IBM, as forecast here last week, held off from announcing single and dual processor versions of its Summit machine, and instead added a five-processor ES/9000 Model 860 between the four processor 820 and the six-processor 900. The company also said that all three Summit models are being enhanced to include new availability capabilities so that the machines continue running while power supplies and central processor thermal conduction modules are being replaced. The ES/9000 Models 330, 340, 500, 580, 620, and 720 are being enhanced to include an initial Escon channel increment of eight channels. PR/SM logical partitioning is being enhanced via an improved Resource Measurement Facility partition data report. The improved report will provide logical partitioning management time and should be helpful to users in understanding PR/SM low usage effects in their environments. This report will provide data that will enable customers to make better capacity planning decisions. For Transaction Processing Facility customers, the ES/9000 Models 340, 500, 580, 620, 720, 820, 860, and 900 can now enable TPF ESA mode – channel redrive – as an optional feature rather than as an RPQ as was the case on ES/3090 processors. The ES/9000 Model 860 will not be available until second quarter 1992, but IBM has now given a sche dule for upgrades to the Summit models: Model 720 to 820 and 720 to 860 are second quarter 1992; 820 to 860 and 860 to 900 are third quart er 1992. The Concurrent Power Sub system for Models 330 to 720 arr ives first quarter 1992 both built into new ones and as an upgrade, and will be built into Summit mod els. The processor availability feature will be built into 500, 580, 620, 720 shipped from June, when it will also be available as an upgrade. It will be included in Summits from second quarter 1992, as an upgrade the following quart er. The Escon channel enhancement comes now. The logical partition ing feature is fourth quarter for new 330s to 720s, first quarter as an upgrade. It will be built into 820s and 900s from first quarter 1992. The ES/9000 Model 860, comp ared with 3090-500J, is expected to provide internal throughput rate increases of 1.7 to 1.9 times in batch and interactive commercial environments, 2.0 to 2.7 times in scalar processing, and 2.0 to 2.8 times in vector work. Against a 720, an 820 should do 1.2 to 1.4 times in batch and interactive, 1.4 to 1.8 times on scalar work. The 860 comes with 384Mb to 1Gb main store, up to 8Gb Expanded Storage, and 128 to 256 channels of which 32 to 256 can be Escon channels. The 860 processor unit costs $19.315m.
