Unisys ES7000 demonstrates mainframe-class resource management in mySAP.com demo onstage at Windows 2000 Datacenter Server launch

Onstage at the Microsoft Enterprise 2000 event today, Unisys Corporation demonstrated how the Unisys e-@ction Enterprise Server ES7000 and Windows 2000 Datacenter Server combine to deliver customer benefits in real time, reallocating system resources to adjust to unforeseen surges in Web-driven demand for a company`s products. The demonstration dramatically illustrated a key advantage of "scaling up" with the ES7000 over "scale-out" strategies relying on clusters of smaller commodity servers.

The demonstration also proved that customers using the new technologies can achieve a level of resource management flexibility and investment protection previously available only on more costly mainframes and UNIX-based systems. "This demonstration provides valuable proof for customers weighing the merits of the Unisys ES7000 `scale-up` strategy against conventional clustering," said George Gazerwitz, president, Unisys Systems & Technology.

"The ability to dynamically reallocate underutilized resources to a task suddenly hit by a surge in workload simply can`t be done efficiently with a bunch of small servers strung together."

The demonstration simulates a Web-based bookstore serving worldwide customers around the clock, using mySAP.com solutions to fill orders, manage inventory and handle other operational aspects of the business. With the announcement that a popular new book is available, online sales skyrocket, causing the response time of the SAP R/3-based order processing system to slow down. The reduced response time automatically triggers the reassignment of resources to the SAP R/3 application processing orders from other, less critical, tasks.

The resource reallocation demonstrated onstage is a function of the ability of ES7000 software to assign "affinities" to selected processors, focusing them on a specific application task. This affinity grouping capability works in conjunction with the Windows 2000 Job Object Manager feature for resource management. The features exemplify how the combination of the Unisys ES7000 technology and Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server delivers a distinct advantage in an enterprise e-business environment.

The flexibility to dynamically expand capacity furnished through resource management capabilities was, until now, available only on mainframes or large UNIX servers at a significantly higher price. It not only helps maintain the availability of critical applications, but also protects investments by reapplying resources that would otherwise be idle.