[Info-vax] HP Users Hope Whitman Can Persuade Oracle to Change Itanium Decision

[MG]

On 1-10-2011 19:36, JF Mezei wrote:
> Considering that the 8086 shares the same memory subsystem as IA64, does
> IA64 have any advantage over the 8086 ?
>
> Just because HP has decided to not build "mainframe" class 8086s does
> not mean that the current chips are not able to scale to that size. This
> could be a business decision as opposed to a technical one.

The SGI, let alone under its current ownership (with a very favourable
attitude towards x86/-64), never made that "business decision".  Yet,
their IA-64 "Altix" line still scales way beyond the x86/-64 systems
that they're selling at the moment.  So, how do you explain that?

Let's compare SGI's current NUMAlink-based server annex supercomputer 
offerings:

	- SGI Altix 4700 (Itanium, i.e. 9000)
	Capable of scaling up to maximum of 512 processor sockets
	and 128 terabytes(!) of memory.

	- SGI Altix UV (Xeon, i.e. E7)
	Capable of scaling up to maximum of 256 processor sockets
	and 16 terabytes of memory.


Lastly, why are you so concerned?  Didn't you say you stopped using VMS
and see no point in using it?

  - MG