Paul, FWIW the following is an announcement of the SGI ccNUMA line. SGI's plan is to transition these machines to IA-64 although it's unclear to me how long they will maintain a MIPS line.
SGI Launches Revolutionary Line of Modular Computers -
Introduces First Systems to Employ Patented NUMAflex Technology SGI Origin 3000 Series Servers and SGI Onyx 3000 Series Visualization Systems Offer Performance, Custom Configurations, Resiliency and Overall Investment Protection for a Wide Range of Business, Scientific, Medical and Media Users
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Jul 25, 2000 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- SGI (NYSE: SGI chart, msgs) today announced the launch of the SGI(TM) 3000 family of systems, which employ a breakthrough in modular design and computer architecture that stands to revolutionize high-performance computing. Available immediately, the SGI(TM) Origin(TM) 3000 series of servers and SGI(TM) Onyx(R) 3000 series of visualization systems promise flexibility, resiliency, overall investment protection, superior performance and scalability.
SGI Origin 3000 series servers and SGI Onyx 3000 series visualization systems utilize the unique SGI(TM) NUMAflex(TM) modular technology, a "brick"-style system for constructing small to very large systems from a common set of building blocks. The SGI NUMAflex modular system allows users to build the optimum configuration one component at a time and adopt new technologies that map to their specific business or research needs. In contrast, traditional high-performance computers may need to be replaced all at once as often as once a year to keep up with competitive demands and technological changes -- a costly and cumbersome process.
SGI Origin 3000 Series and SGI Onyx 3000 Series in Detail
SGI Origin 3000 series servers enable "capability computing" -- the ability to analyze and solve complex problems that were previously unsolvable. For existing projects or applications, SGI Origin 3000 series servers provide greater precision, quicker results and breakthroughs in price/performance.
SGI Onyx 3000 series visualization systems offer users a unique combination of graphics capability and compute power. This combination allows for visualization of large, complex volumetric data (e.g., brain mapping); allows interactivity and realism (e.g., pilot training simulation); provides bandwidth and image quality for real-time, high-definition special effects (e.g., broadcast); and has the visual accuracy and compute power that enable interactive design (e.g., photo-realistic automotive modeling).
SGI Origin 3000 and SGI Onyx 3000 series systems utilize the SGI(TM) IRIX(R) operating system, the world's premier 64-bit UNIX(R) operating system for high-performance computing, advanced visualization and production supercomputing. SGI IRIX is renowned for its leadership in scalable computation; high-performance data movement, sharing, and management; real-time applications support; and media streaming capabilities. Technical applications that currently run on the SGI(TM) 2000 series and Silicon Graphics(R) Onyx2(R) systems will run on SGI 3000 family systems with as much as twice the previous performance without the need for recompilation. All technical applications currently available on SGI 2000 series and Silicon Graphics Onyx2 systems can run on the new systems.
NUMAflex Technology Makes It All Possible
With NUMAflex technology, each drawer-like module in a system has a specific function and can be linked, through the patented SGI high-speed system interconnect, to many other bricks of varying types to create a fully customized configuration. The same bricks, depending on their number or configuration, can be used for a continually expanding range of high-performance computing needs: C-brick (CPU module), P-brick (PCI expansion), D-brick (disk storage), R-brick (system/memory interconnect), I-brick (base I/O module), X-brick (XIO expansion) and G-brick (InfiniteReality(R) graphics). New brick types will be added to the NUMAflex modular offering for specialized configurations (e.g., broadband data streaming) and as new technologies, such as PCI-X and Infiniband, enter the market. The systems can also be deployed in clusters or as large shared-memory systems, depending on users' needs.
"The scalability, flexibility and performance of these systems are what customers have been asking for," said Jan Silverman, vice president, Advanced Systems Marketing, SGI. "SGI is proud to be the first to successfully bring modular computing to the industry."
Favorable Customer and Industry Reaction
Customer and analyst reaction to the product launch has been very favorable. Notable SGI 3000 family clients, including the U.S. Army Engineering Research Development Center and NASA/Ames Research Center, have either ordered or already taken delivery. These organizations will use the systems for a variety of needs, ranging from financial analytics to crash-test simulation and aircraft testing. In addition, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. has selected the SGI Origin 3400 as the broadband server for a next-generation entertainment demonstration at SIGGRAPH 2000.
NASA/Ames Research Center
"One of the key elements when we're designing a vehicle that is going to fly in the atmosphere and reenter is that it takes a large number of engineers a long period of time -- three years or more -- to design the vehicle," said Henry McDonald, director of NASA/Ames Research Center, Mountain View, Calif. "By improving the turnaround time and increasing the number of calculations possible while increasing the fidelity, we reduce the overall development time of the vehicle."
U.S. Army Engineering Research Development Center
"The installation of a 512-processor, single system supercomputer from SGI using next-generation SGI Origin 3000 series technology will give government and academic researchers across the country access to the most advanced NUMA shared-memory computing architecture available today," said Bradley Comes, director of the U.S. Army Engineering Research Development Center's Major Shared Resource Center (ERDC MSRC), Vicksburg, Miss. The ERDC MSRC is one of four Major Shared Resource Centers established under the Department of Defense High-Performance Computing Modernization Program. Although the system is physically located at the ERDC MSRC, the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center (ARSC) at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks is a partner in the deployment of the new system. Dr. Frank Williams, director of ARSC, added, "We are looking forward to leveraging the combined expertise at the two centers along with the new SGI system to address the large computational requirements the DoD research and development and test and evaluation communities are demanding."
Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.
"The SGI Origin 3000 series server represents the kind of power needed to fuel the next generation of broadband entertainment," said Ken Kutaragi, president and chief executive officer for Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. "We have a vision of the future of entertainment and SGI is an integral partner in demonstrating that vision."
International Data Corporation (IDC)
"IDC believes that NUMAflex and its current implementation in the form of the SGI Origin 3000 product line should strongly position SGI to regain customer mind share and sales," said Earl Joseph, Research Director, IDC. "SGI should see strong acceptance of this product in its core technical markets as well as in the markets that service the creative user. Moreover, we see this as a potentially strong product to support emerging Internet workloads given its flexibility, scalability and modular attributes."
Pricing and Availability
Available immediately, the system entry-level price is approximately $50,000 (U.S. list). A single system scales from 2 to 512 processors and up to a terabyte of memory and petabytes of online storage. Clustered models of SGI 3000 series systems deliver thousands of processors and terabytes of memory. |
