Striking out with an ambitious new Solaris Unix server strategy, Fujitsu Ltd has assembled a set of technologies it says will support 128-way SMP configurartions plus clustering at the high- end, offering twice the expandability of Sun Microsystems Inc current server line. As a result Fujitsu is expected to end the OEM deal under which it resells Sun’s Ultra Enterprise server line, Japanese reports say. The new servers have been co- developed with Fujitsu’s existing design and manufacturing partner, Unix specialist PFU Ltd. Fujitsu, Sun’s long-timer Sparc partner is using a third generation of its Hal Computer Systems Ltd’s Sparc64 processor design (CI No 3,391) plus it appears, the high-speed, low-latency SynFinity cross-bar switch interconnect developed by its Fujitsu System Technologies unit (CI No 3,354). Fujitsu told Japanese dailies it decided to strike out with its own designs because it needed to offer enhanced functionality. Eight-way GP7000F-200 models are due by year-end using 225MHz (with 2Mb L2 cache) or 250MHz (4Mb L2 cache) Sparc64 processors from 64-bit Sparc pioneer Hal. The chip is said to be equivalent to Sun’s forthcoming UltraSparc III ‘Cheetah’ processor due in a next-generation of Sun servers code-named Serengheti by the end of next year. Fujitsu will offer 275MHz (4Mb L2 cache) and 300MHz (8Mb L2 cache) models next year as GP7000F-600. It currently markets Sun servers as the GP7000 series. GP stands for Granpower, the brand under which PFU sells the current series of servers, though PFU appears to implement Unix SVR4.2 on the boxes, not Solaris. All of the Fujitsu servers – which run Solaris – have new reliability, availability and serviceability features, the company claims. Fujitsu is offering SafeCluster clustering for up to 16 nodes initially (128 CPUs) going to 64- node clustering in 2000. The SynFinity interconnect created by an 80-person Hal offshoot, can be used to create a ccNUMA distributed shared memory, message-passing clustering or SMP systems. SynFinity is a proprietary technology that has the same basic functionality as the IEEE 1596-1992 Scalable Coherent Interface (SCI) standard, except it’s non-standard. Because, Fujitsu says, SCI is too expensive; too slow. SynFinity has a claimed latency of 1.4 microseconds and a bandwidth throughput of 1.6Gbps. It didn’t says when a 128-way SMP model would be available. Silicon Graphics Inc already offers a 128-way Origin server. Fujitsu is also offering SafeDisk mirroring and SafeFile file recovery. GP-7000F prices go from $20,000. Fujitsu expects to sell 30,000 Unix servers in the next two years. Its Unix sales grew 50% in the first six months of the year to September 30 over the same period last year, mainly due to the introduction of new low-end workgroup servers. We’ve already reported on Hal’s forthcoming 500MHz and 1,000MHz Sparc64 designs (CI No 3,391), which Fujitsu is expected to make public soon. The company will also describe enhancements for Solaris it co-developed with Sun, new middleware it is putting up on the operating system including a system control facility and plans to offer Intel Corp IA-64 systems running Solaris.
