Hewlett-Packard Co accompanied launch yesterday of its first two servers built around the 7100 superscalar version of the Precision Architecture RISC with the latest release of its HP-UX Unix, HP-UX 9.0, claiming that 7100-based business servers running it 0 provide commercial users with the industry’s fastest uniprocessor server performance on TPS-A benchmarks. Performance of HP Apollo 9000 Series 700 workstations running HP-UX 9.0 increases significantly due to tuning of the virtual-memory system, input-output subsystem and compiler enhancements, the company said. HP-UX 9.0 incorporates the latest revisions of industry standards, including those from the Open Software Foundation and X/Open Co Ltd, and includes the Visual User Environment 3.0, an updated version of the company’s graphical user interface, and enhanced system-management capabilities. The company claims that compiler enhancements with the new release boost the Model 720 to 66.5 SPECmarks from 59.5 and the Model 730 to 85.4 from 76.8. The new HP 9000 Model 897S running in a client-server environment performs at 184.55 TPS-A and $10,737 per TPS-A – the industry’s fastest uniprocessor transaction-processing performance, the company claims. Designed for client-server environments, HP VUE 3.0 is available for HP700/RX X stations, HP Apollo 9000 workstations and HP 9000 business servers and features enhancements to improve productivity for expert and novice Unix users, including a new industrial design with multicoloured icons to enhance its visual appeal to the user; enhanced usability with front-panel slide-up menus and easier customisation; a context-sensitive help manager that incorporates hypertext and hypergraphics to enable users to explore any topic in detail; added utilities, such as an icon editor, graphical text editor and audio annotation of files and directories; and drag-and-drop printing capabilities through the print icon. HP VUE Lite, a subset of HP VUE, supports installed-base users with older, less powerful systems and new ones with 8Mb or less. Enhancements to System Administration Manager include a Motif-based graphical user interface and a task-oriented design to help users step through system administration functions. The new release conforms to the Open Software Foundation’s Application Environment Specification on the Series 700 for increased portability among Foundation systems; Posix 1003.2, which standardises the Posix shells and command set across Unix system to aid portability between Posix-compliant systems; FDDI support; Worldwide Portability Interface, providing a standardised interface for writing international programs as specified by X/Open Portability Guide 4; X 11.5 with up to 25% interactive performance increase over X11.4; OSF/Motif 1.2 with drag-and-drop mechanism for moving objects and exchanging data between applications; and System V streams support. It’s out next month and a two-user licence for HP-UX 9.0 run-time environment is bundled with workstations, and an eight-user licence is bundled with servers.
