“With Sequent… a number of technologies that could gain in
popularity in coming years have now become in-house projects at Big
Blue.”
“The deal shores up IBM’s position in Project Monterey, a
next-generation version of the Unix operating system in which IBM
and Sequent are partners, and fills a gap in IBM’s server hardware
lineup. By buying Sequent, IBM reaps the technology benefits
Sequent brings to Monterey, while removing obstacles slowing
development…”
“Most importantly, the acquisition of Sequent brings NUMA
(non-uniform memory access) technology to Big Blue, a move that’s
likely raising eyebrows at Data General and SGI, server
manufacturers that have their own NUMA servers. The NUMA
architecture allows manufacturers to take advantage of far more
processors than current Intel-based servers.”
“Beau Vrolyk, senior vice president of SGI’s server business
predicted: ‘There will be only three operating systems 10 years
from now, NT, Monterey, and Linux.’ “
“With Sequent’s NUMA technology, IBM for the first time will be
able to offer scalable servers beyond four, and soon eight, Intel
processors. Sequent’s NUMA servers scale up to 64 Intel processors
with plans for 256-processor support. NUMA’s power and performance
would rival IBM’s RS/6000 and S/390 server lines.”