Unisys Corporation today announced that Amfac Parks & Resorts, a long-time Unix user of the Lawson INSIGHT suite of business applications, has committed to migrating to the use of Lawson INSIGHT under Windows NT on the Unisys enterprise-class Aquanta XR/6 server. Amfac is the first Lawson customer to move to the new Unisys 10-way Aquanta XR/6 Windows NT server. "AMFAC selected the Unisys Aquanta XR/6 platform as the ideal vehicle for transitioning its use of Lawson INSIGHT from the UNIX environment to the Windows NT environment," said Paul Maiorana, MIS director at AMFAC. "This selection was based on the superior scalability and availability of the Intel-based Aquanta XR/6 platform." Amfac chose to move from Unix to Windows NT because of the potential for reduced operating costs, improved ease-of-use, and easier staff training. Unisys and Lawson recently demonstrated the Unisys Aquanta XR/6 ten-processor Windows NT server as an enterprise platform for the Lawson INSIGHT suite of financial, human resource, procurement, and supply-chain management solutions. Lawson plans to use the Aquanta XR/6 server as a platform for developing INSIGHT enterprise-class applications, becoming a leading vendor of applications supporting very large user loads and databases running in the Windows NT environment. Lawson INSIGHT for Windows NT is available on the UNISYS Aquanta XR/6 for clients requiring the scalability and uninterrupted availability afforded by the Aquanta XR/6. Dr. Peter C. Patton, Lawson chief technology officer, explained the benefits of using Windows NT on the Aquanta XR/6 server. "Our performance data on the Unisys Aquanta XR/6 flies in the face of the conventional wisdom that Windows NT Server will not scale beyond four processors and therefore cannot compete with UNIX-based parallel servers that can scale much further," said Dr. Patton. "Enterprise applications thrive and are supportable only in the context of enterprise computing discipline. It is this discipline and experience that Unisys brings to Windows NT Server for the enterprise." Dr. Patton authored a paper on the Aquanta XR/6 tests that can be viewed on Lawson Software`s Web site at www.lawson.com/3prod/2techovr/parallel/default.htm. The paper describes tests based on 40 concurrently running compute-limited jobs, showing a speedup of 3.75 times over a four-processor server with 166-MHz Pentium chips. With over thirty years of research experience in multiprocessing and parallel processing, Dr. Peter C. Patton, is the author of 16 books, monographs and book chapters, and author of 86 journal articles in several research fields. The former Vice Provost for the University of Pennsylvania`s Information Systems and Computing, Dr. Patton`s earlier career included a private consulting practice in which his clients included the National Technology Transfer Center, NASA`s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Dataquest Inc. "Lawson Software, with its market-share-leading INSIGHT suite of business solutions, is the sort of prestigious partner we need to take our strategy to market," said Leo C. Daiuto, group vice president & general manager, Unisys Enterprise NT Systems and Product Development & Technology. "Lawson has solutions that are in high demand in the market. Lawson also has an in-depth understanding of enterprise computing that complements our technology. We are honored that Lawson applied its depth of technical skill and resources to the task of validating the scalability and performance of the Unisys Aquanta XR/6." Announced in May 1997, the Aquanta XR/6 remains the industry`s only Windows NT platform scalable to 10 Pentium Pro processors. It is targeted at mission-critical, transaction-intensive applications requiring very high availability. The Aquanta XR/6 supports up to ten 200-MHz Pentium Pro processors and offers the processing power and very high availability needed for mission-critical database and OLTP applications. Features include a 64-bit, 533-MByte/sec SCM bus, up to 20 MBytes of L3 cache up to 8 GBytes of ECC memory, 10 PCI and three EISA slots. Six available hard drive bays hold up to 52 GBytes of internal storage capacity. A hot-pluggable disk subsystem and hot-pluggable power and cooling systems are standard.
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