13 Oct 1993 |||||| DECnews for Press and Analysts ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Digital Equipment Corporation Maynard, Massachusetts 01754-2571 New Workstations And Servers From Digital Today Digital announced the second generation of its Alpha AXP servers and workstations by introducing seven new models --including the world's fastest mid-range workstation, the world's fastest workgroup server, and the world's fastest datacenter server. With this announcement, Digital's Alpha AXP systems provide leadership price/performance at every price point, offering customers better computing value compared to RISC-based systems from HP, IBM and Sun. The new Alpha AXP systems run both DEC OSF/1 AXP (Digital's unified UNIX operating system) and the OpenVMS AXP operating system. Digital significantly enhanced the performance of its leadership "Alpha-ready" VAX line with four new versions of the popular VAX 4000 server, along with low-cost system upgrades for existing VAX 4000 customers. In addition, Digital doubled I/O capabilities for the MicroVAX 3100 Model 90 server; and a powerful, new VAXft 810 fault-tolerant system was introduced. Alpha AXP Workstations DEC 3000 Model 600 AXP: Highest performing Desktop system in the industry This system is based on a 175-MHz CPU, providing a SPECint92 performance rating of 105 and a SPECfp92 rating of 162. The Model 600 provides up to two times the performance compared to similarly priced systems from IBM, HP, Sun and SGI. It is designed for MCAD, ECAD, CASE, and emerging technologies such as multimedia. Available immediately, it is priced from $19,995 (U.S.). DEC 3000 Model 800 AXP: Sets a new price/performance metric for high-end systems Featuring a 200 MHz CPU, this high-performance tower-based workstation is 15% faster and 30% lower priced than Digital's previous high-end leader, the Model 500X. The Model 800 provides a SPECfp performance rating of 184 and a SPECint92 rating of 120. It is designed for today's most demanding applications, enabling users to run commercial and scientific applications at significantly lower cost. These applications include computational fluid dynamics, molecular modeling, and simulation of complex systems. Priced from $36,000 (U.S.), it is available immediately. Alpha AXP Servers DEC 2000 Model 300 AXP: Best-performing workgroup server in the industry The DEC 2000 Model 300 AXP system provides a substantially more performance compared to entry systems available from IBM, HP. and Sun. It is the lowest priced Alpha AXP server for desktop clients and application deployment, and can be expanded easily and inexpensively to support many users. The system uses standard PC memory and a six-slot EISA bus, while offering customers a choice of three operating systems: OpenVMS, DEC OSF/1, or Windows NT. The DEC 2000 Model 300 AXP is priced from $9,695 (U.S.) and is available for immediate delivery. The Alpha AXP PCLAN Server with Pathworks/OpenVMS AXP, is variation of the DEC 2000 Model 300 AXP system packaged with PC LAN server options. This integrated package is designed to serve LAN-based file and print server applications and combines the reliability of the OpenVMS operating system with the performance and scalability of Alpha AXP. Prices for the Alpha AXP PCLAN Server start at $6,995 (U.S.), and it is available immediately. DEC 3000 Model 600S AXP: High performance desktop server This desktop system replaces the DEC 3000 Model 400S with up to 30 percent increase in performance for the same price. This high-performance, TURBOchannel system is optimized for applications requiring high I/O bandwidth. The DEC 3000 Model 600S will support more than 100 users in workgroup settings. Priced at $21,190 (U.S.), the system is available for immediate delivery. DEC 3000 Model 800S AXP: High-performance deskside server Capable of supporting hundreds of distributed users, this system excels as a server for desktop clients. The DEC 3000 Model 800S AXP system's technical and commercial performance is unequaled by any other system in its price range. The system can support demanding I/O workloads with its six 100-MB/s TURBOchannel buses. It replaces the DEC 3000 Model 500S with up to 30 percent more performance for the same price. Priced from $34,130 (U.S.), it is available for immediate delivery. DEC 4000 Models 700 AXP: High performance departmental servers DEC 4000 systems are ideal for running distributed applications. Available in both one- and two-CPU configurations (symmetric multiprocessing), the new DEC 4000 Models 700 AXP deliver up to 50 percent more performance than previous models for the same price. The DEC 4000 Model 710 AXP is priced from $66,372 (U.S.) and is available for immediate delivery. DEC 7000 AXP Systems: The world's highest performing commercial systems DEC 7000 AXP servers now deliver up to ten percent more performance than previous models for a lower price. DEC 7000 AXP systems are the industry's most expandable data center servers, offering customers up to six-way symmetric multiprocessing, support for up to 3.5 Gbytes of memory (soon up to 14 GBytes), and over 10 terabytes of storage. With a maximum I/O bandwidth over 400 MB/s, it is the ideal server solution for large-scale commercial computing. Systems are available for immediate delivery. Priced from $126,334 (U.S.) and it is available immediately. Alpha AXP Fault-Tolerant UNIX Systems: Leadership performance and price/performance for fault-tolerant systems Digital also announced that it has an agreement with Alenia, one of