HP to Power Online Community for Entertainment-industry Talent; HP Offering Includes Design, Project and Network Management, Support Services and Financing

Business Wire, May 10, 2000

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High-tech Writers

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 10, 2000

Hewlett-Packard Company today announced that HP will power IAM.COM, the first comprehensive online community for entertainment-industry talent; the recently launched site expects to host the portfolios of thousands of aspiring models, actors, dancers and musicians by year's end.

"Most artists' portfolios contain video or audio clips, as well as photographs and resumes, so we required a robust solution that could support high availability of extremely large files," said Doug Wille, vice president of operations, IAM.COM. HP's e-services experts helped start-up IAM.COM prepare for a rapid Web-site launch. "HP had just over two months to take us from initial design to full operation. Our successful launch proves that HP can move at the speed of e-business."

HP furnished several HP-UX(1) specialists to help design the company's network infrastructure. HP's Global Integration and Installation Organization configured and tested the solution off-site before installing it at IAM.COM's data center.

"HP provided valuable expertise throughout this whole process and was an integral part of the process, from conceptual design and architecture verification to installation," said Wille. "We hired an HP project manager to oversee installation, so we were able to benefit from the efforts of some very skilled HP employees."

"As a board member and IAM's largest shareholder, I wanted to be sure that the company put its best foot forward at launch," said Jeff Drazan, general partner of Sierra Ventures. "Start-ups have limited resources, and HP's solution provided everything we needed that we couldn't do ourselves. Most important, it all came from a single vendor who took complete responsibility for the implementation and in the end executed flawlessly in a very short timeframe."

"Every successful dot-com launch requires a lot of star performers behind the scenes, and that's what we are able to supply," said Nick Earle, president, HP E-Services.Solutions. "And, we can significantly shorten the Web-site development cycle."

IAM.COM installed two HP 9000 N-4000 Enterprise Servers, two L-2000 Enterprise Servers, six HP NetServer LPr systems and a 1.5TB HP SureStore E Disk Array XP256 in a high-availability MC/ServiceGuard cluster with Cisco Systems routers, switches, load balancers and firewalls and an HP DLT SureStore E Tape Library 4/40.

MC/ServiceGuard is an industry-leading high-availability solution that provides automatic failover capabilities for clustered HP 9000 Enterprise Servers running HP-UX. The integration of the company's Oracle(R) database with HP MC/ServiceGuard cluster ensures that operations can be maintained in the event of a systems or network failure, or during routine hardware and software maintenance.

IAM.COM purchased HP's Critical Systems Support and Network Support to provide 24x7 availability on all servers, storage devices and networking components. As part of these service contracts, covered components are typically back in full operation within six hours of any problem.

In published SPEC(2) benchmark studies, the HP 9000 N-Class and L-Class servers were 1.5 to 2 times faster than the competition and carried a noticeably smaller price tag. The XP256's performance and scalability supports rapid expansion, and IAM.COM said it expects to upgrade the unit every couple of months during the first year. In addition, HP NetServer LPr systems offer affordable, bulletproof performance in an extremely thin profile.

The L-Class Enterprise Servers are configured as a network-attached storage (NAS) solution with direct attachments to the XP256 and Oracle database. This configuration offers significant price/performance gains and features flexible scalability with zero downtime.

About HP

Hewlett-Packard Company -- a leading global provider of computing and imaging solutions and services for business and home -- is focused on capitalizing on the opportunities of the Internet and the proliferation of electronic services.

HP announced that it will spin off Agilent Technologies and distribute its shares of Agilent on June 2, 2000 to HP shareowners of record as of May 2, 2000. Agilent consists of HP's test and measurement, semiconductor products, chemical analysis and healthcare solutions businesses.

HP has 85,400 employees worldwide and had total revenue from continuing operations of $42.4 billion in its 1999 fiscal year. Information about HP and its products can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.hp.com.

(1) HP-UX Release 10.20 and later and HP-UX Release 11.0 and later (in
    both 32 and 64-bit configurations) on all HP 9000 computers are
    Open Group UNIX(R) 95 branded products.
(2) Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC) benchmark
    studies can be found at www.spec.org

UNIX is a registered trademark of the Open Group.

Oracle is a registered U.S. trademark of Oracle Corporation, Redwood City, California.