Philippine Firms Explore E-Commerce, Compaq Leads 05/13/99
Newsbytes, Thursday, May 13, 1999 at 10:06
MAKATI CITY, PHILIPPINES, 1999 MAY 13 (NB) -- By Jennifer B
Malapitan, Metropolitan Computer Times. Compaq Computer [NYSE:CPQ]
is staying focused on what it wants to do after the integration
drill with Digital and Tandem - satisfy customers by providing them
the best "solutions" and services. One of these "solutions" is the
Non-Stop eBusiness Strategy, which is a combination of products,
technologies, applications and services from Compaq as well as its
partners.
Regino Joel Josol of Compaq Computer Philippines Inc. said most
enterprises in the Philippines today, whether they are in the
finance, manufacturing or telecommunications industry, are at
the threshold of implementing e-business. "Most companies in the
Philippines are still in the exploratory stage," he said.
With the Non-Stop eBusiness strategy, Compaq is targeting
business-to-business transactions being conducted on the Web,
over consumer-to-business type of business models.
The term "Non-Stop," which is a Compaq patent trademark for the
generic moniker fault-tolerant, is previously associated with
Tandem's Himalaya servers.
With this eBusiness strategy, Compaq is bringing the Non-Stop
concept to its midrange servers through clustering technology.
For instance, the AlphaServer ES40 launched this week in Manila is
supported by Compaq's TruCluster version 5.0. TruCluster version
5.0, according to Josol, enables servers in a clustered environment
to do process migration without the need to acquire separate
parallel software as it is traditionally required by clustering
software packages.
Process migration transpires when an application is not available
from one server and the user is automatically transferred to
another server where the application requested is available without
requiring him or her to log-off the current server and log-in to
another server.
"Traditionally, a database application cannot be accessed
simultaneously without a parallel software," Josol said.
TruCluster 5.0 gets rid of this additional software.
The ES40, with a list price starting at US$30,000 is scaleable to
four central processing units (CPUs) utilizing the Alpha 21264
processor with clockspeeds of 500 megahertz (MHz). Additionally,
the ES49 has 16 gigabytes (GBs) of memory and six to 10 64-bit PCI
(Peripheral Component Interconnect) I/O (input/output) slots. It
also offers a 5.2 GB/sec crossbar switch bus.
TruCluster 5.0 currently supports up to eight nodes, and will be
supporting up to 16 nodes when an upgrade becomes available late in
the year.
Like most servers of its class, the ES40 comes with a remote server
management capability such that a system administrator could manage
it remotely.
The ES40, furthers Josol, is the only midrange server that offers a
5.2 GB/sec bandwidth with 120 nanosecond of latency.
A competing product may offer a higher bandwidth like 10 GB/sec but
with a latency of 500 nanoseconds. In actual performance, the ES40
would deliver higher speed primarily because it works four times
(500 ns/120 ns) in delivering the bandwidth, according to Josol.
"In terms of bandwidth, bigger is better but in terms of latency or
response time, less is faster. By the time the machine with a 500 ns
latency delivered the 10GB, the ES40 would have delivered 20GB," the
executive explained.
This latency factor is not often highlighted by most vendors, Josol
asserted.
Still on its eBusiness strategy, Paul Blinkhorn, Compaq Computer
managing director for the Asean, disclosed that AltaVista, a
wholly-owned Compaq company, is set to go public in the next few
weeks. Compaq is positioning AltaVista as a key portal player in
the future in partnership with key technology players.
Compaq's big clients in the Philippines include Bayan
Telecommunications, Home Development and Mutual Fund, the
International Exchange Bank, Social Security System, and WG&A.
Josol was likely referring to these firms when he said most
companies in the Philippines are still on the exploratory stage
for e-business.
Reported by Newsbytes News Network, newsbytes.com |