Italy's leading industrial companies, for the design and the manufacture of Digital's award-winning fault-tolerant line of computers. The first system will be an Alpha AXP fault-tolerant (FT) system running the DEC OSF/1 operating system. The system is designed for general-purpose computing but it is primarily targeted for the telecommunications industry. Alenia has also agreed to manufacture Digital's powerful new VAXft 810 system, which runs the OpenVMS operating system. Alpha-ready VAX Servers MicroVAX 3100 Model 90: High-performance SCSI-based desktop VAX server MicroVAX 3100 Models 30, 40, 80, and 90 servers provide simplified desktop integration. Capability for a second SCSI I/O channel has been added to the Model 90, enabling customers to configure up to 14 SCSI devices. This doubles the system storage capacity and enhances system throughput nearly two-fold. Prices for the MicroVAX 3100 Model 90 start at $19,530 (U.S.). The systems are available now. VAX 4000 Models 100A, 500A, 600A, and 700A: Distributed VAX servers with more storage, I/O, and connectivity The enhanced VAX 4000 line offers balanced systems with more I/O, increased storage capacity, and connectivity to storage devices. New VAX 4000 Model 100A, 500A, 600A and 700A servers now offer double the storage capacity and up to 50 percent higher transactions per second than the previous VAX 4000 line. Coupled with recently announced DSSI disk drives, this enhancement provides the balanced I/O that customers require out of their distributed computing resources. Customers can upgrade existing VAX 4000 models to the new series by simply adding a new processor to their existing machines. Prices range from $31,180 (U.S.) for the VAX 4000 Model 100A system, and range upward to $85,340 for the VAX 4000 Model 700A system. All are available immediately. VAXft 810: Powerful fault-tolerant system for mission-critical applications Digital announced today the availability of the VAXft System Model 810, the company's most powerful, fault-tolerant computer for mission-critical applications. Digital's fault-tolerant systems provide automatic fault detection, isolation, and recovery for any solid or intermittent hardware failure without human intervention, performance degradation, delay in service, lost work, corrupted data, or application coding. Digital's fault-tolerant systems are the only fault-tolerant systems that permit the user to upgrade hardware, software, or operating systems upgrades without disruptionPrices for the VAXft 810 system start at $175,000 (U.S.). The Business Recovery Server The Business Recovery Server V1.1 was formerly named the Multi-Data Center Facility. The Business Recovery Server provides hot stand-by data backup recovery centers with the reliability of OpenVMS and VAXcluster technology. In the event of a disaster, the Business Recovery Server can support two data centers up to 40 kilometers apart via an FDDI interconnect. If the software at one site goes down, the other site stays up with continuous data backup as opposed to time-consuming data restoration. The Business Recovery Server offers backup time within minutes to tens of minutes, minimizing network downtime. Digital is also announced future T3 networking support for the Business Recovery Server, which will provide data backup for two sites hundreds of miles apart. T3 support will be available in the Spring, 1994, for VAX and Alpha AXP systems. The Business Recovery Server includes Operations Management Station software, site planning, installation, and customization services. Priced from $60,000 (U.S.) it is available immediately. ADVANTAGE-UPGRADE Program Digital today has taken the best attributes of its previous upgrade programs and combined them into a single overall ADVANTAGE-UPGRADE Program. Whether upgrading from a VAX-to-VAX, VAX-to-Alpha AXP, MIPS-to-Alpha AXP, or Alpha AXP-to-Alpha AXP sytem, upgrades are now covered by a single upgrade program from Digital. By offering all upgrade selections under a uniform set of hardware and software business practices, Digital has simplified the process of selecting the proper and most cost-effective upgrade. Common business practices now apply for software upgrades in conjunction with hardware, and software-only upgrades. Purchase of the ADVANTAGE-UPGRADE at standard price includes hardware deinstallation of existing system (or board), hardware installation of new system (or board), and return-to-Digital of existing system (or board). Customers are allowed to keep existing installed systems for 60 days to allow a smooth transition to the new system. ADVANTAGE- UPGRADES are priced from $2,950 to $345,000 (U.S.) and are available now. Commercial Software Incentive Program Digital's new Commercial Software Incentive Program, which complements Digital's ADVANTAGE-UPGRADE program, includes more than 150 leading CSO's who are offering Digital customers a 20 percent discount off the price of upgrading their 3rd party software when they upgrade their workstation or server. The ADVANTAGE-UPGRADE and Commercial Software Incentive Programs were developed to make it easier for customers to protect their current investment while building a path to the future. The Commercial Software Incentive Program runs from October 5, 1993 through December 31, 1993. #### ============================================================================ DECnews for Press and Analysts is sent as a courtesy to members of the press, analyst and consulting community. 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