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Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Joey Smith who wrote (67713)	11/2/1998 12:26:00 PM
From: Joey Smith	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

Here come 8-way systems....make that 64-way systems! joey techweb.com Vendors Unleash Eight-Way Profusion (11/02/98 7:35 a.m. ET) By Mitch Wagner, InternetWeek PC servers are scaling up to support data center applications. In coming weeks, Compaq, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi PC, and IBM will roll out eight-processor Pentium II Xeon servers that use processor interconnects from the Corollary unit of Intel. IBM and HP plan to demonstrate their servers at Comdex and ship systems by June. Compaq, which also will exhibit its server at Comdex, and Dell plan first-quarter shipment of their new servers. Hitachi, which announced its product offering in September, also will demonstrate its server at Comdex. Dell next week will announce its second-generation four-processor Xeon system, designed like its predecessor to fit in standard 19-inch rack enclosures in data centers where space is tight. The new PowerEdge 6350 system is much smaller than the PowerEdge 6300 introduced this summer; 10 of the 6350s fit in a 19-inch rack, compared with six to the rack for the 6300. "I think what we have been doing is marching up the enterprise with increasingly sophisticated solutions -- four processor, eight processor, enterprise storage," said Michael Dell, chairman and CEO of Dell. The eight-processor servers are the first fruit from Intel's purchase last year of Corollary, a manufacturer of interconnects that link Intel processors. The Corollary Profusion technology used in the eight-way servers is designed to link two four-processor blocks into a single system. The new generation of eight-processor machines are far from being the biggest Xeon systems, however. Sequent Computer Systems, for example, recently introduced a 64-processor system. Data General plans to ship a 64-processor system next year, and Unisys will ship a 32-processor system during the same time frame, according to company officials. The new eight-processor systems are the first to use a standard architecture from Intel rather than proprietary technology, and that's an important distinction, said John Delta, director of interactive services for the Nasdaq Stock Market, which currently operates a 10-processor, proprietary, Intel-based system from Unisys. "The Unisys boxes are killers, but they're real expensive," Delta said. Delta said he expects the newer systems to be less expensive than their predecessors, but none of the server vendors disclosed pricing details this week. Support is another reason why the shift to Intel interconnects is important, Delta said. "It's easier to get support for an open standard than it is for a tweaked version of NT working on a closed box," he said. The HP system will be an upgrade of the existing four-processor HP NetServer LXR 8000, which offers up to 8 GB of memory. Last year, HP introduced the LXR Pro8, an eight-processor Pentium Pro system using interconnect technology from Axil Computers. Dell and IBM plan to emphasize manageability, reliability, and serviceability of their servers, according to company officials. The IBM server will ship with dual memory cards, rather than a single card, to eliminate a single point of failure, IBM officials said. It also will have LightPath diagnostics, an on-board panel of LEDs that point users to failing parts. The technology also is available on existing PC servers from IBM. The eight-way servers are likely to be used in large databases and demanding online transaction processing applications, said Jerry Sheridan, an analyst at Dataquest. Users of eight-way systems generally run two applications on the servers for redundancy and reliability, one on each of the four-processor sets.