PC Prices Got You Down? Just Think if You Had to Buy a Mainframe
 
Copyright (c) 1989, McGraw-Hill, Inc.
CUPERTINO, CA (Microbytes Daily News Service) --- Just in case
microcomputers are getting too expensive for you, it might be
some consolation to hear the prices of the newest mainframe
computer on the market. Tandem Computer today announced a new
mainframe for online transaction processing that starts at a mere
$2 million and costs as much as $12 million for a fully
configured system. According to Tandem, the new Cyclone machine
performs comparably to a similarly configured IBM 3090
four-processor mainframe but costs half the price.
 
At a press conference here replete with dry ice clouds and flashy
videos combining mainframes with jet fighter planes, Tandem said
its new Cyclone offers a theoretical performance of 44 million
instructions per second per processor, with up to 16 processors
connected in parallel (that's over 700 MIPS). The machine is
designed for "massive database" systems with many transactions
taking place per second.
 
The architecture of the Cyclone is "superscalar," allowing up to
two instructions to be executed per cycle, with dual 8-stage
instruction pipelines, allowing up to 16 instructions to be in
some phase of execution per cycle. A single processor supports 4
I/O channels with a bandwidth of 160 megabytes per second, Tandem
says. Processors and hard disks are connected by means of a fiber
optic "interprocessor bus." The system is air-cooled, pumping
1800 cubic feet per minute of air through a single processor
cabinet.
 
A base Cyclone system consists of 4 processors, 128 megabytes of
memory, and 1.3 gigabytes of disk storage (about $2 million). A
top-of-the line model consists of 16 processors with 512
megabytes of memory and 111 gigabytes of disk storage (about $10
million).
 
Tandem said the California Department of Motor Vehicles has
selected the Cyclone to process its SQL database of 60 gigabytes
with over 1 million transactions per day. Tandem uses a fault-
tolerant "NonStop SQL" query and retrieval system, with parallel
processors providing "mirror images " of the data so the system
can keep running in spite of equipment failures.
 
                              --- Nick Baran
 
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