Sun Beats Microsoft in Record Lotus Notes Benchmark

Sun's Solaris Platform on its Ultra Enterprise 2 Server Sets New Records in Best Over All Performance for Lotus Notes

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA -- September 10, 1996 -- Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced performance results for Lotus NotesBench(TM) software beating Microsoft's Windows NT. NotesBench is a Lotus benchmarking tool which provides a methodology for measuring Notes server performance. The Solaris(TM) operating environment, running on the Sun Ultra(TM) Enterprise(TM) 2 workgroup server, produced the best overall performance and the highest capacity numbers for the Mail, MailDB, and Idle Usage tests of any platform published to date.

Companies deploying Lotus Notes in departments with heavy workloads or a large number of users will see significant increases in productivity with the Sun(TM) solution.

"Lotus and Sun focused significant development resources designing the Notes Release 4 Solaris server to leverage Sun's powerful SMP platforms such as the Ultra Enterprise 2," said Eileen Rudden, senior vice president, Communications Products Development, Lotus Development Corp. "Sun's record setting NotesBench results will prove beneficial to customers evaluating platforms which leverage enterprise-class Notes and internet architectures."

The Sun 2-processor Ultra Enterprise 2 achieved almost 4 times faster response time than the highest published NotesBench results based on a 4-processor Compaq Proliant 4500 running Windows NT. The Sun platform beat the Compaq platform running Windows NT on all 3 published results even though the Compaq results were published on a 4-processor CPU, instead of a two-processor CPU. Compared to an HP-NetServer LX Pro running Windows NT, given the same user load of 1750 users in the Mail test, the Sun UltraSPARC server achieved a response time of 0.129 seconds compared to the HP-NetServer LX Proof 0.207 seconds. Similarly, for the Mail DB test, the Sun UltraSPARC servers were able to deliver a response time of 0.312 seconds beating the next best time from HP of 0.438 seconds for the same number of users.

In a separate test using the same configuration, Sun increased the number of Mail Users to 1925 with a response time of 0.188 and increased MailDB users to 1700 with a response time of 0.673. This test still provided the best overall performance with the highest numbers of users published to date.

"With the shift away from desktop to networked, distributed computing, as demonstrated by the Internet, companies who plan to capitalize on this shift for business require a scalable, reliable enterprise class server environment to support it," said Janpieter Scheerder, president of SunSoft, Inc. "With the performance and ease-of-use of Lotus Notes on our robust and proven Solaris platform, customers can meet current demands as well as those in the future."

Lotus Notes on Sun's Solaris platform meets customer demands for a comprehensive groupware solution on a reliable, full-featured, secure foundation. With TCP/IP and IPX/SPX standard in the Solaris operating system, the Sun server can transparently interoperate with existing systems found in most organizations today, such as Novell Netware networks and PCs running Windows 95 and NT. Higher performance and lower cost make Lotus Notes and the Solaris operating system, running on a Sun Ultra Enterprise server, an extremely strong solution for companies searching for a more robust, but cost-effective alternative to NT.

In addition, Sun offers a complete line of Ultra Enterprise servers with the Solaris operating system, scaling up to 30 processors, allowing customers to easily expand their environments. The Ultra Enterprise 2, with only two 200 MHz UltraSPARC(TM) and 512 MB of memory, ran three of the published NotesBench workloads: Idle sessions, Mail-only, and Mail and Shared Database (MailDB). On each workload, the Ultra Enterprise 2 produced the highest user load of any published NotesBench result, and the best response time at those loads.

Sun Microsystems achieved these results by marrying the power and performance of Lotus Notes Release 4 with one of the industry's leading reliable, scalable and secure platforms, Sun's Solaris Ultra Enterprise Server. In developing Lotus Notes for the Sun Solaris operating system, Lotus worked directly with Sun engineering to develop the Solaris version of Lotus Notes, taking advantage of its advanced features such as symmetric multiprocessing and multithreading.

The NotesBench tests use a combination of driver systems and destination servers to place simulated work loads onto the "System Under Test". Currently there are 6 different user workloads which are simulated in these series of tests. The test results were audited by KMDS Technical Associates, Inc. The full report can be retrieved from http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/hw/servers/product/U2/ue2.apps.html.

Sun Microsystems, Inc.
With annual revenues exceeding $7 billion, Sun Microsystems, Inc. provides products and services that enable customers to build and maintain open network computing environments. Widely recognized as a proponent of open standards, the company is involved in the design, manufacture and sale of products, technologies and services for commercial and technical computing. Sun's SPARC(TM) workstations, multiprocessing servers, SPARC microprocessors, Solaris operating software and ISO-certified service organization each rank No.1 in the UNIX(R) industry. Java(TM), Sun's platform independent programming language, provides a comprehensive solution to the challenge of programming for complex networks, including the Internet. Sun Microsystems was founded in 1982, and is headquartered in Mountain View, California.

###

Copyrights: Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Solaris, SunSoft, Ultra, Ultra Enterprise and Java are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All SPARC trademarks are used under license and are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries, exclusively licensed through X/Open Company, Ltd.

###


FACT SHEET: SOLARIS vs. Windows NT Lotus Benchmark September 11, 1996

BENCHMARK SUMMARY
Background: Lotus NotesBench is a benchmarking tool which provides a methodology for measuring Notes server performance. The tests use a combination of driver systems and destination servers to place simulated workloads onto the "System Under Test". Sun ran three different user workloads which are simulated in these in these series of tests.

TESTS
A. Idle Test: An idle sessions workload that establishes an upper
bound on the number of sessions that a Notes server can support.

B. Mail Only: A server for mail users.

C. Mail DB: A server for active users who are performing mail and
simple shared database operations.

RESULTS

Sponsor	Compaq	HP	Sun
Model	4500 Proliant	NetServer LX Pro	Ultra Enterprise 2
OS	Windows NT 3.51	Windows NT 3.51	Solaris 2.5.1
Notes	Ver.R4.0	R4.1	R4.1a
CPU	4 x 166Mhz P5	2 x 166Mhz	P62 x 200Mhz
Memory	512 Mb	512Mb	512Mb
Data Disk	7 x 2G	13 x 2.1G	11 x 2.1G

Notesbench Test

Sun Competitive, [Sun Peak] Idle	2000	3097	3950	3950
Mail Users	1800	1750	1750	[1925]*
Notesmark (TPM)	2383	2327	2332	[2563]*
Response Time	0.5	0.207	0.129	[ 0.188]*
MailDB Users	1500	1550	1550	[ 1700]*
Notesmark (TPM)	3325	3603	3636	[3967]*
Response Time	3.509	0.438	0.312	[0.673]*

* The Sun numbers in brackets resulted from a second Sun test using the same configuration, but with a higher number of users.

Sun Home Sun/Lotus Home Lotus Home Search Contact Us | Corporate | Developers | Downloads | Partners | Products | Purchasing | Services | Support