Unisys Corporation (NYSE:UIS) announced today that It has extended its position as a leader in the market for high-performance solutions that maximize the power of Microsoft SQL Server 2008, which was released to manufacturing today. Unisys High Performance SQL Server solution offers clients record-setting speed and power to drive their critical applications across their enterprise today. It also provides a foundation for the future support of other technologies such as Microsoft Hyper-V virtualization platform in a real-time infrastructure that dynamically supports emerging business demands.

Smead Manufacturing Company, a Minnesota-based manufacturer and worldwide distributor of office supplies, is looking forward to taking advantage of the Unisys and Microsoft powered solutions. “We’ve been using Unisys ES7000 Enterprise Servers and Microsoft SQL Server for many years to support our critical PeopleSoft applications,” says Joseph Vossen, vice president of information services at Smead. “With the release of SQL Server 2008, we expect to see a significant improvement in performance and reliability. As our data requirements grow, we know that we can rely on Unisys and Microsoft to provide a scalable platform for our business operations.”

A key Microsoft alliance company, Unisys has more than 15 years of experience in deploying Microsoft technology for high-volume, mission-critical applications. Unisys is also one of the largest enterprise users of Microsoft technologies, benefiting clients with its deep understanding of Microsoft’s software solutions. With SQL Server 2008 now progressing to general availability, Unisys is expanding its already-extensive portfolio of Microsoft services and solutions to help customers quickly capitalize on the benefits of new features introduced in SQL Server 2008, such as enhanced security, data compression, Resource Governor and support for new data types. Additionally, Unisys is building on the leadership SQL Server 2008 extract, transform, load (ETL) benchmarking already established.

Best Practices for SQL Server 2008

In delivering services to assist customers in deploying SQL Server 2008 in high transaction environments, Unisys has compiled a number of best practices for optimizing the loading and storage of data. These best practices give many enterprises a head start in maximizing their investments in Microsoft SQL Server 2008.

“Microsoft is delighted to continue its close work with Unisys to deliver enterprise performance on the SQL Server 2008 data platform,” said Dan Neault, general manager of SQL Server at Microsoft Corp. “Performance benchmarks like the ETL benchmark demonstrate the benefits that our joint customers will enjoy when deploying Microsoft and Unisys technologies together.”

Broad Testing with Hyper-V

As part of its ongoing joint engineering development with Microsoft – especially in its Bellevue, Wash. Solutions Alliance Technology Center – Unisys virtualization experts have been extensively testing Hyper-V across Unisys line of enterprise servers. Many Unisys customers have already announced plans to conduct testing with SQL Server 2008 and Hyper-V on their ES7000 servers.

“Unisys believes that SQL Server 2008 and Hyper-V present a cost-effective platform for most Microsoft applications,” said Mark Feverston, general manager, Microsoft Solutions, Unisys. “It’s extremely encouraging to hear many of our customers’ intentions to use SQL Server 2008 and Hyper-V in a virtualized environment as part of a real-time infrastructure. We will continue to help them maximize their business objectives.”

For more information about Unisys services and technologies and its strategic relationship with Microsoft please visit http://www.unisys.com/services/microsoft__solutions.htm.

Record-Breaking Benchmark

Earlier in 2008, Unisys and Microsoft presented benchmark test results that demonstrate the strength of the joint Unisys and Microsoft solution. Using a 64-core Unisys ES7000 Enterprise Server system, Unisys and Microsoft engineers successfully loaded one terabyte of data using SQL Server 2008 Integration Services in less than 30 minutes -- a new record (and 33 percent faster than previous/other results). Overall, the extract, transform, load (ETL) tools included in SQL Server 2008 performed better than comparable tools from other database vendors in similar workloads.

In addition to this ETL benchmark, Unisys and Microsoft also announced earlier this year the results of a performance and scalability test of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 on the Unisys ES7000 Enterprise Server platform. As part of the testing, computers were configured using Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 to simulate an environment consisting of 24,000 concurrent users executing more than 169,000 transactions per hour. The benchmark results from this study demonstrated that a single Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 instance on the Unisys ES7000 platform can achieve sub-second response times with a heavy workload against a large, complex database.

These results remain unmatched by any other vendor. Results like these illustrate that Unisys highly scalable line of enterprise servers is one of the world’s fastest performing database platforms for SQL Server 2008, and is optimized for business intelligence and other data-intensive applications.

About Unisys

Unisys is a worldwide information technology services and solutions company. We provide consulting, systems integration, outsourcing and infrastructure services, combined with powerful enterprise server technology. We specialize in helping clients use information to create efficient, secure business operations that allow them to achieve their business goals. Our consultants and industry experts work with clients to understand their business challenges and create greater visibility into critical linkages throughout their operations. For more information, visit www.unisys.com.

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