“Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI) plans to develop an overlay to
Linux that will enable the operating system to scale up to 64 Intel
Corp. IA-64 processors in a multiprocessing environment.”
“To implement 64-way multiprocessing using IA-64 technology,
which offers a 64-bit addressing scheme, SGI will have to migrate
to the Intel platform its ccNUMA shared-memory multiprocessing
architecture, which is currently used in the company’s
high-end computers that run on MIPS Technologies Inc. processors
and the proprietary Irix operating system.”
“SGI’s interest in Linux is reflected by its transfer of some of
its key technologies — such as the source code of its
OpenVault storage area network software and its journaled file
system technology, XFS — to the Linux open-source
community.”