With Windows NT now firmly installed in the driving seat over at Unisys Corp, the company finds itself going back to drink at Tandem Computers Inc’s Redmond technology font again and again. As we suspected it would (CI No 3,057), the company’s CSG Computer Systems Group yesterday stepped up to say it will equip all of its future NT-based Aquanta Enterprise Servers with Tandem’s high-speed ServerNet interconnect board and cluster them using Microsoft Wolfpack and Oracle Parallel Server software. CSG is changing the brand name of its current low-end Advanced Logic Research Inc-sourced Intel-based ClearPath servers, also sometimes known as the SMP 5400 and 6400, to Aquanta Enterprise Servers. So too the overdue P6-based 61000 10-way when it finally appears running NT, reportedly sometime in May or June. They will share the Aquanta label with the company’s desktop PCs. The Aquanta tag will also be given to the ALR six-ways that Unisys will be OEMing, boxes that look likely to eventually replace the 5400 and 6400, which, like the 61000 will all be ServerNet-enabled. Unisys promises further enterprise NT announcements in the next few weeks. Unix in the form of UnixWare will continue to be offered but the company’s focus in the Aquanta line will be on NT. UnixWare- and NT-based symmetric multiprocessing systems will also be supplied under the ClearPath HMP nomenclature, the hybrid units that will offer mixed configurations of Unisys incompatible 2200 and A series mainframes with Unix or NT on the side. ServerNet will also be deployed in these units. Unisys says it will distribute and co-develop other unspecified ServerNet products with Tandem. It’s unclear where the UnixWare-based ccNUMA systems being sourced from Data General Corp will live, but Unisys’ company’s choice of NUMA supplier means its OEM deal with Sequent Computer Systems Inc will fizzle out in short order. Unisys’ Information Services Group has teamed with Tandem on a range of ServerWare-based offerings.
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