New IBM eServer Shatters Mark For Baan ERP Performance; pSeries 680 Uses IBM Silicon-on-Insulator Chips To Set New World Record

Business Wire, Oct 16, 2000

Business and Technology Editors

SOMERS, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 16, 2000

IBM today announced its new IBM eServer(1) pSeries 680 server has set a new world record for Baan Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application performance.

The benchmark test was run on a 24-way pSeries 680 using breakthrough IBM silicon-on-insulator microprocessors, running DB2 Universal Database on the industry's top-rated UNIX operating system, AIX 4.3.3.(2) The benchmark demonstrates the scalability of Baan ERP solutions running on IBM's new p680 UNIX server.

The p680's world record was established using the standard BaanERP benchmark suite in two-tier client/server mode which determines the exact number of Baan Reference Users (BRUs) that can be supported on a specific vendor's computer system. Joint Baan and IBM solutions are designed to scale to meet the demands of the world's largest companies, and support rapid business growth.

"Baan is committed to working with IBM as a strategic partner to deliver highly scalable industry-leading solutions to Baan customers," said Leen van der Maas, vice president, Global Alliances, Baan Company. "The stunning performance results of the new pSeries 680 over the competition and IBM's own previous world-record, really speaks to IBM's leadership in high-performance, scalable solutions for customers."

"IBM continues to work closely with Baan to deliver industry-leading ERP solutions to our customers," said Mike Kerr, vice president, IBM Web Servers. "Together with Baan, we put our new p680 server to the test on Baan's grueling scalability application benchmark. The result was record-shattering performance, increased scalability and support for more users per system, all the while maintaining excellent response times."

Benchmark Details

The p680 running DB2 (R) Universal Database registered a new record for performance with BaanERP in a Hosted configuration.

These results were achieved at IBM's Austin, Texas facility on a 24-way p680, running BaanERP 5.0b with DB2 UDB v7.1 with PI in a two-tier Hosted configuration. With this setup, a mark of 11,886 Baan Reference Users (Bru's) was attained.

A BRU represents a single user executing a session that generates a reference load on the system. By relating all BaanERP sessions to that reference load, the actual mix of sessions executed at any given implementation will determine the translation from the benchmark BRU to the maximum number of concurrent users for that implementation.

About Baan Company

Founded in 1978, Baan Company is a global provider of enterprise business solutions. The company offers a comprehensive portfolio of integrated services and best-in-class, component-based applications that span an organization's entire value chain, including E-Business and Web Commerce, Customer Relationship Management, Enterprise Resource Planning, Supply Chain Management, and Corporate Knowledge Management. Deployed at more than 15,000 customer sites worldwide, Baan solutions enable organizations to drive strategic business growth, improve business processes, reduce operating complexity, and increase corporate flexibility. The company has dual headquarters in Barneveld, The Netherlands and Herndon, Virginia, USA. It was acquired by Invensys in August 2000 and is part of the Invensys' Software Systems Division. Baan can be found at www.baan.com.

About the IBM eServer pSeries 680

The IBM eServer pSeries 680 is IBM's most powerful UNIX symmetric multiprocessor system. It excels at many diverse e-business applications, including Web serving and hosting, mission-critical Enterprise Resource Planning, Supply Chain Management, transaction processing, and Business Intelligence. The p680 builds on the award-winning design of its companion, the IBM RS/6000 (R) Model S80, increasing the clock speed to 600 MHz and memory to 96GB. The server is powered by advanced IBM Silicon-on-Insulator microprocessors and is available with new mainframe-inspired features including Capacity Upgrade on Demand to enable businesses to cost effectively keep pace with rapid growth. For more information about IBM's eServer line, visit http://www.ibm.com/eserver.> IBM, the e-business logo, RS/6000, pSeries, DB2 and AIX are registered trademarks or trademarks of the International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both.

(1) The IBM eServer brand consists of the established IBM e-business

logo with the descriptive term "server" following it.

(2) 1999-2000 Operating System Function Review, D.H. Brown Associates,

Inc., March 2000

UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries, licensed exclusively through X/Open Company Limited.

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