Although a bunch of vendors are moving in that direction, Data General Corp claims it will be first out with a NUMA Non Uniform Memory Architecture system. The architecture is a method for sharing a single memory between distributed – but closely-linked – systems and was conceived at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The company says it already has 88000-based AViiON servers that use the system close to going into beta test. It plans to move the system over to the P6 line it will create next year as part of its transition to the Intel Corp microprocessor architecture. It said that it is not using the PCI/Scalable Coherent Interconnect bridge chip its communications partner Dolphin Interconnect Solutions A/S is designing for Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG, but won’t talk about the exclusivity of what is actually under way. Meantime, given the expected industry rush towards P6 board-based large-scale systems, and the plans Digital Equipment Corp, Hewlett-Packard, IBM Corp, Siemens Nixdorf, Sun Microsystems Inc, Tandem Computers Inc and other vendors have already delineated publicly or privately for their respective high ends, more than one eyebrow has already been raised over Data General’s chance of success against other high-end vendors that are not also trying to jump to new chips at the same time.
