IBM Expands e-business Solutions With New Entry-Level and Mid-Range Intel Processor-Based Netfinity Servers
New e-business Tools Deliver Performance and Manageability for Critical Business Applications
NEW YORK (April 15, 1998) – IBM* today announced two new industry-standard servers designed to meet the e-business needs of small, medium and large-sized enterprises — the Netfinity 5500, a new high-availability, mid-range server and the Netfinity 3000, a low cost, entry-level server. The Netfinity 5500 and Netfinity 3000 make leveraging the power of the Internet more accessible to businesses by offering affordable industry-standard Internet/intranet solutions; enhanced power and scalability with Intel’s new Pentium II processors; and, increased manageability and control over networks.
The Netfinity 3000 and 5500 are among the first entry and mid-range servers available today with the latest Intel Pentium II processor featuring a 100MHz front-side bus for increased bus speed. Filling out the Netfinity family of enterprise servers, the Netfinity 5500 and 3000 house a host of technologies and service offerings that have evolved from larger IBM servers. Both servers reinforce IBM’s commitment to small and medium businesses by delivering reliability, manageability, ease of use and power to run business-critical applications today, with scalable features that keep pace with growing businesses.
“e-business is not just a passing trend, it’s the foundation of the future,” said William Colton, general manager, IBM Netfinity. “The number of customers doing business over the Web is multiplying every day. IBM is the only vendor to provide customers with e-business tools — from Netfinity servers and software to commercial desktops, to large enterprise servers — that are affordable, reliable and easy-to-use.”
The Netfinity 5500 comes standard with a 350 or 400 MHz (1) Pentium II processor, 128MB memory SDRAM, and a dual-channel Wide Ultra SCSI RAID controller that handles data up to 40MBps. The new innovative NetBAY3 comes standard on the Netfinity 5500 tower systems and provides a secure expansion capability for hard disk drives, communication and power devices. NetBAY3 enables the Netfinity 5500 and existing Netfinity 7000 tower systems to increase internal disk storage up to 600GB(2) and 655GB respectively.
The Netfinity 3000 is designed to expand as businesses grow and features up to a 350, 300 or 266MHz Pentium II processor, 100 MHz ECC SDRAM memory scalable to 384MB, and IBM Netfinity Manager software included at no additional cost.
IBM also unveiled the next generation of 18GB and 9GB 10,000 RPM(3) hard disk drives and its powerful 20/40GB DLT and 10/20GB NS Internal SCSI Tape Drives. The new drives, with planned availability for Netfinity 7000, 5500, 3500 and 3000 customers early third quarter, will allow customers to enhance their systems’ performance and expand storage capabilities.
Source: IBM