“IBM’s acquisition of Sequent Computer Systems will bear fruit a
year from now with the arrival of a new Unix server code-named
Regatta that will incorporate as many as 32 CPUs. … The new
design, a highly complex confluence of several hardware and
software developments, illustrates both the difficulty of designing
high-end systems and the lengths to which computing companies are
going to satisfy demand for them.”
“Regatta will combine several new technology advances, said
David Turek, vice president of deep computing and Web servers at
IBM. First will be the Power4 chip, which, as reported, joins two
CPUs in a single processor package. …Second will be a high-speed
switch used to connect these eight-CPU modules… Third will be
nonuniform memory architecture (NUMA) technology from Sequent.”
“IBM–a company so large it’s difficult to count how many
operating systems it supports–also is an avid fan of Linux, a
relatively young clone of Unix. IBM believes Linux will become
the standard foundation of most programming efforts. SAP, for
example, has settled on Linux as the basic operating system for
developing its high-end accounting, sales and manufacturing control
software, Turek said.”