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Unisys leapfrogs marketplace with high-performance Linux solutions

In a move that leapfrogs enterprise server competitors Sun Microsystems, Inc., Unisys Corporation has announced the availability of Linux on the company's ES7000 servers. Unisys, working with Novell, Inc. and Red Hat, Inc., will provide the business, government and scientific communities with services and support for Linux-based solutions.

The company also unveiled at LinuxWorld Conference & Expo today the first-ever dynamic partitioning capability on Linux for Intel-based servers. This initiative links the power of Unisys ES7000 enterprise servers with the flexibility and openness of the Linux operating system, providing customers a strong, new alternative to expensive, proprietary RISC-based systems.

"Our enterprise customers are demanding industrial-strength Linux solutions and we are responding in a revolutionary way," said Unisys President and Chief Operating Officer Joe McGrath. "Four years ago, we were the first to enter the high-end Windows market. Now it's time to shake up the Unix/RISC market. By offering customers a bold, new legitimate choice in the Unix/RISC space, Unisys is positioned to be an enterprise Linux market leader."

In this industry first, Unisys is bringing true dynamic partitioning to Intel-based servers running Linux. Dynamic partitioning, the ability to shift processing power to the applications that need it, as they need it, with no human intervention, is a critical function for organizations running complex and demanding workloads. This means that if an application suddenly has a spike in demand, the ES7000 with Linux will automatically allocate additional processing power to that application. When usage goes back to normal, so does the amount of processing power assigned to that application.

Unisys engineers, drawing on years of mainframe and enterprise computing experience, have brought this key functionality, previously only available to users of expensive proprietary systems, to standard Intel-based servers for the first time.

Unisys has 50 years of experience supporting multiple operating systems and migrating workloads across various platforms. With thousands of customer service representatives in over 100 countries, Unisys will implement and support the ES7000 Linux software and hardware solutions.

Building on the company's 3D Visible Enterprise initiative and its Blueprinting methodology, Unisys is enabling large enterprises with complex computing environments to move off Unix/RISC platforms, such as Sun Solaris.

"Standardization has been a huge trend in the server industry, especially since Standard High Volume (SHV) servers based on the Intel Pentium Pro processor entered the market nearly ten years ago," said Richard Dracott, general manager of Enterprise Marketing and Planning for Intel's Enterprise Platforms Group. "Unisys, long a price/performance leader in high-end Intel processor-based systems, is continuing this trend by bringing true enterprise class functionality to the Linux environment, to large scale multiprocessing systems based on both Intel Xeon processors MP and Itanium2 processors."

The entire line of Intel-based Unisys servers, ranging from servers running both 32-bit and 64-bit processors, from 4-way to 32-way, is available with Linux. For the increasing number of IT departments looking to migrate away from their large Unix/RISC systems, Unisys now offers the choice of enterprise class Linux in addition to its Microsoft Windows-based solutions. "Expect to see Unisys expand its ES7000 server offerings very soon --further enabling RISC-free environments for mission-critical solutions," McGrath said.

In addition, Unisys has optimized its Server Sentinel software, which provides IT managers the ability to manage both Windows and Linux environments from one screen--something industry analysts say no other company offers today. Continuing this cutting-edge work, Unisys engineers are developing several other unique enhancements to the Sentinel offering including Application Sentinel, Database Sentinel and Security Sentinel.

"The entrance of Unisys into the Linux market is a great endorsement of the Linux platform," said Hal Bennett, vice president of business development of Novell. "Combining the scalability and performance power of Novell's SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server with Unisys deep experience in mission critical computing gives customers a compelling new option for deploying Linux at the core of the enterprise."