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Microsoft Steps Up Data-Warehouse Efforts -- SQL Server gets performance
boost; ex-Oracle manager to oversee initiatives
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Date: Tuesday, March 11, 1997
Source: Information Week
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Information Week via Individual Inc. : Microsoft is cranking up its
data-warehousing effort. The company is adding new features to its SQL
Server database to boost performance in warehouse environments, and has
hired a former Oracle manager to oversee its warehouse initiatives. Later
this month, Microsoft's Alliance for Data Warehousing, which was
established last fall, will meet to define interfaces for multivendor
product integration.
It's all part of Microsoft's long-term effort to compete at the high-end of
the database market with IBM, Informix, Oracle, and other established
players. Microsoft's goal is to support up to 1 terabyte of data with the
next release of SQL Server, code-named Sphinx, that's due in the second
half of 1997. The current release, SQL Server 6.5, is limited to about 200
Gbytes.
To improve SQL Server's performance when running data-analysis
applications, Microsoft wants to add 64-bit memory-originally part of its
1998 product plans- to the Sphinx release. This feature would improve the
database's ability to scan data quickly by providing a larger cache for
in-memory processing. James Xu, VP of technology with Aristotle Publishing
in Washington, expects "a huge performance boost" from 64-bit memory.
Aristotle uses SQL Server 6.5 to manage a database of voter-registration
information. Some of the tables exceed SQL Server's 2-Gbyte memory limit,
resulting in slower query processing.
Forced Fit?
But analysts are skeptical that adding 64-bit memory to a database that
runs on a 32-bit operating system will yield substantial gains. "It's a
forced fit," says Evan Bauer, an analyst with Giga Information Group, a
technology advisory firm in Cambridge, Mass. "It's of limited benefit until
you're running true 64- bit systems." A 64-bit version of Windows NT isn't
expected until later this year or early next year. For now, says Dan
Basica, SQL Server product manager for Microsoft, "we would need some hooks
in NT to be able to do it." Sphinx will begin testing in the second
quarter.
Microsoft is bolstering its data-warehousing efforts in other ways, too. In
January, it hired Joe Brown, formerly a sales manager with Oracle, to
oversee its data-warehouse strategy. Also, Microsoft's Alliance for Data
Warehousing will meet later this month to work on a technology framework
that will make it easier to build NT-based data warehouses and data marts.
Says Gaurav Dhillon, CEO of Informatica Corp. in Menlo Park, Calif., an
alliance member, "More than two-thirds of our customers are on NT, so we're
anxious to get this going." Other Alliance members include Business
Objects, Digital Equipment, ExecuSoft Systems, NCR, Pilot Software,
Platinum Technology, Praxis International, and SAP. SIDEBAR:Key Features
Added To SQL Server
- Enhanced query processing
- Terabyte-data support
- Distributed joins
- User-defined functions
- Multimaster replication
- Improved space management
- Improved utilities
- 64-bit-memory support (tentative)
Data:Microsoft
Copyright 1997 CMP Media Inc.
<<Information Week -- 03-10-97, p. 22>>
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Microsoft Analyzes Data -- OLAP tool expected by year's end
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Date: Tuesday, April 15, 1997
Source: Information Week
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Information Week via Individual Inc. : Microsoft is laying out plans to
enter the emerging data-analysis market. The company told a recent meeting
of database developers that it will begin testing its first online
analytical processing tool, code-named Plato, in July, and will ship it as
part of BackOffice in the fourth quarter, sources briefed by Microsoft say.
A future version of the OLAP product will be even more tightly integrated
with SQL Server, one source says.
Based on technology acquired from Panorama Software Systems of Tel Aviv,
Israel, last fall, Plato will let users analyze a database for specific
trends. Such tools are becoming increasingly important as companies build
data warehouses. Plato is a hybrid OLAP/relational OLAP (ROLAP) product. It
will let users search and analyze a relational or multidimensional
database. Based on a user's query, it will automatically determine the
amount of cache necessary for handling a request.
Another key feature of Plato is its ability to compute derived values. "It
can make calculations in the middle [of a query] by monitoring user
requests," says Richard Creeth, a consultant in Norwalk, Conn., and
co-author of The OLAP Report (Business Intelligence Inc., 1997)
Microsoft is building interfaces to let third-party query and reporting
tool vendors integrate with Plato. An Excel spreadsheet add-in and Internet
Explorer will be the default clients. ActiveX extensions, OLE DB, and
Visual Basic support will also be included.
Attendees of the Microsoft meeting, held in Redmond, Wash., included
representatives from Andyne Computing, Brio, BusinessObjects, Cognos, and
others that plan to support the product.
