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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY / SEPTEMBER 15, 2003: VOL. 2 NO. 37
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Breaking News -
Platforms:
SGI Announces Plans To Extend
Altix Line
SGI announced plans to support Intel's new Low Voltage Intel Itanium 2
processor at 1.0Ghz with 1.5 MB L3 cache and the Intel Itanium 2 processor at
1.4Ghz with 1.5MB L3 Cache in an upcoming model of its award-winning SGI Altix
family of servers and superclusters. The new Altix server, slated for
availability in the first quarter of 2004, will establish a lower entry price
point and extend the superior price-performance of this unique Linux solution
into smaller departmental and database deployments.
The Linux systems, with eight dual-processor boards configured to a total
16
processor per system, will retain much of the extensive shared memory
capabilities and the superior system and data management tools of larger-scale
Altix 3000 systems. This range of scalability will offer customers with large
databases and scalable application workloads a superior alternative to small
node systems with limited capabilities and/or fixed-size midrange systems.
The upcoming Altix configurations should appeal especially to technical
computing customers in industries such as life sciences, automotive design,
and oil and gas. In addition to the Intel processors announced, this Altix
system will also support the existing 1.3GHz and 1.5GHz Intel Itanium 2
processors.
"The Altix line is about scalability-the ability to scale up, down and out.
With today's announcement, SGI extends the reach of the Altix product family,
the Intel Itanium 2 processor, and 64-bit Linux applications," said Dave
Parry, senior vice president and general manager, Server and Platform Group,
SGI. "This Altix configuration will provide the performance and flexible
configuration benefits SGI customers have come to expect of our products, at a
price point that previously only small node clusters could adequately
address."
Availability
The new SGI Altix server configuration, supporting 1 to 16 Intel Itanium 2
processors, will be available in the first quarter of 2004 at a price point
comparable to mid-range UNIX servers. Scalable SGI Altix 3000 systems are
available today in server configurations of 4 to 64 processors, and
supercluster configurations of 4 to 128 processors. For customers demanding
even larger Altix superclusters, SGI plans to support configurations of 512
processors in October 2003 and 1,024 processors in May 2004. SGI also recently
announced plans to extend the industry-leading scalability of its SGI Altix
3000 servers to encompass a record 128 processors within a single instance of
the Linux operating environment. Additional Altix system technical and
availability information is posted on www.sgi.com/servers/altix.
About SGI
SGI, also known as Silicon Graphics, Inc., is a world leader in high-
performance computing, visualization and storage. SGI's vision is to provide
technology that enables the most significant scientific and creative
breakthroughs of the 21st century. Whether it's sharing images to aid in brain
surgery, finding oil more efficiently, studying global climate or enabling the
transition from analog to digital broadcasting, SGI is dedicated to addressing
the next class of challenges for scientific, engineering and creative users.
SGI was named on FORTUNE magazine's 2003 list of "Top 100 Companies to Work
For." With offices worldwide, the company is headquartered in Mountain View,
Calif., and can be found on the Web at http://www.sgi.com.
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