Elmer - Re: "It is possible that Intel may change that configuration in the future."
Thanks for the update.
And now, more on Compaq and Intel -
Paul
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infoworld.com
Compaq fills out E2000 server
strategy
By David Pendery
InfoWorld Electric
Posted at 2:13 PM PT, Jan 26, 1998
Compaq Computer's "n-node" clustering and high-availability strategy is taking shape, and the company hopes its newly minted E2000 architecture will propel Compaq and its partners high into the enterprise for years to come.
The E2000 strategy, first outlined last fall, comprises an array of initiatives, including clustered symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) servers linked by VI and ServerNet protocols; attached Fibre Channel storage products; high-speed data buses; APIs and software development kits; and silicon emulations of E2000 protocols.
E2000 also includes a tightly knit group of partners including Microsoft, Intel, Tandem, and Compaq's newly acquired subsidiary Digital. (See With $9.6 billion buyout of Digital, Compaq rolls toward IT goals.)
"Some people call it building a mainframe a block at a time. It's a very modular approach," said Mike Perez, vice president of the company's server products division. "This is an architecture that is a quantum leap, like SMP was a few years ago."
The strategy is aimed squarely at the highest levels of the enterprise, according to Perez and Pauline Nist, senior vice president at Tandem's parallel systems group. They predict that E2000 technology developments will allow the management and organization of as many as 500,000 transactions per minute by the year 2000.
"The key importance is, as customers deploy more Windows NT applications considered mission-critical, pushing the edge of OLTP [online transaction processing], messaging, and data warehousing, the intent is to create an architecture to scale with their needs," Perez said.
Under the E2000 architecture, the Proliant server itself is the basic building block around which clustering, communication protocols, storage, and operating environments orbit. Compaq's movement into eight-way Intel-powered servers, expected later this year, will be a watershed in the architecture, Perez and Nist said.
"The combination of SMP complemented by clustering is a powerful package," Nist said.
Nist added that the two companies examined NUMA architectures as an element of high-performance computing. But she added that "they require very high-speed buses to create coherence at the memory traffic level." To adapt NT to E2000, "we would have had to rewrite the NT virtual memory system," she said.
Perez said products, technology, and services will emerge under the initiative's aegis almost immediately and continue steadily through the millennium. Four-processor servers in four-node clusters running Oracle 8 will be released soon. Other products and applications will emerge as they are optimized for the environment, Perez said.
Perez also said that Compaq's acquisition of Digital will significantly advance the use of Fibre Channel storage subsystems for E2000 networks, although Compaq itself has Fibre Channel products in beta that are scheduled to ship soon.
Perez acknowledged that the E2000 architecture and the melding of Compaq, Tandem, and Digital technology will be a challenge.
"This is a steep incline. It is going to take a bunch of work," Perez said.
Compaq Computer Corp., in Houston, can be reached at compaq.com.
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