TimesTen Announces Ground-Breaking Internet Application Performance on HP Servers

Business Wire, August 16, 1999

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 16, 1999--

TimesTen's In-Memory Database on an HP 9000 N-Class Enterprise Server

Powers a New Record of 3,900,000 SQL Transactions per Minute

TimesTen Performance Software today announced "off-the-scale" performance results for the TimesTen(TM) in-memory database using Hewlett-Packard Company's new HP 9000 N-Class Enterprise Server.

Utilizing a benchmark that measures the throughput of Internet-oriented database workloads, TimesTen and HP's N-Class completed 3,900,000 database transactions per minute (65,000 per second). All of the tests used TimesTen's industry-standard ODBC interface, which is compatible with hundreds of off-the-shelf tools, and a 4-way HP 9000 N-Class system running the 64-bit HP-UX 11 operating environment.

The TimesTen and HP Advantage

This unprecedented performance level is ideally suited to the demands of new cutting-edge Internet applications such as catalog acceleration, premium customer services, targeting and personalization, site tracking and analysis, and real-time quotes and news.

For example, the ability to process 65,000 database records in a second enables e-commerce applications to make highly-personalized purchase recommendations on the fly. The "click-driven" performance demands of Internet computing necessitate dynamic, real-time database processing at this level.

"The results of this benchmark clearly indicate that HP, together with TimesTen, have a solution that is ideal for the building and running of e-services," said Patrick Rogers, worldwide marketing manager for HP's Business Critical Computing Business Unit. "Our new N-Class server, coupled with the HP-UX 11 operating environment and TimesTen's in-memory database delivers the winning combination of performance, scalability, and price/performance required for the kind of information-intensive Internet applications that drive our customers' e-services applications."

"The Internet is a new game, with different standards of performance and price/performance," said James R. Groff, CEO of TimesTen Performance Software. "There are no existing benchmarks that can be used to predict how well a system or database will perform the kinds of applications that TimesTen and HP are encountering with leading-edge Internet companies and e-commerce sites. We are breaking new ground in the Internet space by enabling applications that simply haven't been feasible without the performance levels provided by our companies' latest technologies."

Both TimesTen and HP's N-Class servers are 100 percent 64-bit enabled, offering complete binary compatibility and enabling customers to take immediate advantage of the emerging IA-64 architecture, developed jointly between HP and Intel, without costly box-swaps and re-compiles.

The Pace of Internet Computing

The vast accessibility of information through the Internet, and the desire for dynamic, personalized responses, has given rise to applications with performance requirements that overwhelm conventional database technologies on their own.

TimesTen's memory-optimized architecture is designed to work in collaboration with the corporate database, extending data-intensive processing closer to the Internet users, and holding the most active, performance-critical information in TimesTen. The data is then processed at speeds one to two orders-of-magnitude faster and periodically synchronized with the corporate database of record.

Leading Web-based businesses have confirmed the need for throughput requirements demonstrated by this benchmark: -0-

--   A popular financial news site needs to support continuous stock
     quote feeds and inquiries peaking at 12,000 operations per second
     -- a figure doubling yearly.
--   One of the largest online retailers needs to capture and analyzes
     40 million website events per hour (10,000 per second), in order
     to monitor their user's patterns and ensure relevant,
     revenue-maximizing content and navigation.
--   A large Internet portal company plans to offer its advertisers
     on-line status reporting of their banner ad campaigns - creating
     a requirement for tens of thousands of "click-through" records to
     be aggregated in minutes rather than days.

-0-

About TimesTen Performance Software

TimesTen produces software that brings real-time database performance to applications. The company is focused on enabling innovations at the forefront of Internet computing and at the foundations of today's voice and data networks.

With TimesTen's in-memory database technology, throughput is measured in tens of thousands of operations per second, and response times are counted in microseconds. Though internally unique, TimesTen's products are accessed through standards-based interfaces, and designed for easy integration into existing software infrastructures.

A proven innovator, TimesTen was the first to bring a commercial in-memory database to market, and the first to support 64-bit addressing and continuous availability features. With a heritage of technology that has been deployed for years in demanding telecommunications environments, TimesTen has a track record for meeting the reliability and availability standards of the most business-critical applications.