Here Comes the Supercomputer!
Forbes Digital Tool
"The hardware part of Starfire is easy. I think it is the software that is the key."
Despite all of this success, McNealy has yet another ace up his sleeve. Code-named Serengeti, Sun's next generation high-end server is likely to incorporate a new architecture that Sun refers to as ccNUMA (cache-coherent Non-Uniform Memory Access). It should be available in the next 18 months and will sell for more than $1 million.
Serengeti will use the next generation of UltraSPARC3 microprocessors, which may run as fast as 600 MHz. Early versions of this architecture will accommodate 24 to 78 UltraSPARCs, but Sun's clustering technology could significantly boost the number of machines (and CPUs) that can be brought to bear on a particular task. Clustering means that many computer systems are linked together in order to handle variable workloads or to provide continued operation in the event one fails. For example, a cluster of four computers, each with four CPUs, would provide a total of 16 CPUs that can process simultaneously.
Sources reveal that the number of CPUs could run up to a total of 150. While Khan claims that Starfire is already in the supercomputer class, analysts think that Serengeti will be the top contender to take on IBM and SGI, currently the two giants of the supercomputing business.
"That clearly puts the machine in the supercomputer category," says Christopher Willard, analyst with IDC (International Data Corp.), a Framingham, Mass.-based market research firm. Some of this clustering technology has already been employed in Wildfire, which uses a Sun proprietary bus to communicate between four midrange servers in a cluster.
The key component of Serengeti is the Solaris 7.0 operating system. The brand new Solaris is the outcome of a Sun's late 1980s software development project, Project Spring, which basically involved an object-oriented rewrite of the UNIX OS.
Sun officials gave no details about Serengeti, but Khan says that UltraSPARC 3 will be used in the next generation of machines. "The hardware part of Starfire is easy. I think it is the software that is the key," says Khan, pointing out that the software advantage will always be used by Sun to its maximum advantage.
Among other features, Sun will use the technology know as Fiberconnect extensively in its next generation of machines. Fiberconnect allows computers to send data over fiber optic cables at a rate of one gigabyte per second. These kinds of speeds will make Serengeti an ideal machine for data mining and data warehousing applications.
At $3 million a pop, supercomputers thus far have been the domain of academic and government research institutes. Generating about $5 billion in sales in 1998, supercomputing is not exactly a growing market, but Sun is likely to change that by pitching this massively parallel computer to corporations at an affordable price. IBM and HP had better watch out.
forbes.com |
