By Nick Patience
Tru64 will be, as expected, the new name for Compaq Computer Corp’s Digital Unix operating system. However there’s still no word on additional OEM partners for the operating system, which is looking increasingly isolated in the converging Unix world. On Monday the company will also announce version 4.0f of the OS running on the Alpha processors – the version for Intel Corp’s IA-64 Merced chip will ship at the same time as the processor, says Compaq. The latest understanding we have about Intel’s secretive plan is systems being ready to ship some time in the second half of 2000. There’s no word yet from Compaq on the level of integration we can expect between the Bravo Unix-on-Intel it is developing and the Monterey effort being developed by IBM, Santa Cruz Operation and one-time Compaq Unix partner, Sequent, based on the AIX kernel. Tru64 4.0f is an upgrade from versions 4.0d and 4.0e and adds support for the latest Alpha chip out of Compaq, the 21264, plus support for TruCluster version 1.6, LDAP and WBEM support. The Tru64 name comes from the TruCluster brand name used for clusters of the old DEC servers. Version 5.0 will feature increased physical memory and user support, taking it to 28 GB of physical storage and tens of thousands of users. It will also feature dynamic resource partitioning that enables partitioning of the operating system to manage multiple workloads. Integration of the Memory Channel- based TruCluster technology with the ServerNet-based NonStop interconnect from Compaq’s Tandem is likely to be included in version 5.0 also, as is increased Unix-NT integration, including single task and password management. Version 5.0 will appear some time next year. The version after that will likely include sub- second failover and is currently slated to be 6.0. On the AlphaServer front, Compaq is also announcing today the DS20, a dual processor Alpha machine, based on the 21264 64-bit chip and meant as an alternative to the company’s 1200 server, which it says it will continue to sell and support, but this is supposed to offer double the performance of that machine. The DS20 runs two 500MHz 21264 and will be offered with Tru64 Unix or Open VMS, or in an OS-free version aimed at those that want to run Linux. There are no plans to sell it running Windows NT. The 0.35 micron 21264 is still designed in-house at the Alpha design group, but manufactured by Intel and Samsung. It offers memory bandwidth of 5.2Gb/sec with two 256k buses, which Compaq claims is more than twice that of the Sun Enterprise 250 and offers 11,616 tpmC marks at $50.58 per tpmC. In addition, Compaq is also announcing upgrades to the Internet AlphaServer software (IASS), to 4.2, which adds LDAP integration from Netscape and anti-spam filtering, plus the enterprise toolkit for Visual Studio has been promoted to version 1.2 to support Tru64. Compaq believes it is the first company to offer a beta of a Java Developer’s Kit 1.2, what Sun now refers to as Java 2, on its AlphaServers. Finally, Compaq is cutting most AlphaServer system prices by up to 33% and has reduced memory prices for the 800 and 1200 by up to one quarter. Upgrades for the 4100 to include the 21264 chip are now available. Version 4.0f of Tru64 will be available in March at the same price as the previous version, starting at $1,200 for AlphaServers 800, 1200 and the new DS20 and unlimited user pricing starting at $1,300. The DS20 AlphaServer with 128Mb or RAM and 4GB hard drive starts at $19,000 with Tru64, or Open VMS and the so-called Linux-ready configuration costs $15,000.
