UniForum thanks Data General, Digital Equipment Corp. and SCO for their Sponsorship Renewals. The Product News below should be of interest to UniForum members, and was submitted by the companies.
The Building Blocks of Computer Systems
Advances in the computer industry have been driven by a series of fundamentally different building blocks. Each advance created a massive price/performance discontinuity between the existing and the newer systems. The force behind these dramatic changes is semiconductor technology, which has evolved at an exponential pace from transistors, to integrated circuits (ICs), to microprocessors.The microprocessor spawned the PC industry in the mid-1970s and hastened acceptance of microprocessor-related design standards based on the Intel architecture. The resulting commoditization of components led to even greater economies and incentives for further integration and innovation.
A New Building Block Emerges
Today, hardware commoditization has moved up a level -- from the microprocessor to the Standard High-Volume (SHV) server, the newest system-design building block. An SHV server motherboard from Intel is an "SMP-ready," high-performance system with four Intel Pentium® Pro processors, 512 KB of cache per processor, 4 GB of memory, and dual PCI I/O channels. A new class of commodity SMP servers is emerging to take advantage of the PC-like economies of the SHV server motherboard, forcing a change in the paradigm for constructing large-scale systems.Data General's NUMALiiNE Technology
Data General is using Intel SHV building blocks to build next-generation large-scale AViiON systems. These systems, based on our NUMALiiNE technology, will use the Cache Coherent Non-Uniform Memory Access (ccNUMA) architecture to tightly integrate multiple SHV building blocks, delivering "enterprise-capable" performance in economical packages. ccNUMA greatly extends the capabilities of today's SMP systems while presenting application software with the shared memory programming model that is already familiar to software developers.As a result, thousands of existing SMP applications will require no modification to take advantage of these powerful ccNUMA systems. The commodity pricing, strong performance potential, and wide scalability of SHV/ccNUMA will give system designers significant competitive advantages in future high-end business computing markets.
Defining ccNUMA
ccNUMA is a means of implementing a distributed, shared memory. It uses techniques such as hierarchical memories and intelligent resource management to optimize processor workloads, and maintain its single-memory personality. With this architecture, multiple four-processor SHV motherboards are joined by interconnect technology that implements ccNUMA across the full SMP system.The interconnect bridge, based on ANSI/IEEE standard Scalable Coherent Interface (SCI) technology, forms a fast, 1-GB/second point-to-point link between nodes; contains important operating system interfaces; and maintains a large, L3 cache that works with the SCI logic to enforce cache coherence across the entire system.
For the Future
The availability of Data General AViiON highly scalable systems, based on ccNUMA and Intel SHVs, will redefine the price/performance attributes available to database, data warehousing, decision-support, and other glass-house applications. In addition, these systems will allow for new classes of applications which require CPU power, memory, and I/O capacities which exceed most of today's SMP systems.For more information visit us on line at http://www.dg.com
Simple ordering and problem-free installation
The only thing better than a DIGITAL AlphaServer TruCluster system is an AlphaServer TruCluster system that is delivered pre-configured to customer specifications and ready to run.Now you can enjoy the performance and high-availability of DIGITAL AlphaServer TruCluster systems with simplified implementation, reduced install time, and a significantly lower risk associated with complex configurations.
The new AlphaServer TruCluster program from DIGITAL includes factory installation and testing of DIGITAL software, storage, and networking components. The AlphaServer TruCluster solution leaves the factory ready for application installation.
Factory Integration for both the base and adder nodes includes:
- Direct contact with the account manager to provide cost-effective expertise
- Complete cluster staging, integration, and burn-in
- Server, operating system, and storage configuration:
Verification of hardware, software, and firmware configuration
Configuration of DIGITAL UNIX, Logical Storage Manager, Advanced File System Utilities, and TruCluster software
Setup of system node names and IP addresses for systems and MEMORY CHANNEL, a breakthrough technology with 10 times the performance of FDDI.
Configuration of RAID controllers, mirror/stripe and spare sets
Configuration of Advanced Server for either NFS or Disk Service
Establishment of time and bind service as required
Verification of system, network, and disk failover
System labeling
DIGITAL TruCluster solutions are the premier high availability computing platforms for mission-critical applications. Companies today that are betting their business on UNIX TruClusters include: Best Western Hotels, Fannie Mae, and The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). The combination of DIGITAL TruCluster software capabilities, performance- leading AlphaServer systems, and 64-bit DIGITAL UNIX technology provides the most scalable, reliable, and affordable solution in the market. For more information, call 1-800-DIGITAL.
SCO Corporate Overview:
The Internet Way of ComputingSCO is the world's leading provider of UNIX servers for the Intel processor platform, including host systems, network application servers, and Internet/Intranet servers. It is also a leading provider of client-integration software which integrates Microsoft Windows and other desktop "clients" with all major UNIX system servers. SCO Business Critical Servers run the day-to-day operations of large branch organizations in retail, finance, telecom and government, as well as corporate departments and small to medium sized businesses. Business Critical Servers are used for an organization's core transaction-based applications, such as accounting, order entry, manufacturing resource planning, financial services, retail management, health care administration, and database applications.
SCO products utilize an open systems approach featuring "best of breed technology". SCO's expertise in sourcing, enhancing and integrating third-party technologies leverages the skills and efforts of leading technology providers, dramatically enhancing SCO's worldwide internal product development team, providing powerful, cost effective and truly open system software solutions.
SCO, along with other major software suppliers, is promoting a new vision of computing that is being driven by a confluence of technologies, including the World Wide Web, Java development language, a new generation of diverse clients, and major advancements in communications. The Internet Way of Computing is an evolution of the client/server paradigm that is causing a shift from client-centric computing towards server- and network-centric computing. This reliance on servers and networks will favor system attributes such as reliability, scalability, security, and price/performance--all long-standing capabilities and strengths of the UNIX System -- and all will promote computing architectures that are more client-neutral than those of the client/server model of today.
As the world's leading supplier of UNIX servers, SCO is ideally positioned to lead this transformation. Its established leadership position in providing Business Critical Servers provides a strong foundation upon which to build next-generation applications, including corporate Intranets, Internet business-to-business computing, "occasional use" systems, and computer/telecommunications integration. SCO is also committed to preserving investments in applications, and is developing products such as "Tarantella technology, that will allow existing X-based and character applications to support any Java language-based client and migrate quickly into The Internet Way of Computing model.
SCO's growth is driven by several trends within the information technology industry: the improving price-performance of Intel processor-based PCs, the movement of business-critical applications from mainframces to minicomputers to networks of PCs and NCs, and the revitalization of the "server-centric" computing model. To capitalize on these trends, SCO has significantly broadened its product portfolio, leveraging its strength in the volume server market to include new, high growth markets, including: Layered Products, Internet/Intranet, Client Integration and Embedded Systems. To learn more about SCO, please visit our website: http://www.sco.com