Data General Corp is clearly not the only Unixer that is going to expolit Intel Corp’s quad-processor P6 boards in large-scale system designs – Beaverton, Oregon-based Sequent Computer Systems Inc, still apparently cleaning out its nest under new president and chief operating officer John McAdam, has been muttering about shared memory architecture and large processor counts for some time. It is looking to use the P6 boards in high-end systems it calls Sting, which are due to appear late next year. Like Data General’s next-generation AViiONs, they will be tied together with a Scalable Coherent Interconnect technology that overcomes current bus-backplane limitations. But whether Sequent has also turned to Data General supplier and Scalable Coherent Interconnect specialist Dolphin Interconnect Solutions A/S is not yet known. Sequent is likely to bring the technology into use in its Pentium servers before its P6 systems are ready. Current operating systems and applications should run without the need to change too much code, Sequent said. It expects to have its head above the rest of a crowd led by AT&T Corp, ICL Plc and Unisys Corp, who are heading down the P6 board-based enterprise system route, by dint of the co-design work it has done with Intel. It has provided symmetric multiprocessing input that Intel lacks, and so the implementation should be a well-understood task for Sequent. It might even license its architecture or design to others. With four processors, the price-performance of even single board offerings from the likes of Compaq Computer Corp is likely to eat into some of these vendors’ markets. Sequent, however, will aim Sting towards its current 12-way sweet spot with a three-board offering – touting other new fault-tolerant components and a more robust implementation of the boards that is claimed to eliminate interference.
