Sequent Delivers Extreme Performance with NUMA-QTM 2000 Enterprise Server Family, Takes Open Systems to the Data Center at a Fraction of Mainframe Cost

Sequent Extends Early Lead in NUMA Low-Cost, High-Performance Open Systems

NEW YORK, NY - Feb. 11, 1997 - Sequent Computer Systems, Inc., the leader in high-end open systems servers, announced today the general availability of its new NUMA-QTM 2000 system family, bringing unprecedented levels of scalability and power to enterprise computing. Through its pioneering development of NUMA (Non-Uniform Memory Access) technology, Sequent is the first company to deliver Intel Pentium® Pro microprocessor-based systems that are Data Center Ready.

With the general availability of NUMA-Q 2000, Sequent extends its 12 - 18 month lead over its closest competitors in the open systems market, many of which are expected to introduce hybrid NUMA based systems over the next two years.

"SMP will soon hit the wall and mainframes are past their prime," said Casey Powell, chairman and CEO of Sequent Computer Systems, Inc. "Sequent introduced the world to SMP more than a decade ago, and now we've delivered NUMA-Q 2000 to extend the power and affordability of SMP into the data center. Sequent's experience and the strength of our NUMA offering make us the mainframe alternative of choice to take the world's largest corporations into the next century."

"Intel and Sequent have been working together to deliver large-scale systems based on the Intel architecture for more than a decade," said John Miner, vice president and general manager of Intel's Enterprise Server Group. "With the introduction of NUMA-Q 2000, Sequent is moving Intel's architecture and the Pentium Pro processor even higher up-to mainframe-class capacity and beyond. Products like NUMA-Q 2000 clearly demonstrate that Intel architecture is the best choice for every processing need, from the workgroup to the data center."

Customers testing the new systems have already seen performance gains ranging from two - 12 times the most powerful SMP (symmetrical multiprocessing) systems available. At a fraction of the cost of mainframes, entry-level NUMA-Q 2000 servers range in price from $242,000 to $253,000 depending upon configuration and customer application. Most important to Sequent's existing customers, the NUMA-Q 2000 family is binary compatible with the company's market-leading Symmetry® 5000 SMP servers, preserving investments in client/server application software. Building on Sequent's commitment to investment protection, customers may mix Symmetry and NUMA-Q 2000 nodes within the same cluster.

Sequent's Elegant Design Means More Than a "Hot Box"

Two breakthrough technologies in Sequent's NUMA-Q architecture exploit Intel Pentium Pro microprocessors to deliver new levels of availability, manageability, flexibility, scalability and performance: Sequent's four-chip Intel Pentium Pro processor SMP baseboards (quads), used as the building block for enterprise class systems; and IQ-LinkTM, a patented high-speed interconnect between the quads.

Within its Pentium Pro processor-based quads, Sequent has placed memory, input/output and the processors in close physical proximity to one another, where 93 percent of all accesses are handled at the quad level over a single, shared 500 MB per second bus. These highly integrated boards ensure high reliability and performance and serve as the foundation for building large NUMA systems. Adding quads to the system increases the effective bus bandwidth up to 32 GB per second, many times that of Sequent's nearest SMP competitor.

For communication between quads, Sequent developed the industry's fastest intelligent high-speed interconnect system, called IQ-Link. Data is moved via the IQ-Link at a rate of 1GB per second with a data pump chip based on GaAs (gallium arsenide) technology developed jointly with Vitesse. IQ-Link is critical to Sequent's NUMA architecture, because it allows customers to build systems of up to 252 processors, to support very large clusters of systems, or to network hundreds of servers together without a backplane. The IQ-Link interconnect creates a large, shared-memory SMP node out of many quads within a single cabinet. NUMA-Q 2000 systems therefore require only one instance of the operating system and applications simultaneously on all quads.

