Like Sun Microsystems Inc, DEC is eschewing a distributed shared memory architecture of the ccNUMA variety for an extended SMP symmetric multiprocessing model. It says it’s got some big iron coming down the pipe, although its high-end AlphaServers with a maximum of 14 processors are in any case some way behind the size of Unix SMP server configurations Sun or Hewlett-Packard Co can now offer. DEC’s newest SMP Unix server, the AlphaServer 8400 5/625 (CI No 3,259), is powered by up to 14 612MHz Alpha 21164 RISC chips. DEC says a 10-way system performs 24,537 tpmC at $110 per tmpC.
