HP and SAS Institute Achieve New Performance Advantages for Data Warehousing

Business Wire, April 13, 1999

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 13, 1999--

HP Integrates HP-UX 64-bit Technology with SAS Institute's

Scalable Performance Data Server

Hewlett-Packard Company and SAS Institute, Inc. today announced the first 64-bit SAS Scalable Performance Data (SPD) Server, available only on HP platforms. This exclusive HP and SAS offering combines the superior performance and scalability of HP's 64-bit HP-UX(1) 11 technology and high-end HP 9000 V2500 Enterprise Server with SAS Institute's leading data warehousing, information-delivery software and customer-management solutions.

Through joint research and development efforts, HP and SAS Institute have optimized and performance-tuned SAS's Scalable Performance Data Server to take full advantage of the capabilities of the HP-UX 11 64-bit operating environment on HP's V2500 server. SAS Institute's Scalable Performance Data Server is a high-performance parallel data store that provides a decision-support-based environment of optimal and secure storage and retrieval for high-volume data warehouses and data marts. Designed to complement the capabilities of SAS Institute's open, integrated and complete data-warehousing solution, the SPD Server provides a seamless environment to quickly process vast amounts of mission-critical business data, utilizing the latest parallel-processing and data-server capabilities.

HP and SAS share a common approach to provide customers with best-in-class solutions that solve their business-critical issues. Customers continually need to increase overall performance and data-access times for quicker time-to-market response and to meet business objectives. By combining the sheer processing power and 128GB-memory capacity of the V2500 with the Scalable Performance Data Server, customers are able to quickly process large numbers of queries in parallel, resulting in more accurate and reliable data. Additionally, customers can achieve performance and scalability advantages as the need to process terabytes of data becomes more imperative.

"This is a true breakthrough product differentiation for HP and SAS customers," said Jennie Grimes, solutions manager for HP's Business Critical Computing Unit. "The incredible performance of HP's V2500, combined with SAS's 64-bit capabilities in its SPD Server, brings decision-support capabilities to a level unmatched by any other offering today. HP and SAS together have invested in developing the right combination for what we see as ever-increasing processing demands placed on business-intelligence solutions."

As a direct result of the joint R&D effort, HP and SAS Institute have secured a deal with one of Europe's largest telecommunications providers to facilitate the dynamics of its customer data to provide more precise customer profiling and segmentation information. This multimillion-dollar win includes the joint configuration of the SPD Server for HP-UX running SAS's business-intelligence tools on the V2500.

"Both companies recognize the importance of delivering performance without sacrificing an organization's IT budget, better enabling an IT director to justify the investment in technology," said Jim Davis, SAS Institute IT strategist. "Working together to leverage our individual strengths, HP and SAS Institute have simplified the technical-integration effort that so often distracts IT from delivering on their business commitments."

As the SPD Server accelerates the extraction, transformation and loading of source data from mission-critical business applications including legacy, enterprise resource planning (ERP), call data records (CDR) and electronic points of sale, the 64-bit SPD Server exclusively for HP-UX 11 will ensure customers attain not only a competitive advantage, but a safe and proven choice for their growing businesses.

The SAS Scalable Performance Data Server for HP-UX is a strategic addition to the portfolio of joint initiatives and offerings by HP and SAS Institute. Ongoing efforts include the HP and SAS initiative to deliver joint global data-warehouse solutions for customer-relationship management spanning all major industries, and the jointly sponsored Data Mining Discovery Center.

Pricing and Availability

The 64-bit SAS Scalable Performance Data Server for HP-UX 11 is available immediately. Pricing is not yet available.

About SAS Institute

SAS Institute, one of the top 10 independent software vendors, is the leader in decision support and data warehousing, providing integrated enterprise information-delivery solutions. The Institute markets packaged business solutions for vertical industry and departmental applications, as well as an integrated suite of software tools and consulting services that allow companies to transform the wide variety of data within their organizations into information that business users and researchers need to make better decisions. SAS software and services are used at more than 33,000 business, government, and university sites in over 115 countries. Founded in 1976, SAS Institute is the world's largest privately held software company with annual revenue of $871 million.