Sequent has combined these technologies with redundant power and cooling supplies, additional EMI shielding, blowers instead of fans and expanded fault isolation. The input/output subsystem utilizes state-of-the-art fibre channel, significantly reducing the number and size of the cables connecting the system and storage and adding the capability to address 16 million devices at 100 MB per second. The IQ-Link contains sophisticated error-checking circuitry capable of correcting data transmission errors and automatically reconfiguring data paths should a quad fail. At the OS level, NUMA-Q 2000 runs on Sequent's DYNIX/ptx, widely recognized as the most mature, robust, scaleable and reliable UNIX operating system available.

Sequent's History of Innovation

For more than a decade, SMP has reigned as the standard architecture for client/server computing. In 1984, Sequent introduced the first SMP-based system for large-scale RDBMS applications. In 1990, the company was first to develop a parallel communications architecture and the company pioneered 30-processor support for Windows NT in 1993. In 1995, Sequent climbed to the top rung in large open systems, earning a number one rating in U.S. marketshare from International Data Corp.

Then in August of 1996, Sequent shipped the world's first Intel-based NUMA system to Oracle Corp. and demonstrated a production-level system to Oracle OpenWorld attendees in November 1996.

As Sequent's open systems scale to the upper reaches of the enterprise, they meet head-to-head with mainframes. These corporate workhorses have been largely unchallenged in the data center, but they remain very expensive to implement and even more costly to manage. Sequent's Data Center Ready IT systems give companies a safe, powerful way to move off mainframes and combine the benefits of open systems--broader application support and best-of-breed choice. In addition, all of the leading systems management tools are ready to run in the data center on NUMA-Q 2000.

Indicating early and broad support for this technology, Sequent has been shipping its Intel-based NUMA-Q 2000 systems to major customers and corporate partners since mid-December 1996. These sales accounted for fully one-quarter of Sequent's product revenues for Q496, signifying strong demand for systems that dramatically outperform today's fastest enterprise servers.

Pricing and availability

Sequent's NUMA-Q 2000 systems have been shipping since Dec. 16, 1996 and are binary compatible with Sequent's established Symmetry 5000 and WinServer 5000 product lines. Entry-level system prices range from $242,000 to $253,000 depending upon configuration and customer application.

About Sequent

Sequent Computer Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SQNT), Beaverton, Ore., is uniquely capable of delivering robust and scaleable Data Center Ready open systems solutions that are guaranteed to perform. Sequent minimizes customers' risk, enabling implementation of complex business applications that support critical needs, based on the breakthrough Sequent NUMA-Q architecture, a comprehensive portfolio of proven migration services and offerings, and an established set of partnerships with the industry's best-in-class. For further information, phone Sequent at (503) 626-5700 or (800) 257-9044, or visit our World Wide Web site at http://www.sequent.com/.

Sequent and Symmetry are registered trademarks and NUMA-Q is a trademark of Sequent Computer Systems, Inc.

Intel is a registered trademark and Pentium is a trademark of Intel Corporation.

All brand and product names appearing in this release are registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective holders.

Sequent Showcases Global Customers, Business Benefits of NUMA-QTM 2000 Data Center Ready Servers

Sequent NUMA-Q 2000 Draws Rapid Customer Acceptance by Delivering Extreme Performance at a Fraction of Mainframe Cost

NEW YORK, NY - Feb. 11, 1997 - Signaling the market's strong acceptance of high-end, open, NUMA-based (Non-Uniform Memory Access) systems, Sequent Computer Systems, Inc. released a list of major international customers who have purchased NUMA-QTM 2000 servers to handle their complex business critical applications. Sequent made its announcements at New York's Webster Hall, before hundreds of customers, partners and guests. Initial NUMA-Q 2000 customers include: Boeing, Burlington Coat Factory, Ford Motor Company, Millipore Corporation, National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc., Polizei HH, Source Informatics, Telkom South Africa, University of Auckland and Unocal 76 Products Company.

NUMA-Q 2000 is an open, robust, scaleable Data Center Ready server that minimizes customers' risk of implementing complex business applications in an open systems environment, at a fraction of the cost of traditional mainframe systems. Early customer tests show NUMA-Q 2000 performs two - 12 times faster than existing SMP (symmetric multiprocessing) systems.