Microsoft is entering a market in which Oracle and a host of smaller
companies are already playing. Recently, IBM inked a deal with Arbor
Software Corp. to include Arbor's Essbase OLAP technology in its DB2
database (IW, Feb. 24, p. 16). But analysts expect Microsoft's presence to
be felt quickly. "Microsoft is going to have a significant impact on the
market," says Creeth. "They have the power to bring this capability to an
awful lot of users."
Copyright 1997 CMP Media Inc.
<<Information Week -- 04-14-97, p. 30>>
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Microsoft Demonstrates Large-Scale Systems and Outlines Scalability
Strategy; Industry Unites to Make Microsoft BackOffice the Platform of
Choice for the Enterprise
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Date: Wednesday, May 21, 1997
Source: PR Newswire
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NEW YORK, May 20 /PRNewswire/ via Individual Inc. -- Today at its
Scalability Day event, Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) and major industry
partners demonstrated that the Microsoft(R) BackOffice(TM) family of server
applications can scale to manage the largest enterprise applications such
as online banking systems, large data warehouses and enterprise mail
systems supporting thousands of users. In addition, Microsoft announced new
Enterprise Editions of Windows NT Server, Microsoft SQL Server(TM) and
Microsoft BackOffice.
Microsoft industry partners are delivering the hardware, applications and
tools necessary for a complete solution for mission-critical applications.
Vendors such as Data General Corp., Tandem Computers Inc. and Unisys Corp.
announced eight- to 64-processor hardware running Windows NT Server.
Enterprise application vendors including Aurum Software Inc., The Baan Co.,
PeopleSoft Inc., Prologic Corp., SAP AG and SAS Institute Inc. demonstrated
the scalability of their products for Microsoft BackOffice.
"As we showed today, any business of any size can now run its enterprise
applications on Microsoft software and industry-standard hardware," said
Bill Gates, chairman and CEO of Microsoft. "Combining enterprise-class
scalability with PC-industry volume economics will radically reshape the
enterprise market. The ongoing R&D investments by Microsoft and the
industry will provide our customers still greater levels of scalability,
interoperability, availability and manageability in the future."
"Intel continues to improve the performance and scalability of its standard
high-volume servers to meet our customers' demand for computational
growth," said Andrew S. Grove, president and CEO of Intel Corp. "Our
ongoing work with Microsoft on the Pentium Pro and Pentium II
processor-based SHV servers is designed to deliver the highest computer
power in the most cost- effective way."
Today's event was highlighted by technology demonstrations featuring
Microsoft BackOffice running on very large-scale systems. The
demonstrations included these:
-- 1.1 billion transactions per day. Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0,
Microsoft Transaction Server 1.0 and Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 were used to
process the equivalent of 1.8 billion automated teller machine transactions
in a 24-hour period using a multinode configuration of Compaq hardware
equipped with Intel Pentium Pro processors. This is greater than the
combined volume handled by the five largest American banks.
-- Terabyte-size databases. The next version of Microsoft SQL Server,
code-named "Sphinx," which goes into beta testing next month, was used to
access a terabyte-sized database of mapping information and satellite
images of the Earth. A terabyte database could contain 10 billion sales
records, 1 billion business letters or 50 million fax images. The database
used for the demonstration contains more than 140 million records,
including both global mapping and image data, being provided by the U.S.
Geological Survey (U.S.G.S.) and the Russian Interbranch Association
SOVINFORMSPUTNIK (SPIN-2). Also shown was a 2 terabyte (TB) database
containing over 30 billion sales records, running on Windows NT Server 4.0
and Tandem's Non-Stop software.
-- Large-scale Internet e-mail system. A single Digital AlphaServer 4100
running Microsoft Exchange Server was demonstrated supporting over 50,000
Internet mail boxes -- twice the size of the largest known system on a
single- node mainframe.
-- 100 million Internet hits per day. Microsoft Internet Information
Server, running on a single Hewlett-Packard NetServer LX equipped with
Intel Pentium Pro processors, was used to demonstrate more than 100 million
Web hits per day. This represents more traffic than that at sites such as
ZDNet, QVC, Sun Microsystems and ESPNET.
-- 64-bit memory support. Support for 64-bit memory in Windows NT Server
5.0 and Sphinx provides dramatic improvements in performance (up to 1,700
percent). For data warehousing customers, improved response times means
faster decisions. This demonstration was run on Digital's AlphaServer 8400
with eight processors and 8 GB of memory.
