* Bull's latest servers pack Intel Itanium 2 processors
Bull rolled out a batch of Itanium 2 servers last week aimed at high-end business and scientific applications that work on Windows, Linux and the company’s proprietary GCOS operating system.
The NovaScale servers consist of three models – 4040, 5080 and 5160. Each server can run three operating systems at the same time on different processors, giving legacy GCOS a migration path to newer operating systems.
The NovaScale 4040 is a four-processor server designed for front-end Web applications, application server environments or high-performance computing clusters. It takes up 4U in a standard rack and operates at 900 MHz or 1 GHz. It has up to 3M bytes of L3 cache for faster processing and as much as 32G bytes of memory. In addition, the 4040 contains three hot-pluggable disk-drive bays and an Ultra 320 SCSI controller for attachment of external storage. It contains a 10/100/1000M bit/sec Ethernet adapter and a hot-swappable power supply. The 4040 starts at $26,700.
The NovaScale 5080 and 5160 have parallel and redundant architectures. Each can have either eight or 16 processors, which run from 900 MHz with 1.5M bytes of cache memory to as much as 1 GHz with 3M bytes of cache memory.
The NovaScale 5080 is designed to run back-end database, data warehouse, and enterprise resource planning applications. It is a four- or eight-processor symmetrical multiprocessing server that is 17U high and operates at 900 MHz or 1 GHz. Like the 4040, it has up to 3M bytes of L3 cache.
The 5080 has double the scale of the 4040, supporting as much as 64G bytes of memory. The 5080 also has more redundancy, with four redundant hot-swappable power supplies and 12 redundant, hot-swappable fans. It starts at $90,730.
The 5160, the largest of Bull’s Itanium-based servers, is designed for large databases or data warehouses. The 17U server can have four, eight, 12 or 16 processors operating at 900 MHz or 1 GHz. It contains as much as 128G bytes of memory and has four redundant hot-swappable power supplies and 12 redundant hot-swappable fans. The 5160 starts at $101,404.
