Sequent Unveils Next-Generation Technology For Large-Scale Enterprise
Computing

NUMA-Q ARCHITECTURE SCALES TO MORE THAN 250 PROCESSORS; INTELLIGENT,
HIGH-SPEED INTERCONNECT BREAKS THE BARRIERS OF SMP

BEAVERTON, Ore. - OCT. 16, 1995 - Sequent Computer Systems, Inc., today
announced its next-generation system architecture and a breakthrough
processor interconnect technology that will enable the company to build
systems containing more than 250 standard processors and 100 TB of data,
providing performance tenfold that of conventional SMP systems.

At the core of Sequent's NUMA-Q architecture is an intelligent, high-speed
interconnect -- called IQ-Link -- that breaks the backplane barrier that
has bound conventional SMP for over a decade. NUMA-Q is Sequent's new
cache-coherent nonuniform memory access (CC-NUMA) architecture, which
leverages the Intel Pentium Pro (P6) multiprocessor technology to extend
Sequent's legacy of bringing PC economies and the simple SMP programming
model to large-scale enterprise computing.

Sequent invented open SMP computing in 1983, pioneering the use of
industry-standard microprocessors as building blocks for large-scale
computers. While many companies are just beginning to market SMP
computers, Sequent's Symmetry 5000 family of systems has captured 35
percent of the worldwide market for large-scale ($800,000 to $2 million)
UNIX systems, according to Computer Intelligence InfoCorp surveys.

"A decade ago, Sequent led the way in leveraging the standard
microprocessor for large open systems," said Casey Powell, chairman and
chief executive officer at Sequent. "With the NUMA-Q architecture and the
IQ-Link interconnect, we define a new era of computing, one that will
leverage standard building blocks to meet the very nonstandard
requirements of large organizations seeking competitive advantage from
their information systems."

Lawrence J. Ellison, chairman and CEO of Oracle Corp., the world's largest
supplier of software for information management, said, "NUMA- Q represents
a breakthrough in hardware technology that could be applied to large and
complex data warehouse environments as well as mission-critical online
transaction processing applications. Sequent's distributed and clustering
approach with NUMA-Q architecture will provide a strong platform for
Oracle's database and applications products. Oracle on NUMA-Q is expected
to enable customers to implement multiterabyte databases as well as
support tens of thousands of users."

NEW SOLUTIONS FOR MISSION-CRITICAL APPLICATIONS

The NUMA-Q architecture will enable Sequent to build massively scaled
systems that provide unparalleled availability, scalability and
manageability at levels previously available only on the largest
mainframes. Businesses are looking for ways to deploy and exploit
dramatically larger databases, handle requests from a million World Wide
Web site visitors a day, manage complex financials resulting from mergers
and acquisitions, and limit downtime to minutes per year, all using
flexible, scalable open computing systems. Sequent helps organizations
meet those demands with comprehensive solutions in online transaction
processing, decision support and business communications.

INTELLIGENT, HIGH-SPEED INTERCONNECT MOVES DATA AT 32 GB PER SECOND

The basic building block of the NUMA-Q architecture is constructed from
industry-standard four-processor baseboards using the Intel Pentium Pro
processor. Sequent enhances this board with extra redundancy and
robustness for increased availability in enterprise-computing
environments. Sequent connects multiple Pentium Pro "quads" with its new
intelligent, high-speed IQ-Link, which moves data between the quads at a
rate of 1 GB per second using a data pump chipset jointly engineered by
Sequent and Vitesse Corp. The effective bus bandwidth of a NUMA-Q-based
system scales linearly as quads are added and can be as high as 32 GB per
second for a 252-processor system. Unlike other vendors, Sequent's
intelligent interconnect is not only fast, it increases system throughput
by employing sophisticated request queues to manage several tasks
concurrently.

"Sequent's NUMA-Q technology is a very significant development for
standards-based enterprise computing," said David L. House, senior vice
president and general manager of the Enterprise Server Group at Intel. "As
a pioneer in commercial SMP, Sequent has long demonstrated the business
benefits of large-scale systems based on the Intel architecture. With the
NUMA-Q architecture, Sequent continues its heritage of innovation,
bringing the benefits of high-volume, standards-based systems to the large
enterprise."

NO SOFTWARE CHANGES REQUIRED

In the NUMA-Q architecture, the IQ-Link moves data between quads so fast
that the operating system and application software continue to operate as
if they were running on one large shared-memory SMP system (called a "big
bus" system). This gives NUMA-Q the same simple programming model that has
made Sequent Symmetry systems so powerful and popular over the last
decade. NUMA-Q systems will support both DYNIX/ptx (Sequent's SMP-enhanced
version of UNIX) and the Microsoft Windows NT operating system. Current
customer- developed and packaged client/server applications software --
including Baan, ISOCOR, Oracle applications, PeopleSoft and SAP R/3 --
will run on NUMA-Q based systems with no changes required.

Sequent is developing a complete line of NUMA-Q architecture computer
systems that will be rolled out in late 1996. The new generation of
systems will be completely compatible with Sequent's current Symmetry
line; in fact, the two lines can be mixed in clustered environments. Full
binary compatibility with current-generation Symmetry systems will
preserve the software investments of current Sequent customers.

Sequent Computer Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SQNT), based in Beaverton, Ore., is
a leading architect and provider of open client/server systems for
business computing. Sequent provides professional consulting, educational
and support services, and develops scalable multiprocessing computing
systems.

The World Wide Web address for Sequent On-Line is http://www.sequent.com.
This news release and other information are available from Sequent's
news-on-demand fax service at (800) 356-0834.
 
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