Microsoft also addressed other aspects of handling the largest enterprise
applications, including integration, availability, management, and service
and support. Details were provided on Microsoft's strategy for integrating
BackOffice with existing host systems, including new capabilities to
support transactions across BackOffice and IBM CICS and seamless access to
data in VSAM and AS/400 file structures. High system availability was
demonstrated using Windows NT Server 4.0, Enterprise Edition, and Microsoft
SQL Server 6.5, Enterprise Edition. Microsoft's clustering technology
code-named "Wolfpack" provided automatic system failover with SAP's R/3
enterprise application running on a pair of Tandem servers. In addition,
three new programs were announced that are designed to provide increased
services to customers in the areas of customer support, application design
and development, and deployment and developer support.
Customers today are deploying Windows NT Server and Microsoft BackOffice
for mission-critical applications. For example, The SABRE Group is using
Windows NT Server 4.0 and Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 for SABRE Business
Travel Solutions, a corporate travel application that helps corporations
manage the complete travel and entertainment process and bring the power of
the SABRE System to the corporate desktop. Bridgestone is using BackOffice
to move the entire global enterprise to a scalable, distributed
client/server architecture using Intel processor-based servers and the
Microsoft BackOffice. ConXioN Corp. is using Microsoft BackOffice to offer
Internet access and hosting services and line-of-business applications for
enterprise customers. For more information, visit the Microsoft Scalability
Day Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/backoffice/scalability/.
Founded in 1975, Microsoft is the worldwide leader in software for personal
computers. The company offers a wide range of products and services for
business and personal use, each designed with the mission of making it
easier and more enjoyable for people to take advantage of the full power of
personal computing every day.
NOTE: Microsoft, BackOffice and Windows NT are either registered trademarks
or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other
countries. Other product and company names herein may be the trademarks of
their respective owners.
SOURCE Microsoft Corp.
/CONTACT: press only: Joann Killeen or Laurie Smith DeJong of Waggener
Edstrom, 503-245-0905, [email protected] or [email protected]/ (MSFT)
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Microsoft Announces Enterprise Editions of the Microsoft BackOffice Family
New Products and Services Designed to Address Requirements of Enterprise
Customers
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Date: Wednesday, May 21, 1997
Source: PR Newswire
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NEW YORK, May 20 /PRNewswire/ via Individual Inc. -- At its Scalability Day
event in New York today, Microsoft Corp.(Nasdaq: MSFT) announced that it
has extended the Microsoft(R) BackOffice(TM) family of products with new
Enterprise Editions. These new Editions are the Windows NT(R) Server
network operating system 4.0, Enterprise Edition; Microsoft SQL Server(TM)
6.5, Enterprise Edition; and Microsoft BackOffice Server 4.0, Enterprise
Edition. These products are designed to deliver the enhanced scalability,
availability and interoperability that enterprise customers require to run
solutions such as airline reservation systems, online banking applications
and real-time stock trading solutions for thousands of users. Microsoft
also announced new enterprise account management, consulting and support
services enabling customers to deploy enterprise solutions more rapidly and
at lower cost.
In the past, enterprise customers were tied to expensive legacy systems
running on proprietary hardware to run mission-critical operations. The
Microsoft BackOffice Server 4.0, Enterprise Edition products run on
standard high-volume, low-cost hardware components, making the Microsoft
BackOffice family ideal for building and deploying cost-effective business
solutions. The new Enterprise Editions combine the economies of the PC with
enterprise capacity, delivering a foundation that is ideal for the most
demanding mission-critical solutions.
"Our customers are deploying Windows NT Server and Microsoft BackOffice
products for their enterprise solutions," said Paul Maritz, group vice
president of platforms and applications at Microsoft. "Customers no longer
need to rely on expensive UNIX solutions to deliver the scalability and
features the enterprise environment requires."
In a recent analysis, David Readerman of Montgomery Securities found that a
Microsoft BackOffice solution is roughly half the cost per user of a UNIX-
based offering. Customers demand the benefits of a scalable and
interoperable applications platform that can be managed in a distributed
network, but they have been constrained by the high costs of assembling
UNIX-based solutions. The new line of Enterprise products announced today
allows customers to implement enterprise solutions at PC-based costs.
"Our desire is to minimize our use of the mainframe for all applications,
regardless of their size," said Masakatsu Saeki, information systems
division manager, Bridgestone Corp. "Scalability is critical to us, and we
are convinced, based on the testing we have done, that Intel servers
running Microsoft BackOffice will handle even our largest applications."
Windows NT Server 4.0, Enterprise Edition
With Windows NT Server 4.0, Enterprise Edition, enterprise customers now
have a cost-effective server platform with the scalability and availability
required for their largest business-critical solutions. Windows NT Server,
Enterprise Edition offers support for eight-way symmetric multiprocessing
(SMP), up to 50 percent more available memory per application, and tools
for building reliable distributed applications. OEMs will continue to offer
support for SMP systems with more than eight CPUs. For example, Tandem's
64-way server was recently shown running a multiterabyte data-warehouse
application for Dayton-Hudson, the owners of Target and Mervyn retailers.
