Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

SGI Introduces New 1400L Linux Server

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the more-sgi-then-you-can-shake-a-stick-at dept.

Durinia writes "Here is the official press release from SGI about their new Linux server. It also looks like they've struck a deal with Red Hat. " SGI continues its support (and perhaps its last hope) with Linux-do you folks think this will be enough to restore them?

3 of 117 comments (clear)

  1. The real scoop by Shoeboy · · Score: 5

    SGI Continues Aggressive Nose-Dive Despite Linux Market

    MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Aug. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- In a desperate attemp to stop its aggressive drive into bankruptcy, SGI (NYSE: SGI) leapt upon the Linux bandwagon today with both feet. SGI announced the immediate availability of its new Intel® processor-based SGI 1400L server. The server is a standard SMP Intel box preloaded with the Red Hat® Linux® 6.0. SGI holds to the somewhat irrational hope that customers will see this as being somehow different from a Compaq Proliant, IBM NetFinity, HP NetServer or Dell PowerEdge server running Red Hat Linux.

    "The SGI 1400L server running SGI Linux Environment allows us to use the words 'paradigm', 'synergy', 'open source', 'high availability', 'data warehousing', 'win-win', 'proactive', 'scalable', 'total cost of ownership' and 'reliability' in the same sales brochure," said Jan Silverman, vice president of marketing, Computer Systems Business Unit, SGI. "Our marketing division is very happy about this and they hope to add the phrases 'price performance' and 'enterprise computing' before they're finished."

    Like almost every other Intel based server in existence, the SGI 1400L ships with one to four 500 MHz Pentium® III Xeon(TM) processors with a selection of 512KB, 1MB or 2MB of secondary cache, up to 4GB of memory, seven PCI slots, six Ultra2 SCSI hot swap drive bays and redundant power supplies. The SGI 1400L is available in rack-mount or even a desktop configuration for those customers with specially reinforced desks.

    "e-commerce, internet, web-centric, intranet!" blurted an SGI marketer unable to contain herself, "collaboration, messaging, network video streaming, proxy serving, security serving, scientific analysis, customization, reliability and did I mention e-commerce?"

    "With the introduction of this Linux OS -- based server, SGI is also able to address more customer needs such as those of us who are too damn poor to afford proprietary Unixes and non-Intel chips," noted Shoeboy, a researcher investigating the impact of cannabis consumption on his code quality, "got any Fritos?"

    SGI is committed to not going bankrupt and collapsing like a house of cards, and industry analysts have noted that this line of Linux servers appears to be their last hope.

    NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to companies living or in the case of SGI, nearly dead is purely coincidental.

    --Shoeboy

  2. Re:Hopefully... by Matthew+Kirkwood · · Score: 3
    This means SGI, et al, will put in hours to work on Linux' multi-processor capability. It needs to be much more scalable than it is, for the OS to get the most out of the SGI hardware. Doubly so, when SGI produces the 8 processor version.
    Kernel 2.3 has the TCP stack made a lot more scalable and the page cache (the primary "disk" cache) now has basically linear scaling.

    SGI didn't do this. Sun didn't do this. IBM, SCO and Intel didn't do it. Microsoft certainly didn't do this (though they may have provided some impetus :).

    It was designed by Linus and implemented primarily by Mingo (now apparently working for Red Hat).

    It's nice that we'll see some cool (and pretty) SGI boxes running Linux, but we don't need them to address out deficiencies for us.

    If I were a real kernel hacker (as opposed to just playing with it a bit), I would find the inference that Linux needs "real" Unix companies to address its deficiencies for it rather insulting.

    If they were really committed, they'd do some of the more boring work for us, or the stuff which needs big bucks to get involved. They could work on getting us C2 rated, or address some of Linux's POSIX non-conformancies. Or they could have done some decent benchmarking before Microsoft beat us to it.

    To be fair to SGI, they do seem to have a few developers doing real and useful work, and I'm glad of that, but I don't see why they should get all the fun jobs, and get paid for it :-)

    Matthew.

  3. Okay, what's the deal? by tgd · · Score: 3

    After I made a nice comment about how SGI does a good job supporting linux the other day on some random /. posting of whose subject I can no longer recall, this pops up.

    I find myself wondering if I spoke too soon.

    Has anyone seen anything on the Kernel development lists about these NFS patches or the new TCP/IP stack? Or are they keeping them closed-source?

    God knows a TCP/IP stack that doesn't get bogged down on multiproc servers would be nice.

    Anyone got any details?