In a remarkable alliance to create what sounds more like an ugly kluge than an elegant solution to an intractable problem, Compaq Computer Corp and Sequent Computer Systems Inc have joined forces to create a highly-scalable Windows NT plus Unix hardware-software implementation of SAP AG’s R/3 version 3 business management, accounting and adminstration suite – not for a specific customer, but for the market in general. Integration is being done by Sequent, Beaverton, Oregon and the idea is that you run the database – Oracle7 – on the symmetric multiprocessing Unix machine from Sequent, and the applications under NT Server on a Compaq Proliant server, which also runs either Oracle7 or SQL Server 6, with Sequent providing technical and support services. Benefits are claimed to include increased productivity through enhanced Microsoft desktop integration, lower cost of ownership by using Compaq application servers, and the robustness of the Sequent Symmetrys. Users can also run NT Server rather than Unix on their Sequent servers, so that all three layers of the German company’s R/3 run under the same operating system. With NT you can have up to 28 Pentiums, with Unix, 30, and the Proliant comes with up to four; a clustered Symmetry with up to 120 CPUs can also be used.