The integrated clustering support in Windows NT Server, Enterprise Edition
allows customers to deploy high-availability applications such as ATM
networks.
Windows NT Server, Enterprise Edition includes the ability to build
enterprise-class distributed applications. It will include Microsoft
Transaction Server (formerly code-named "Viper") and Microsoft Message
Queue Server (formerly code-named "Falcon") as part of its basic network
services. This brings the benefits of the Microsoft Transaction Server
object-based programming model, shipping in Microsoft Transaction Server
1.0 since January, to all enterprise customers. Microsoft Message Queue
Server helps to ensure reliable application communication between
heterogeneous systems, even when temporarily interrupted by network
outages. Other key features of Windows NT Server, Enterprise Edition
include enhancements to Index Server, support for HTTP 1.1 and the
Microsoft Certificate Server.
Microsoft SQL Server 6.5, Enterprise Edition
Enterprise database applications require online transaction processing
(OLTP), data warehousing and Internet integration. These database
applications contain hundreds of gigabytes of data, support thousands of
concurrent users, and process hundreds of millions of transactions per day.
Microsoft SQL Server 6.5, Enterprise Edition provides the scalability to
support these requirements with the cost effectiveness of the PC platform.
Designed to run on Windows NT Server, Enterprise Edition, Microsoft SQL
Server, Enterprise Edition delivers built-in support for clustering,
high-end SMP systems and large memory configurations.
Microsoft BackOffice Server 4.0, Enterprise Edition
The new Microsoft BackOffice Server, Enterprise Edition includes all the
Enterprise versions of the Microsoft BackOffice family announced today, as
well as Microsoft Exchange Server, Enterprise Edition; Microsoft Proxy
Server; Microsoft SNA Server; Microsoft Systems Management Server; and
Microsoft Site Server, Enterprise Edition. Microsoft Site Server,
Enterprise Edition provides a comprehensive environment for enhancement,
deployment and advanced management of commerce-enabled Web sites.
Microsoft BackOffice Server, Enterprise Edition provides an easy way to
acquire all the Microsoft BackOffice, Enterprise Edition products in one
suite. Microsoft BackOffice Server, Enterprise Edition also allows
customers to run the individual products on multiple servers. Customers may
elect to customize their use of the Microsoft BackOffice family further
through Microsoft volume-license agreements.
Service and Support Enhancements Enterprise customers expect the highest
level of service. Microsoft today announced three new programs designed to
provide increased service to customers in the areas of customer support,
application design and deployment, and developer support:
* Customer support. The Microsoft Enterprise Customer Unit, with its
worldwide field force of account managers and systems engineers, will
double the number of customers it supports. Increased, direct access to
Microsoft field teams will help customers implement the new Microsoft
BackOffice Enterprise products more effectively.
* Application design and deployment. The new Technology Consulting
Blueprint services accelerate the design and deployment of enterprise
applications by providing early planning and design guidance for
implementing high-availability, transaction-based applications based on
Windows NT Server, Enterprise Edition.
* Developer support. Premier Support for Developers is designed to meet the
needs of commercial and corporate developers who are targeting Microsoft
BackOffice, Enterprise Edition solutions by providing personalized and
consultative service with assigned Application Design Consultants. The
service provides developers 24x7 support, Microsoft best practices and
assistance in performance tuning, test planning, architecture design and
code reviews, as well as porting and migration assistance, and
configuration and management design.
Availability and Pricing
Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0, Enterprise Edition is scheduled to be
available in the third quarter of 1997. Microsoft SQL Server 6.5,
Enterprise Edition is also scheduled to be available in the third quarter
of 1997. Microsoft BackOffice Server 4.0, Enterprise Edition is scheduled
to be available in the first quarter of 1998. Microsoft Consulting Services
as outlined above is scheduled to be available in the third quarter of
1997. Pricing and packaging have not been announced.
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in
software for personal computers. The company offers a wide range of
products and services for business and personal use, each designed with the
mission of making it easier and more enjoyable for people to take advantage
of the full power of personal computing every day.
Microsoft, BackOffice and Windows NT are either registered trademarks or
trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
Other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their
respective owners.
NOTE TO EDITORS: If you are interested in viewing additional information on
Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at
http://www.microsoft.com/corpinfo/ on Microsoft's corporate information
pages.
SOURCE Microsoft Corp.
/CONTACT: Joann Killeen or Laurie Smith DeJong, of Waggener Edstrom,
503-245-0905, [email protected] or [email protected]/ (MSFT)
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