Sun Microsystems Inc’s hardware operation, now known as Sun Microsystems Computer Corp, yesterday duly introduced its so-called Galaxy range of multi-processing Sparc RISC servers (CI No 1,755). The asymmetric, two- and four-processor Sparcserver 600MP systems use pairs of 40MHz Sparc chips from Cypress Semiconductor Corp, mounted on modules that plug into Mbus slots. Models 630MP, 670MP and 690MP come with one or two modules and have a SPECthroughput rating of 50.9 – 57 MIPS – in two-processor configurations, a SPECthroughput of 91 – 114 MIPS – in four-processor arrangements: that’s around four times the performance of the firm’s existing top-end server systems. Estimated transactions per-second performance marks on the boxes are 121.5, 121.5 and 130 respectively. The Galaxy family is seen as a stop-gap measure by the Mountain View, California-based workstation manufacturer until it can bring systems to market configured around the superscalar, 80 MIPS-rated Texas Instruments Inc SuperSparc processor (CI No 1,748). Sun, which is working with Texas on the SuperSparc, has run into a number of well-documented hardware and software problems on its multi-processing journey, and it is thought that these are not the beasts originally planned when Sun started talking about its multi-processing intentions last year (CI No 1,543). However Sun says the 600MP systems will be able to upgrade to SuperSparc and other Sparcs as an when they arrive. The new servers run the Solaris 1.0 operating system software bundle launched by SunSoft Inc a few weeks ago (CI No 1,753), which includes SunOS with multi-processing extensions, Open Windows and the Open Network Computing environment. The System V.4-based multi-processing Solaris 2.0 will be supported from the middle of next year. The machines, which ship this quarter, will replace Sun’s existing Sparcserver 330, 470 and 490 systems, although users of these machines can upgrade to Galaxy status via board swap-outs: other Sun server users can get trade-in terms for their older generation systems. A two-processor 630MP comes with from 64Mb to 128Mb RAM, 1.3Gb to 26Gb disk, five VME slots and four Sbus slots: it costs UKP40,800. The two-processor 670MP comes with from 64Mb to 640Mb memory, 1.3Gb to 26Gb disk, 12 VME slots and four Sbus slots – prices start at UKP54,400; the top-end 690MP is UKP83,400 and comes with 64Mb to 640Mb RAM, 2.6Gb to 52Gb disk, 16 VME slots, four Sbus slots. Four-CPU configurations are UKP52,100, UKP65,700 and UKP94,700 respectively.
