Conference smurf::ase

1989.0. "Computergram: 8 and 16 nodes trucluster" by ROM01::OLD_CIPOLLA (Bruno Cipolla) Mon Apr 07 1997 09:28

+  DEC TO SUPPORT 8-NODE TRUCLUSTERS, 16 NODES "WITHIN A YEAR" 

As expected (CI No 3,083), Digital Equipment Corp is to add 
support for up to eight nodes in TruCluster Production Server 
configurations of its AlphaServers Unix machines. Eight-node 
configurations are due this quarter, and the company is 
promising support for 16-node configurations within a year. The 
clusters will support shared tape subsystems and use a new 
version of Digital Unix, numbered 4.0C. New versions of the 
Memory Channel interconnect architecture, which tie the servers 
together, plus multiple active cluster interconnects, will 
provide the additional bandwidth to support more nodes than the 
four currently available in Production Server configurations. 
DEC says the new configurations will give it the opportunity to 
trounce its own 30,390 tpmC benchmark record. Current 
Production Server clusters support redundant Memory Channel 
boards for hot-standby operation, but they fire up only when a 
node fails. With the new release - multiple active 
interconnects - the second controller will be active and the 
system capable of performing some level of load-balancing. New 
Production Server configurations will also support AlphaServer 
1000A systems, each with four processors. Memory Channel 1.5 is 
a performance enhancement to the existing 1.0 Memory Channel 
hardware, which shipped last December. A further revision, 
Memory Channel 2.0, will add a new crossbar hub, providing the 
higher overall cluster bandwidth needed to support the 
eight-node configurations. Over the next four quarters, DEC 
plans to increase the bandwidth of individual links by three 
times and hub bandwidth by a factor of eight, pushing the 
number of nodes supported up to 16 and increasing the maximum 
distance between nodes to 30 feet from 10 feet using copper 
cables, and to 100 yards using fiber. DEC says it will offer 
disaster tolerance around the first quarter of 1998 and a 
cluster file system in the second quarter. Production Server is 
DEC's highest level of clustering technology, implementing the 
Encore Computer Corp-based Memory Channel interconnect and 
using Oracle Parallel Server or Informix XPS parallel 
databases. TruCluster Application Server implements the DECsafe 
SCSI-based fail-over software, while the basic TruClustering 
option offers logical storage management and a log-based file 
system.

> clusters will support shared tape subsystems and use a new 
> version of Digital Unix, numbered 4.0C. New versions of the 

Actually it will be V4.0D.

The V4.0C release is for the MX5 hardware platform.

	Fred