Intel and Server Industry Leaders Demonstrate High-performance Clustering, VI Architecture Solutions
ACTION ITEMS

Intel Corporation and server industry leaders have demonstrated at Comdex Enterprise, breakthrough enterprise class performance and scalability with the world's first 16-node Pentium II Xeon processor-based server cluster using Virtual Interface (VI) Architecture components.

VI Architecture, with support from over 130 industry leaders, establishes standard interfaces for the hardware and software used to communicate within a cluster of servers or workstations. Using standard high-volume (SHV) servers as building blocks and core enterprise solutions from CLARiiON, Dell, GigaNet, IBM, QLogic and Visual Insights, the demonstration shows that VI Architecture is available now, and that standard high-volume servers are capable of taking on highest level enterprise computing demands such as data warehousing that only a few years ago required a dedicated mainframe.

Today's demonstration showcases a real-world decision support environment. The 16-node cluster stores a two billion record data warehouse that models demographic data. This huge data warehouse is able to slice through massive amounts of data, many times a day. Quick turnaround on such queries is essential to meeting the demands of a large business. Hours-long queries can now be handled in seconds and as more users are served, more insight is gained enabling better decision making that can directly affect the bottom line.

"Cost-effective, high-performance clustering is real and ready to deploy," said John Miner, corporate vice president and general manager, Enterprise Server Group, Intel Corporation. "VI Architecture enabled solutions like those based on the Intel Pentium II Xeon processor and the others seen today, offer the scalability, availability and manageability needed for optimal business computing."

The capabilities of the recently announced Pentium II Xeon processor family and the flexibility of the SHV server model enable a new class of scalable cluster products offering high performance, low total cost of ownership and broad applicability. The demo will also be shown at the Intel Developers Forum in Palm Springs, Calif., where a VI Architecture showcase will highlight the numerous VI solutions being made available by the participating companies.

Intel and industry leaders concluded several years ago that the real barrier to powerful, scalable and available clustering lay not in the speed of the individual servers, or nodes, but in the speed of the interconnection between those nodes. As a result, the VI Architecture specification was written and submitted for industry review in April, 1997. Over 130 companies contributed to the definition of the specification. Demonstrations of 4- and 6-node clusters were presented on a variety of hardware and software solutions in early 1998. This announcement unveils the first 16-node cluster of SHV servers based on the Intel Pentium II Xeon processor.

Additional information about Intel is available at http://www.intel.com/