Control Data Corp feels it has an image problem: it doesn’t have one. Think of Control Data and think yes, I know the name, but what is it they make again?. Large proprietary mainframes for hush-hush military, energy and primary resources applications, that’s what the company is perhaps still best known for. And because many of Control Data’s Cyber mainframe sales, and in fact sales of its other hardware offerings, have been in secure government contracts, the company hasn’t really been in a position to shout about the sales it’s been making. So CDC has been branded an out-of-date mainframe shifter; other than that, its capture of press attention has been largely limited to its weak financial position, though the company now reckons to have achieved a turn-around, reporting several consecutive quarters in profit (though not last quarter). But now, UK subsidiary Control Data Ltd, based in Stockley Park, Uxbridge, feels it has something it can shout about, and wants to let the world know that it thinks it has the best symmetric multi-processing servers in the world. CDC’s three new machines, detailed in CI No 1,783, which add to the company’s 4000 Series of MIPS Computer Systems Inc-sourced RISC-based workstations, are this time procured from Silicon Graphics Inc and include the departmental 4370 and 4375 InfoServers based on the MIPS R3000A processor, and the 4680 InfoServer based on the MIPS R6000A the first symmetric multi-processor built using the ECL RISC.

Benchmark

The family runs under EP/IX, Control Data’s industrial symmetric multi-processing version of MIPS’ RISC/os Unix implementation. Quoting an AIM Technology Inc performance benchmark, UK marketing director Robert Comber says a four-processor 4680 MIPS RISC-based server supports 1,381 end users for a third of the cost of an equivalent UKP1m Sequent Symmetry machine supporting 1,229 users. CDC rated 162.5 AIMS, at a maximum throughput of 1,592.5 jobs per minute. The same model delivers 264 MIPS, though Comber dismisses this measure, as it doesn’t say anything about throughput. According to the company, the AIM rating awards the InfoServer a world record, as does the AIM measurement of a single-processor Infoserver at 52.4 AIM performance units (a DEC VAX-11/780, by comparison, typically rates 1 AIM). Control Data differentiates itself from the competition, citing its 30 years of experience as a large mainframe supplier as reason enough. For example, Comber boasts, Sun Microsystems Inc’s new Galaxy system, launched the same week as CDC unveiled its InfoServer, is non-symmetric because Sun couldn’t manage to build a symmetric multi-processor with its RISC; Control Data, on the other hand, has the experience and technological knowhow to put these things together. The company is opting primarily for the top end of the server market, where it hopes its renown as a large systems vendor will stand it in good stead for winning customers’ confidence. Says Comber, we are trying to provide mainframe-style performance with RISC. The InfoServer, he explains, is geared specifically towards data handling applications, with true symmetric multi-processing, industrial-strength Unix, and superior storage management offerings. The company’s machines also feature hot disk swapping and multi-threaded TCP/IP handling, which Comber claims are further factors that set Control Data apart from the competition.

By Sue Norris

Market research group Dataquest Inc forecasts that Control Data will have success with the 4680 in its traditional markets government, manufacturing, automotive and aerospace – where the company is chasing new accounts as well as targeting the attached processor market for its installed base of Cyber proprietary mainframes. Control Data’s $1,700m revenues are split 45% from Computer Products, 35% from Information Services and 20% from Government Systems – avionics and specialised military communications. Of the computer products component, some 60% to 75% of sales are still generated from its proprietary systems, though the company has high hopes that its

open systems will take over and dominate hardware revenues by 1993. Dataquest’s analysis places Control Data’s latest offerings way ahead of the competition. Firstly, since the company developed the technology for the new R6000A-based symmetric multi-processor jointly with MIPS, CDC retains a contractually exclusive right to the technology until the end of the first quarter 1992, giving it chance to get ahead. Hence the need for a concentrated marketing effort, so CDC can grab what it can of the open systems market before the world is inundated with symmetric multiprocessing servers based on the latest MIPS RISC. The Dataquest report notes that Control Data has an opportunity to close business on a vast amount of low-hanging fruit that it didn’t have an edge on before. One, as general purpose file servers competing with the likes of Digital Equipment Corp, Hewlett-Packard Co, Silicon Graphics and Sun Control Data’s Disk Array System features a high amount of storage, enabling an entry into a Network File System environment; the multiple processors provide for after-hours compute serving if necessary; and, for high levels of data throughput, Control Data has parallelised the TCP/IP protocol-handling tasks. Second, as a decision support system, when packaged with a database application. The company already has Oracle, Informix, Ingres and Basis up on its systems, with Sybase waiting in the wings. Dataquest suggests that CDC has a number of things in its favour, which it should exploit while it still has time. One such factor is the old story of the MIPS R4000 chip being late in delivery, meaning that the market won’t see R4000 symmetric multiprocessor boxes for another year or so. This gives the four-way InfoServer 4680 headway; its performance is unlikely to be matched until such products are delivered.

Scalability

In addition, Silicon Graphics isn’t doing its own development on the R6000A RISC. And, lastly, Sun has fallen behind – it’s still waiting for Texas Instruments Inc to complete its Viking chip. Meanwhile, Dataquest notes, Sun’s top-end file servers offer half the performance of the new CDC machines. The market analyst sees the company’s greatest hurdle as being its lack of visibility. Dataquest also suggests that CDC should make an attack on the low end of the workstation market, emphasising the scalability of its new systems. Furthermore, the company should consider embracing indirect sales channels. As a word of warning, the Dataquest report outlines two dangers that face Control Data – first, the general acceptance of the R6000A chip, which is almost two years late and has been dropped by the majority of MIPS technology partners in favour of the R4000. Control Data needs to assure customers that it can sell its system in volume: second, if it doesn’t manage to get its marketing act together quickly, the low-hanging fruit will have dropped and bruised – Sun will have its next-generation box or else customers will opt to hang out and wait for the R4000-based machines.