Compaq Computer Corp is counting on Windows NT to make its new Proliant 4500 symmetric multiprocessing servers a success (CI No 2,669), with claims that it will be the number one NT server by next year. Compaq sees the new line as the initial step towards marking out new territory in the application server market, one it sees as being traditionally occupied by the likes of Digital Equipment Corp, Sequent Computer Systems Corp, and Hewlett-Packard Co. The Proliant 4500 servers will ship with four 100MHz Pentium Processors, 512Kb of secondary cache per processor, 1Gb of main memory and Fast-Wide SCSI-2 Input-Output devices as standard. The servers will also ship with an upgraded NetFlex-3 Network Interface Controller, enabling transition to 100Mb Ethernet protocols, 100Base-TX and 100VG-AnyLan; and Insight Manager v2.40, Compaq’s server management software which is now available for multi-l icences. Compaq has also added to its SmartStart CD-ROM software used to install and configure network operating systems on its range of servers. Compaq will now offer Oracle Workgroup Server software with SmartCard 2.20 in addition to Cheyenne ARCserve for Windows NT, OS/2 Warp and Win OS/2. Compaq also said Novell Inc’s UnixWare 2 will be available via SmartStart next quarter. Compaq says it is now working with Oracle Corp to reduce network down-time between a first server going down and the second being activated. Compaq currently has standby recovery servers it is shipping with the ProLiant 4500 for ú1,000. However, it takes up to seven minutes before the network switches from primary to back-up server and reconfigures the applications. Compaq reckons it can make the process instantaneous and is working with Oracle to deliver a product later this year. The ProLiant 4500 entry system is ú8,600 and uses a single 100MHz Pentium with 32Mb of RAM, the high-end ProLiant 5100 uses four 100MHz Pentiums, has two 4.3Gb drives, 64Mb of RAM and costs ú17,180.
