Features - Enterprise Data Insights:

HP AND MIRAPOINT SET MESSAGING PERFORMANCE WORLD RECORD

HP and Mirapoint have announced a new world record result for SPECmail message capacity and performance of 1.25 million SPECmail users, nearly 25 percent higher than the previous record and able to support roughly 17 million real-world messages per day.(1)

It is also the first SPEC benchmark result to be performed in a storage area network (SAN) environment. SPECmail is a standardized benchmark developed by messaging vendors and research organizations that measures mail server performance using a real-world workload.

The record-breaking architecture included an HP StorageWorks Disk Array xp128 and Mirapoint Message Server M4000 products. With this breakthrough result, the HP StorageWorks and Mirapoint solution addresses the messaging and storage requirements of the world's largest mobile operators, service providers and enterprises.

"Messaging is a mission-critical application for our customers that demand more system performance and reliability," said Rusty Smith, director, StorageWorks lifecycle data management, HP Network Storage Solutions. "As today's benchmark proves, a messaging solution that harnesses the power and scalability of network storage can handle the most demanding message networks."

The combination of HP StorageWorks and Mirapoint messaging systems addresses the complete lifecycle of an Internet message by offering efficient routing, storage, access and management of any type of messaging information, including text-based e-mail, as well as voicemail, fax and other multimedia content.

For mobile operators and service providers, it supports network storage requirements for advanced messaging applications, such as unified communications services. Additionally, the solution enables enterprise customers to more easily comply with expanding regulatory requirements regarding e-mail archival and disaster recovery planning.

"Mirapoint continues to set the bar in messaging, and we are excited to partner with HP in delivering such extraordinary SPECmail results to underscore our leadership," said Nadia Mansour, vice president of worldwide channels and alliances, Mirapoint. "This benchmark further validates that Mirapoint's products deliver the simplicity, security and service-orientation required for today's message networks."

"E-mail is a primary application for business users," said Robert Mahowald, research manager, IDC. "Ever-increasing volumes of message traffic, coupled with the growth of multimedia content and expanding wireless connectivity, make messaging a mission-critical and storage-intensive application."

Organizations worldwide increasingly rely on the integrity of their message networks, looking to preserve much of the messaging information over time. In light of more stringent regulatory requirements, the need to safeguard message data for litigation and the need to proactively avert data loss in the event of a natural disaster, many industries have a common challenge for IT providers.

In response, the combination of HP network storage and Mirapoint messaging systems better enable organizations to further protect messaging information, while scaling to meet the needs of the most demanding financial services, healthcare, education and service provider customers.

"As a leading supplier of voicemail, unified messaging, SMS and multimedia messaging solutions to wireless and wireline service providers, LogicaCMG is excited about the significant advances that Mirapoint and HP have made with regard to the performance and reliability of message storage and retrieval. These advances will enable us to continue to meet service providers' stringent requirements for messaging infrastructure," said Lawrence Frank, vice president of market development, LogicaCMG. "Service providers' demands for carrier-grade messaging solutions are only going to grow with the increasing convergence of data, voice and wireless networks.

"For this reason, embedding Mirapoint's messaging systems and HP's open, modular network storage into our offering provides our customers with a strategic, high-performance platform to meet their needs today and growth plans for the future."

The HP StorageWorks Disk Array xp128 provides industry-leading performance, scalability, reliability and manageability for heterogeneous environments. The system minimizes the risk of downtime through remote mirroring and total system architecture with no single point of failure.

SPECmail Benchmark Configuration(1)

The SPECmail benchmark was achieved on a SAN consisting of an HP StorageWorks xp128 disk array and Mirapoint Message Server M4000 products connected to a Fibre Channel SAN. HP StorageWorks management tools -- including CommandView xp, LUN Configuration and Security Manager xp, and Business Copy xp -- enabled precision control of the storage environment. The solution, powered by six HP ProLiant ML370 servers, sustained a volume of 6,250 SPECmail messages per minute, equivalent to 1,250,000 SPECmail2001 users or roughly 17 million real-world messages per day.

More information about the record-breaking result is available at www.spec.org/mail2001/results/res2003q2/.