Compaq Announces Clustering Roadmap -- Compaq, Microsoft and Tandem Team to
Drive Industry-Standard Clustering

HOUSTON, October 16, 1995 -- Highly-available, fault-tolerant,
business-critical computing systems are the main customer benefits of a
clustering product strategy announced today by Compaq Computer Corporation
(NYSE:CPQ). A key component of the strategy is a collaboration between
Compaq, Microsoft and Tandem to develop an industry standard for
clustering -- a technique that permits the resources of several computers
to be linked.

Compaq and Tandem will collaborate on an industry-standard means of
providing high-speed, fault-tolerant messaging between clustered servers
based on Tandem's ServerNet architecture. This technology will fit into
the Windows NT Server availability and scalability (including clustering)
strategy recently announced by Microsoft.

Compaq and Microsoft also announced plans to add support for Microsoft SQL
Server on the Compaq On-Line Recovery Server to make database recovery for
Microsoft SQL Server clients more transparent to the user. This new
product will provide levels of fault tolerance normally associated with
more expensive and complex parallel database technologies.

SERVER ARRAY DIRECTION

A cornerstone of today's announcement is Compaq's strategy to deliver
"arrays of industry standard servers" -- or server arrays -- initially
based on Windows NT Server, to be followed by other industry-standard
operating systems, such as UNIX and NetWare, over time. Additionally,
Compaq plans to work with leading database suppliers such as Oracle,
Sybase and Microsoft to integrate their products into this strategy.

Server arrays involve incorporating individual server components to create
larger systems which have significant advantages over proprietary
mid-range systems which currently fill the high availability, application
server market. These advantages include:

* enhanced system availability through redundancy -- if one server fails,
one of its peers will quickly assume the workload

* a modular pay-as-you-go growth path to even higher availability and
performance

* a new standard for total cost of ownership

"Compaq's Server Array strategy will accelerate penetration of industry
standard platforms into business-critical distributed computing
environments," said Gary Stimac, senior vice president and general
manager, Compaq Systems Division. "Compaq's overall server strategy is to
provide the midrange functionality required for business-critical
environments at industry standard server price points. Specifically,
Compaq's new clustering products are designed to deliver midrange-class
availability and scalability to large divisional/departmental database
environments and to make midrange-class availability cost- effective for
customers who have a large number of business-critical servers deployed at
remote or branch locations."

COMPAQ CLUSTERS FOR DIVISIONAL/DEPARTMENTAL DATABASES

A key component of the Compaq clustering strategy is a highly available,
scalable, shared-disk cluster for servers. Compaq and Tandem have teamed
to co-develop and promote the Tandem ServerNet architecture as an
industry-standard method for exchanging data between servers. Compaq and
Tandem will be developing cost-effective PCI-based ServerNet cards along
with ServerNet routers.

"Compaq and Tandem have joined forces to provide customers with a new
clustering solution based on Tandem's high performance, 'bullet- proof'
ServerNet technology and Compaq's industry-standard platforms. For the
first time, customers deploying workgroup and divisional/departmental
solutions will enjoy high levels of fault tolerance normally available
only to customers willing to incur far greater expense," said Stimac.

James Treybig, Tandem's president and CEO said, "Tandem, through its new
partnership with Compaq, is pleased to be able to provide its legendary
fault-tolerance and scalability to the high-volume market of new customers
who depend on industry standard operating environments and hardware for
their business solutions."

Compaq and Tandem are also working closely with Microsoft, leading
application developers and hardware vendors to help design a clustering
Application Programming Interface (API) as part of Microsoft's open design
process. In order to make clustering as broadly available as possible,
Microsoft intends to deliver this key technology for Windows NT Server and
Microsoft BackOffice.

According to Stimac, "Shared-disk database clusters have been around in
midrange environments for some time. However, non-uniform implementations
and non-uniform hardware interconnects have resulted in many unique,
expensive offerings with widely varying levels of availability and
scalability. Compaq's vision includes an industry- standard cluster
implementation which does not vary from installation- to-installation or
even from platform-to-platform. We're excited to work with Microsoft to
define their cluster API for Windows NT Server."

"Microsoft, Compaq and Tandem have a shared goal of an industry- standard
Windows NT Server cluster," said Jim Allchin, senior vice-president of the
business systems division at Microsoft. "Microsoft is working to deliver
on the vision of clustering for industry-standard servers so that we can
offer customers the same opportunity for choice for clustering that we
delivered with industry standard SMP technology in Windows NT Server."

HIGH-AVAILABILITY FOR BRANCH OFFICES

Compaq currently offers On-Line Recovery Server which utilizes a
combination of hardware and software to allow two ProLiant servers running
Windows NT Server to provide back-up processing for each other in the
event of a system outage on either system. On-Line Recovery Server is
targeted at customers with many branch sites who need a replicated
database environment that is highly available and easy to maintain. Oracle
has previously announced support for On-Line Recovery Server for Windows
NT Server.

Today, Microsoft announced that they will be supporting automatic
reconnection of clients in their next release of SQL Server allowing
clients to rapidly regain access to a SQL Server database using the high
availability features provided by Compaq servers.

"This new fast failover methodology will allow customers deploying Windows
NT Server-based solutions to achieve the same uptime levels previously
available only to customers who deployed more exotic and expensive
parallel database solutions. This level of fault tolerance makes Microsoft
SQL Server an excellent choice for business-critical database solutions,"
said Allchin.

In addition to the clustering strategy announced today, Compaq also
announced globally-consistent service and support products and high- end
server hardware. Compaq said many of the components discussed in today's
announcements make the company more competitive in the high availability,
business-critical server market.

COMPANY BACKGROUND

Compaq Computer Corporation is the world's largest supplier of personal
computers, offering desktop PCs, portable PCs and servers. Founded in
1982, the Company reported 1994 worldwide sales of $10.9 billion. Compaq
products are sold and supported in more than 100 countries throughout the
world. Compaq also sells directly to customers through Compaq Direct Plus
at 1-800-888-5858. Compaq provides 24-hour customer support and can be
reached through the Compaq forums on America Online, CompuServe, Internet
(http://www.compaq.com), and Prodigy, or by calling 1-800-345-1518.
 
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