NEC last week began selling the 32-processor Itanium server, called the TX7 in Japan, as the Express 5800/1000 in the US. Right now it comes only with Linux and is geared for technical computing tasks such as materials stress analysis for engineering. When the thrice-delayed .Net Server 2003 OS becomes available in April 2003, a Windows version of the NEC machine will go on sale. The system doesn't come cheap. The configuration used to set the Windows transaction speed record costs $1.8m, about $800,000 of that for the 256GB of memory, Mitch said. Lower-end versions aren't as stratospheric; an eight-processor system with 8GB of memory starts at $166,000; a 16-processor system with 16GB of memory starts at about $365,000. One key requirement for operating systems on these large servers is support for a concept called nonuniform memory access, or NUMA. Systems with a handful of processors can all share a single memory bank, but larger servers often are split up with four-processor modules each located next to its own patch of memory. Processors running a particular task can fetch information from memory that's not in their local cell, but it takes longer--hence the term "nonuniform." To get maximum performance, information needed by a computing process should be stored in the memory next to the processor running that computing process. That's a key feature being added to the next version of Windows, and NUMA-oriented server makers including NEC, SGI, Fujitsu and IBM are working to build it into Linux as well. Dell disagrees
Dell, though, the up-and-comer in the Intel server market and one of Microsoft's strongest allies, isn't interested in big iron. The approach, favored by companies such as Dell rival Sun Microsystems, is doomed to eventual extinction, said Joe Marengi, senior vice president of Dell's Americas division. "You're talking about spending $1m for a box," Marengi said in an interview at Comdex. "The market will continue to get smaller and smaller and smaller for that kind of box." Instead, Dell believes clustering eight-processor servers is the way to go -- in particular, with Oracle's new 9i Real Application Clusters database software designed to run across a group of cheaper servers. "I can make a case that the highest thing you need is an eight-way," Marengi said. Clustered databases will work. "There's no question on this," he said. Not everyone agrees, though. A large Las Vegas casino chain couldn't get enough performance out of its Dell eight-processor servers and now is installing the NEC 5800/1000, Mitch said. HP backs both
Hewlett-Packard, the No. 2 Unix server seller after Sun, is hedging its bets. In 2003, it plans to sell 64-processor Superdome systems with Itanium processors and Windows, but in the long term, it believes clusters of low-end systems will prevail. Distributing databases across multiple servers is "significantly more difficult" than putting them on single large servers, said Timothy J. Golden, director of marketing for HP's Industry Standard Server Group, in an interview. "However, that's ultimately what we hope to do." HP has bet three separate server lines on Intel's Itanium processor, a chip HP helped to develop. The Itanium is designed specifically to work better than Pentium and Xeon processors in large multiprocessor systems. Golden promised HP soon would place well on Itanium benchmark tests as well. Like NEC's 5800/1000, Unisys' ES7000 and IBM's x440, HP's servers can be divided into independent partitions, each with its own operating system. That would accommodate Linux, the HP-UX version of Unix and Windows. "Microsoft is extremely excited about big-iron Windows," Golden said. Microsoft is indeed breathless with anticipation. "Win.Net Server 2003...will catapult us into very high-end machines," said Bob O'Brien, group product manager of the Windows.Net Server division. But Illuminata's Eunice urges caution before declaring Microsoft the victor. Although Microsoft continues to improve its database software, and business partners are steadily gaining experience with high-end machines, "the market for that (big-iron) Windows is early," Eunice said. "This is at the edge of the envelope."
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