After, in its own words, relaunching itself with its Himalaya parallel servers, Tandem Computers Inc last week announced the promised models in the line, as well as the Integrity Unix boxes (CI No 2,577). Tandem claims that with the addition of Asynchronous Transfer Mode input-output interfaces the new MIPS R-series RISC-based parallel servers offer up to three times the performance of the current models at comparable pricing. The new Himalaya parallel servers are the K20000, the K2000, K200 and K2. The first two replace K10000 and K1000, the latter two supersede the K100. Like the K10000, the K20000 can scale to a theoretical 4,000 processors, and is said to offer a 50% performance boost over the K10000. It uses 200MHz R4400s. A two-processor affair, the K20002, comes with 256Mb RAM and seven slots. The models step up in multiples of two processors to the K20016, a 16-way system with 2Gb of memory. Above six-ways, TorusNet H-link controllers are bundled: the K20016 has eight of them.
Linked together
With Multidomain TorusNet the K20000 will scale to the full 4,000 processors and accommodate 4Mb cache per processor, 1,044Gb RAM and 16,711Tb disk. With TorusNet Domain the K20000 reaches 224 processors supporting 4Mb cache per processor, 57Gb RAM and 918Tb disk. With TorusNet Node the K20000 runs to 16 processors, 4,000Mb RAM and 65Tb disk. Configured with up to 56 processors, each using Tandem’s TorusNet, four processing modules can be linked together as a single 224-node domain, which are interconnected with fibre links to reach the maximum 4,000-way system. K20000s start from $339,000. The K2000 also runs 200MHz R4400s. A two-way system, the K2002 comes with 256Mb RAM and three slots. The 16-way K2016 has 2Gb RAM and 31 slots. K2000s start at $135,000. The K200 line uses 125MHz R4400s. A K202 with two processors comes with 128Mb RAM. The top-end four-way K204 has up to 512Mb RAM and 184Gb disk. It starts at $70,000. The K200s offer more memory and expansion than the old K100s in addition to the faster processor. Meanwhile, the existing K100s have also been fitted with the latest MIPS RISCs, been renamed K2s and still start at from $25,000. All are out in March except the K200s which are planned for mid-year. Existing users can upgrade by swapping boards or by adding the new boards to their existing configuration. Each runs Tandem’s NonStop Kernel 2.0 release D30.01, the microkernel implementation of its proprietary Guardian operating system. D30 comes with a Posix.1 and .2 application programming interface superset; Tandem is aiming at XPG4 branding rather than Spec 1170 conformity per se. Beta releases of the promised Distributed Computing Environment, parallel CICS and NonStop Tuxedo are slated for dot releases of the operating system from next quarter. There are also new Integrity Network Resource and Fault Tolerant Unix machines using the 200MHz R4400 RISC. The Network Resource machines – re-badged Silicon Graphics Inc Challenge servers, now include the symmetric multiprocessor NR/4412 (12-way Challenge) and NR/4436 (36-way Challenge); models start from $97,000 and $149,000 respectively. The performance improvement is tagged at 33% but users of the Integrity NR models may see a 70% performance boost in some cache-dependent applications. Tandem went to its UB Networks Inc unit for the GeoRim/Ethernet Asynchronous Transfer Mode gateway, which scales up to 12 connections to the Himalaya server so that data from an Asynchronous Mode network can be broken into multiple Ethernet connections and fed to the individual processors. The K20000s start from $339,000 and will be available in March.
