This week Data General Corp, which market researcher International Data Corp currently – albeit surprisingly – places as the market leader in high-end Unix commercial servers, will replace the low end of its line, the one- and two-way 88100-based 4600 boxes, with the new 88110-based AV5500 running DG/UX 5.4.3. It is the second wave of its Open Enterprise scheme, which it started rolling out at the end of June, when it debuted the two- and four-way 9500s – it says these are now shipping in six- and eight-way configurations. The firm expects 12- to 16-CPU versions to follow next March or April when it will begin to add new clustering solutions. The new boxes are priced at $14,600 for a uniprocessor with 32Mb RAM, 520Mb hard drive and CD-ROM. It will cost another $8,500 for the second processor, making a total of $23,000. Target applications for the high-performance, scalable symmetric multiprocessing machines include database servers, Oracle Parallel servers and vertical value-added reseller applications. Data General says it is shipping beta test versions of Computer Associates International Inc’s CA-Unicenter for its machines two months ahead of schedule. Data General figures it can get one more generation out of the Motorola Inc chips that form the basis of its architecture and will boost the clock, expand cache and soup-up symmetric multiprocessing to perhaps 32 or more processors. But it also knows that it must eventually move to another chip and has started the evaluation process. The most important condition is that it be a commodity piece, and vice-president of corporate marketing Steve Gardner says it’s possible Data General could wind up with two processors: iAPX-86 and the PowerPC that current supplier Motorola will make.
