IBM Transforms Intel Servers With Its New Modular Architecture; Three Years in the Making, IBM eServer Breaks Price and Performance Barriers in the Data Center Environment

Business Wire, March 13, 2002

Business/Technology Editors

ARMONK, NY--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 13, 2002

IBM today announced a powerful eServer(a) system, breaking price and performance barriers that until now have generally kept large Intel(R)-processor-based servers out of the mainstream of corporate data center computing. The IBM eServer offers a "building-block"-style, highly reliable architecture that allows customers to pay for computing power incrementally as they need it, and is designed to support up to 16 processors and 64 GB of memory.(1)

The new IBM system, called the IBM eServer xSeries(TM) 440 with Enterprise X-Architecture(TM) technology, caps a three-year development effort to build an exceptionally powerful Intel-based machine, using industry standard technologies, that is designed to handle the core applications that power e-businesses. The x440 performs smoothly with the Microsoft(R) Windows(R) 2000 Datacenter Server product to offer our customers high reliability and scalability.

Industry leading flexibility for e-business

The IBM eServer x440 is aimed at e-businesses where it provides a platform for both server consolidation and large, single system applications. The x440 can be used as a single big server to run a large database for business intelligence, or to consolidate many small "virtual servers" -- such as multiple e-mail servers -- under one roof to reduce costs. The eServer x440 supports the Microsoft Windows(R) operating system within a single SMP configuration, and also is designed to support up to four physical partitions or up to 64 virtual partitions. Initial companies that have received the IBM eServer x440 include Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP, and Honeywell.

"At Morgan Stanley, we have been very interested in leveraging the commodity of Intel-based servers to support some of our application and infrastructure workload," said Richard Anfang, Managing Director of Morgan Stanley. "Working very closely with the IBM support team, we are hoping to utilize the power, reliability and scalability of the IBM eServer x440 system that are the minimum requirements for these distributed applications."

Powered by IBM's Enterprise X-Architecture technology, the x440 server is designed to scale to 16 Intel IA-32 Xeon(TM) processors MP -- twice the number of processors in an 8U system than the nearest competitor with a 7U system, and four times the processors of most other shipped Intel Xeon(TM)-based systems.

"Three years ago, IBM set out to reinvent the high-end of Intel servers. Today we are delivering a groundbreaking product that addresses long held customer requirements in this Intel server segment," said William Zeitler, senior vice president and group executive, IBM Server Group. "Technology and mainframe qualities are very important at the high-end. IBM has an important advantage over vendors who assemble off-the-shelf components. They will be challenged to provide the scale and reliability that customers demand in this part of their e-business infrastructure."

Breaks the Price Barrier

IBM plans to offer customers a system designed to support a 16-way Intel-based server capability at a fraction of the cost of a Unisys 16-way machine today. Priced at just over $100,000, this IBM system with 32 GBs SDRAM, expected to be available in July 2002, would cost about 78 percent less than an Unisys 16-way server, based on current Unisys' prices as reported by Competitive Profiles.(2) Configured as an 8-way box with 16 GBs SDRAM, the IBM x440 costs about 47 percent less than a similarly configured Compaq 8-way system, based on current Compaq prices.(3) Customers can also purchase a two-way IBM eServer x440 for as low as $18,500 with one 36 GB hard drive included.

Benchmark Leader

IBM has proved its leadership in high end Intel servers by delivering superior results on a wide-range of industry standard benchmarks:

-- Number one performance for a 4-way server on the TPC-C online transaction processing benchmark outperforming Compaq ProLiant DL580 by more than 40% (4);

-- Number one performance for a 4-way server on the TPC-W e-commerce benchmark outperforming the Dell PowerEdge 6400 by 24% (5); and

-- Number one performance and price/performance for a 4-way server on the 100GB TPC-H business intelligence benchmark.(6)

"We are excited to see IBM plan to extend their xSeries line to 16-way in response to the accelerating customer demand for Windows-based systems in high-end, mission critical computing environments," Jim Allchin, Group Vice President, Platforms Group, at Microsoft Corp. "IBM's new modular xSeries combined with Windows 2000 Datacenter Server, delivers a solution that grows as customers' data center requirements change, at an aggressive price/performance."

Innovations of the new IBM eServer x440 include:

Building Block Scalability -- XpandOnDemand(TM) technology helps customers meet unexpected growth in their businesses. A simple "pay as you grow" configuration option, XpandOnDemand(TM) is an alternative to other expensive, complex offerings. With planned 16-way support from IBM, businesses can start with a single 4-way building-block and increase computing capacity to enable support for up to 16-processor systems using additional 4-processor modules when needed.