Unix Servers Under Attack

While the first microprocessor to implement Intel's IA-64 architecture probably won't appear until 1999, industry analysts are already predicting that IA-64 processors will take over most of the market that workstations from, for example, Silicon Graphics, now fill. Today, the rise of the Pentium Pro microprocessor and the Windows NT OS has threatened the existing market position of Unix-based servers from vendors such as IBM, Silicon Graphics, a nd Sun Microsystems. In fact, Wintel servers are increasingly capturing the midrange-server market.

Although today's Intel machines can hardly attain the high-end performance of Unix machines, they're grabbing a good slice of the low-end and midrange market because they're considerably less expensive. Major Unix vendors are scrambling to announce plans to follow Intel's lead. For example, Hewlett-Packard is moving from PA-RISC to IA-64, and Silicon Graphics recently acknowledged that it will add Intel-based systems to its lineup. In addition, Sun has already made moves to align itself with the Intel camp, and it has announced that Solaris will fully support Intel's next-generation Merced chip.

But this doesn't mean that Unix vendors are rolling over and playing dead. They're introducing high-performance clustered enterprise systems. For example, Sun will increase cluster support from two nodes to four with its Full Moon technology. This will enable users to cluste r four 64-processor UltraEnterprise 10000 symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) servers, for a total of 256 processors. Meanwhile, IBM and Digital Equipment are adding 64-bit SMP machines to their product lines. "I'm sure Unix workstations will continue to dominate the high end of the workstation market," says J. L. Tasy, general manager for the international RISC system division at Tatung. "For transaction-intensive applications, Unix systems are still the best choice," adds Tony Chen of Amaquest. His company has picked Digital's Alpha processors as the base technology for its new-generation servers.

Amaquest is also currently working with Digital to introduce a clustering server based on Digital's 600-MHz 21264 processor. This high-speed chip offers a peak execution rate of 2.4 billion instructions per second and boasts 18.0-SPECint95 and 27.0-SPECfp95 ratings. This new Alpha server will include dual 21264 CPUs, an Intel 960 chip, and Windows NT. The server is due early this year, acco rding to the company.

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Cluster Servers for Protection

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Amaquest's FT-830 clustering server.