Contact:
John Simonds
IBM
Phone: 919-254-9732
E-mail: jsimonds@us.ibm.com
NETFINITY SERVERS POWERED BY NOVELL INTERNET CACHING SYSTEM TECHNOLOGY TAKE TOP PRICE/PERFORMANCE HONORS AT IRCache WEB CACHING BAKE-OFF
Netfinity 3500 M10 beats competition in performance with equal configurations
Research Triangle Park..May 4, 2000... IBM announced today that three of its Netfinity servers won top honors at the second IRCache Web Caching Bakeoff, sponsored by IRCache, an Internet product benchmarking group. IBM also took top honors for being one of the only vendors, at the time of the bake-off, actually shipping products it tested. The servers include the Netfinity 3500 M10, Netfinity 5000 and Netfinity 5600.
The Netfinity servers, running Novells industry leading caching technology operate as an appliance and can be easily plugged into any existing network, regardless of operating system, to speed access to frequently requested Web pages. Installation time is typically under 10 minutes.
"Caching is a critical part of the Internet infrastructure of any business enterprise or service provider looking to improve the Web experience of its customers," said Dave Shirk, senior vice president of product management, Novell. "The Netfinity caching appliance, based on Novells caching technology and IBMs Netfinity server line is another great eBusiness solution that has resulted from the long-standing alliance between Novell and IBM."
Caching is the process of storing frequently accessed Web pages and Internet content on local servers, speeding information access and lowering network telecommunications costs. Caching helps ensure a positive experience for customers visiting e-business Web sites by accelerating the performance of that sites Web Servers. The Internet Research Group, the publishers of the 1999 Internet Caching Report, estimates the caching market will reach nearly $2.2 billion by the year 2003. Customers of all sizes can use caching appliances to improve the speed and efficiency of delivering Internet content to employees, business partners and customers within corporate networks as well as across the Internet.
The Netfinity 3500 M10 was a top performer in its price range, with no spikes or downtime at 376 hits per second, as measured in the Web Polygraph 2 tests. The 3500 is a new generation, entry-level server, that is setting the standard for e-business for small to medium size businesses, or as a workgroup server in a larger organization. The price makes it an excellent resource for providing caching services at remote offices, or as part of a tiered cache cluster.
The Netfinity 5000 combines an affordable blend of power and manageability. "Enterprise IT managers would have to spend twice as much money to gain similar performance in the Web Polygraph 2 tests (600 hits per second) and would still not reach the reliability of the Netfinity 5000," says Tom Bradicich, Director of Netfinity Architecture and Technology.
Netfinity 5600, an ideal server for mission-critical caching needs with optimal reliability, achieved 1300 hits per second in the Web Polygraph 2 tests. The Netfinity 5600 offers a top-tier Internet/Intranet cache solution to web-enabled organizations, content publishers and ISPs, who rely on the performance standard of the Netfinity 5600 to deliver successful e-commerce and ensuring the success of any e-business.
The caches had to be full at the time of measurement tests, which took 14 hours. Benchmarks that were utilized included Web Polygraph Version 2.2.9, a proxy benchmark capable of generating a whole spectrum of Web proxy workloads that either approximate real-world traffic, or are designed to stress a particular proxy component; and Poly-Mix-2, which incorporated several actual stressors and characteristics of Web traffic. The tests measured forward proxy caching, or caching Internet/Intranet sites for users.
The official report, "The Second Caching Bake-off" by Alex Rousskov, Duane Wessels, and G. Chisholm, raw data, and independent analysis are available at
http://bakeoff.ircache.net. Wessels and Rousskov, along with Polyteam members employed by the University of California, San Diego, form the IRCache group and are based at the National Laboratory for Applied Network Research (NLANR) in Boulder, Colorado.
The Netfinity servers were configured using Novells industry leading and proven caching technology, Novell Internet Caching System (ICS). " IBM's addition of Novell's Internet caching technology to their Netfinity servers greatly strengthens our e-business message to our customers," said Victor Kokaram, President of Advanced Communications Sciences. "Improving Internet performance is critical to many businesses that we meet with - an Internet caching appliance on a Netfinity server is a powerful solution."
Available now through IBM's authorized Netfinity reseller network, the cache appliances are shipping in North America, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), with availability planned in Asia Pacific and Latin America.
For more information about the Netfinity cache appliance, visit http://www.ibm.com/netfinity/ics or call:
North America 1-800-426-7777 priority code 6C0AX001
UK - 44-0-8700102500
Ireland - 44-1-890200391
Netherlands - 31-0-205145105
France - 33-0-801671972
Belgium - 32-0-78155457
Italy - 39-8-00223397
Germany - 49-0-1805426004
Switzerland (French) - 41-0-848805530
Switzerland (German) - 41-0-848805530
Sweden - 46-0-771861011
Denmark - 45-70103242
Norway - 47-81548230
Spain - 34-913976611
For more information about IRCache, visit http://www.ircache.net.
For more information about IBM Netfinity, visit http://www.ibm.com/servers/netfinity.
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