Data General and Unisys agree to share Intel server technologies.WESTBORO, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 7, 1996--Data General Corporation and Unisys Corporation announced today a strategic relationship that will bring significant price/performance benefits to corporate buyers of UNIX servers based on the Intel processor architecture. Data General will provide Unisys with its NUMALiiNE technology. Data General's NUMA (Non-Uniform Memory Access) A multiprocessing architecture in which memory is separated into close and distant banks. NUMA is similar to SMP, in which multiple CPUs share a single memory. However, in SMP, all CPUs access a common memory at the same speed. (Non Uniform Memory Access) architecture enables the linkage of multiple Intel architecture quad-processor motherboards, called Standard High Volume (SHV SHV Shareholder Value SHV Standard High Volume SHV Sheave SHV Steenkolen Handels Vereeniging SHV Shreveport, LA, USA - Regional Airport (Airport Code) SHV Sport Horse Versatility SHV Supersonic/Hypersonic Vehicle SHV Super Hybrid Vehicle ) servers, into systems that perform at the highest levels, yet run existing symmetric multiprocessing (SMP (Symmetric MultiProcessing) A multiprocessing architecture in which multiple CPUs, residing in one cabinet, share the same memory. SMP systems provide scalability. As business increases, additional CPUs can be added to absorb the increased transaction volume. ) applications without expensive and complex rewrites. Data General's implementation of the NUMA architecture includes the ANSI/IEEE standard Scalable Coherent Interface (hardware, protocol) Scalable Coherent Interface - (SCI) The ANSI/IEEE 1596-1992 standard that defines a point-to-point interface and a set of packet protocols. The SCI protocols use packets with a 16-byte header and 16, 64, or 256 data bytes. (SCI (Scalable Coherent Interface) An IEEE standard for a high-speed bus that uses wire or fiber-optic cable. It can transfer data up to 1GBytes/sec. (hardware) SCI - 1. Scalable Coherent Interface. 2. UART. ) interconnect technology and sophisticated operating system features. Unisys will provide Data General with high performance Synchronous Coherent Memory (SCM (1) (Software Configuration Management, Source Code Management) See configuration management. (2) See supply chain management. ) bus technology for inclusion in its AViiON family of enterprise servers. The Unisys SCM bus technology, with its Sierra-Pro processor boards, provides growth and protects user investment by supporting a highly scalable interconnect capability for up to ten Intel Pentium Pro processors. The SCO UnixWare system will be the operating system of choice on NUMA systems at Unisys. SCO (The SCO Group, Lindon, UT, www.sco.com) A leading vendor of Unix operating systems for the x86 platform. SCO had also offered Linux, but abandoned the line in the spring of 2003. The SCO Group is the combination of two companies: Utah-based Caldera, Inc. , the Santa Cruz Operation See SCO. Santa Cruz Operation - (SCO) A supplier of Unix systems for Intel microprocessors. They supply Xenix and Open Desktop. Founded in 1979, SCO became a public company in May, 1993 and trades on the Nasdaq National Market System under the symbol SCOC. , has chosen to work with Data General to develop the NUMA version of the SCO UnixWare system. Data General and Unisys are at the forefront of companies using the SCI standard in commercial products. The SCM bus, with its expansion capability beyond four Pentium Pro processors, is an evolutionary step toward SCI-based NUMA systems. Both the SCM and SCI systems use the traditional shared memory programming model. As a result, thousands of existing SMP applications can run on the new systems. "The consistency in technical requirements and design approach between the two companies is impressive," said David McCann, Unisys vice president of marketing for SMP servers, Enterprise Server Division. "The highly scalable Unisys 10-processor SCM bus will enable SMP server customers to take advantage of standard high volume Intel processors and achieve industry leading scalable Intel Pentium Pro processor performance." "This agreement helps encourage widespread adoption of the NUMALiiNE architecture on the Intel platform and will make it even more attractive to enterprise software vendors who recognize the efficiency and cost benefits of having a standardized architectural implementation," said Joel Schwartz, vice president of Worldwide Sales and Marketing for Data General. "SCI and NUMA will become increasingly important as standards enabling vendors to match the price/performance of commodity CPU CPU in full central processing unit Principal component of a digital computer, composed of a control unit, an instruction-decoding unit, and an arithmetic-logic unit. technologies with market demand for cost-effective, highly scalable enterprise servers." "We are working with both Data General and Unisys to ensure Pentium Pro processor support for the SCI interconnect technology," said Dave House, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Enterprise Server Group. "This agreement between Data General and Unisys, both of whom have tens of years of enterprise experience, will accelerate the movement of Intel architecture-based servers into enterprise-class systems." Unisys -- The Information Management Company Unisys is one of a select group of companies with portfolio of services, technologies and third party alliances needed to deliver the benefits of information management -- helping clients use their information asset to enhance their competitiveness and responsiveness to customers. Our expertise in information management is founded on the strengths of our three global businesses: consulting, solutions and systems integration; industry- leading technologies; and comprehensive services and products supporting distributed computing environments. Access the Unisys home page on the World Wide Web -- http://www.unisys.com -- for further information. Data General Corporation Data General (NYSE NYSE See: New York Stock Exchange :DGN DGN Design (file) DGN Dirección General de Normas (Standards Organization in Mexico) DGN MicroStation Design File (file format/extension) ), based in Westboro, Massachusetts, is a provider of servers and storage systems and related software and service to customers worldwide. The company reported fiscal 1995 revenues of $1.2 billion. Additional information on the company, its products and services is available on the Internet at http://www.dg.com. -0- AViiON is a registered trademark and NUMALiiNE is a trademark of Data General Corporation. Pentium and Pentium Pro are registered trademarks of Intel Corporation. SCO, the Santa Cruz Operation, and UnixWare are trademarks or registered trademarks of SCO in the USA and in other countries. UNIX UNIX Operating system for digital computers, developed by Ken Thompson of Bell Laboratories in 1969. It was initially designed for a single user (the name was a pun on the earlier operating system Multics). is a registered trademark in the United States and in other countries, licensed exclusively to X/OPEN A consortium of international computer vendors that was founded in 1984 to resolve standards issues. Incorporated in 1987 and based in London, X/Open merged with the Open Software Foundation in 1996 to become The Open Group. See Open Group. Company Limited. All brand and product names appearing in the press release may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. CONTACT: Data General Ray Thomas, 508/898-6545 ray_thomas@dg.com or Unisys Marty Krempasky, 215/986-4788 martinrkrempasky@unn.unisys.com |
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