services including systems integration, outsourcing, "repeatable" application solutions, consulting, network integration, remote network management, and multivendor maintenance and support, coupled with enterprise-class servers and associated middleware, software and storage.

Repeatable solutions are focused on key vertical markets including financial services, transportation, telecommunications, government, publishing and other commercial markets. Headquartered in Blue Bell, in the Greater Philadelphia area, Unisys 1997 annual revenue was $6.6 billion. Access the Unisys home page on the World Wide Web -- http://www.unisys.com -- for further information.

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