Specifications

Chapter 1. Introduction

This chapter covers in detail why you should proceed with IBM Netfinity Servers

and discusses the Netfinity technology advantage and High Availability features.

The chapter also discusses SAP, its architecture and various SAP releases.

1.1 Why Netfinity Servers?

The IBM Netfinity Server family is a new generation of enterprise systems that

offers you power, scalability, control and service. Netfinity servers are based on

industry-standard, Intel processor-based technology and are scalable-enhanced

to save your hardware investments for the future. They are designed to provide

high availability and excellent fault tolerance for business-critical applications

such as SAP R/3 in the Intel-based server systems area. IBM is the only vendor

in the world that can provide complete SAP R/3 solutions such as certified

hardware, complementary products and SAP R/3 implementation services.

SAP R/3 on Windows NT and Intel-based systems is a growing market. Today’s

share of the market of the new SAP R/3 licenses on Windows NT-based servers

is about 48 percent. This figure is still increasing dramatically.

IBM Netfinity Servers are particular optimized for the Windows NT operating

system. At the IBM Kirkland Programming Center in Seattle, IBM professionals

are working together with Microsoft development teams to test, certify, optimize

and integrate the servers on the Windows NT platform.

IBM and the SAP AG are also partners. They signed an International Solutions

Promotion Agreement in 1993, which covers mutual cooperation in development,

sales and support of customer business solutions. They are working together to

optimize SAP R/3, both with IBM and non-IBM products to support

heterogeneous environments. IBM is committed to SAP R/3 with Windows NT.

IBM is the world leader in SAP R/3 application solutions on various platforms,

including OS/390 on S/390 systems, OS/400 on AS/400 systems, AIX on

RS/6000 systems and Windows NT on Intel-based server systems. It is even

possible to combine NT-based application servers with an OS/390-based

database server. This makes the systems highly flexible and scalable.

Especially in the SAP R/3 environment, you will need servers that are easy to

administer and offer you many features to control and manage your servers,

network and workstations. Netfinity servers are ready to fulfill all these tasks.

1.1.1 Power, Performance and Scalability

Integrated in all Netfinity Servers are the newest Intel Pentium II and Pentium Pro

technology. Every server integrates symmetric multiprocessing (SMP)

capabilities. All Netfinity servers have fault-tolerant error checking and correcting

memory (ECC). The Netfinity 7000 is even capable of supporting up to four

Pentium Pro processors and up to 4 GB of four-way interleaved ECC memory.

The redbook

IBM PC Server Technology and Selection Reference,

SG24-4760

describes server technologies and features such as SMP, ECC memory,

interleaved memory and RAID systems.