"I think we'll see the need for computing power to increase over the next five years by another order of magnitude and I don't see any other technology out there besides NUMA-Q that can provide that type of capability," Mike Prince, chief information officer of Burlington Coat Factory, says of the new servers.

"NUMA-Q 2000 is already opening new doors for Sequent within some of the world's most influential companies," says Sequent chairman and CEO Casey Powell. "The market response tells me we've delivered what customers want: NUMA, performance guarantees, proven migration services and established partnerships with the industry's best-in-class."

First to market with an Intel Pentium® Pro processor-based NUMA system, Sequent has a 12-18 month lead over competitors and is well-positioned to extend its current 34 percent market share in the high-end open server market (International Data Corporation results for systems priced at more than $500,000).

According to Gary Smaby, president and CEO of Minnesota-based Smaby Group, "We expect NUMA to become the new architecture of choice for scalable enterprise computing, particularly in high-end server consolidation and data warehousing environments. Having earned first-to-market honors, Sequent's Intel-based NUMA-Q 2000 platform stands to make its mark early by once again pushing the performance envelope in open systems solutions."

Sequent NUMA-Q 2000 Enables New Business Opportunities

The performance and scalability of Sequent's NUMA-Q 2000 is vital to expanding businesses who demand more advanced technical solutions as fast as IT companies can provide them. In their attempt to achieve new levels of performance and power, many organizations end up isolating the data center and encouraging the development of huge, heterogeneous-and virtually unmanageable-distributed computing environments.

NUMA-Q 2000's increased speed and availability allows companies to meet the demanding next-generation requirements of transaction-intensive and data warehousing applications. NUMA-Q 2000's robust performance helps management avoid the challenges of networked server implementations while gaining more power. Its unique architecture negates the backplane limitations of current SMP systems and because it is still based on SMP architecture, companies don't have to worry about programming complexities, such as those found with MPP (massively parallel processing) systems.

In fact, Sequent envisions that NUMA-Q 2000's unparalleled performance will give companies the ability to combine decision support (DSS) with online transaction processing (OLTP) in one machine. Running DSS-style queries on transaction systems will limit the need to extract transaction data from the OLTP system and then load the data into the DSS system. For the first time, businesses will have powerful real-time DSS capabilities and save on installation and management costs of two separate systems.

The basic building block of Sequent's NUMA-Q architecture is the four-processor (quad) Intel Pentium Pro processor baseboard, which Sequent has enhanced and hardened to meet enterprise computing requirements. Sequent breaks through enterprise level performance barriers by seamlessly connecting multiple quads-up to 252 processors-via an innovative interconnect technology called IQ-LinkTM. Powered by the Pentium-Pro processors, IQ-Link moves data between boards so quickly (at a rate of 1GB per second) that the operating system and application software continue to operate as if they are running on one large shared-everything SMP system.

"The IQ-Link gives us the scalability we're looking for. Millipore can run all of its core business transaction processing on what amounts to a single system image," says Ron Hawkins, CIO, Millipore Corporation. "It's a lot simpler to manage. It's a lot simpler to grow. It's a lot simpler to upgrade and it's easy to operate."

Sequent Computer Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SQNT), Beaverton, Ore., is uniquely capable of delivering robust and scalable Data Center Ready open systems solutions that are guaranteed to perform. Sequent minimizes customers' risk, enabling implementation of complex business applications that support critical needs, based on the breakthrough Sequent NUMA-Q architecture, a comprehensive portfolio of proven migration services and offerings, and an established set of partnerships with the industry's best-in-class. For further information, phone Sequent at (503) 626-5700 or (800) 257-9044, or visit our World Wide Web site at http://www.sequent.com/.

Sequent and Symmetry are registered trademarks and NUMA-Q is a trademark of Sequent Computer Systems, Inc.

Intel is a registered trademark and Pentium is a trademark of Intel Corporation.

All brand and product names appearing in this release are registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective holders.