By Rik Turner
Market-leading US storage vendor EMC Corp is studying the possibility of switching the chip on which the intelligence for its Symmetrix RAID arrays runs from the PowerPC from Motorola Inc to a more robust alternative, with an Intel processor a strong candidate.
EMC needs to move to a more powerful chip than the PowerPC to meet the challenge represented by dot-com businesses. Now sources within the company say the recent acquisition of Data General Corp puts it in a good position to take advantage of DGÆs expertise in Intel.
Prior to the takeover by EMC, Clariion was readying a line of RAID boxes on Intel, precisely to attack the data center market in which its Cambridge, Massachusetts-based rival reigns supreme. That line, which would have been launched in mid-2000, was code-named K10, and ClariionÆs experience of porting its RAID intelligence from the PowerPC its existing products used to IntelÆs 32-bit chips could now well feed into EMCÆs efforts in this area.
The move to Intel would also make it easier for EMC to take full advantage of DGÆs extensive know-how in Non-Uniform Memory Architecture (NUMA), which runs on Intel chips in the acquired companyÆs Aviion servers.
Last week EMC Mike Ruettgers hinted that more announcements in the context of NUMA were on the way shortly from the company, adding that they would be made jointly with Microsoft at Comdex, a further indication that Intel looks to be the favorite for future generations of Symmetrix.
