http://www.sgi.com/products/challenge_brochure.html (Silicon Surf Promotional CD, 01/1995)
Comprehensive System and Data Management Tools
High Performance Resource Servers
CHALLENGE Resource Servers: Unequated Power and Versatility
Emerging applications are using color, 3D, motion, and sound to revolutionize how we perceive and use complex information. Servers for these applications must provide resources for a diverse world of client computers ranging from palmtops to mainframes.
At Silicon Graphics, we understand these needs. We have more than a decade of experience as an industry leader in supercomputing workstations and multiprocessor servers for database, technical, and scientific users. These powerful systems are designed for demanding applications such as molecular modeling, computations, fluid dynamics, medical imaging, visual simulation, digital media, database management systems, and more.
With the CHALLENGE series of network resource servers, Silicon Graphics builds on its years of experience in technical computing to deliver systems that offer new levels of network and data throughput, expandability, and ease of system management. The CPU, I/O and software subsystems, based on leading-edge technology, each deliver outstanding performance Together they provide an elegantly -balanced solution to high-end data and network management problems.
With unprecedented performance and scalability and unbeatable client/server connectivity, the CHALLENGE servers are the best choice to support tomorrow's applications today.
The CHALLENGE M is a compact resource server designed to support small- to medium-sized workgroups. The system fits easily under a desk with tape and disk storage integrated into the same package. The low entry price of CHALLENGE M means that even small teams of users can now reap the benefits of networked computing.
Workgroups can share expensive disks and printers. Software distribution and backups can be managed centrally, allowing users to concentrate on their work, not on information management.
CHALLENGE L is a highly expandable, deskside resource server designed to connect large departments of workstation users. It can also serve as a central hub to link workgroups into a broader corporate network. The CHALLENGE L is ideal ofordepartments that require fast I/O performance and cost effective expandability.
CHALLENGE XL is Silicon Graphics' most powerful network resource server. It is designed to support enterprise-wide distributed computing environments.
With disk I/O performance, system, throughput, and network connectivity unequalled in its price range, the CHALLENGE XL can easily handle enterprise-wide server needs that previously required multiple mainframes and super-minicomputers.
With its inherent ability to direct device interrupts from multiple storage controllers to multiple processors, IRIX can handle many I/O request concurrently, resulting in faster I/O processing for large numbers of users. IRIX also extends the concept of multithreading to networking drivers. By automatically balancing the network protocol processing workload across all CPUs, multi-threading software dramatically improves the number of clients that CHALLENGE servers can support. Software changes are never required to accommodate a change in the number of processors.
A single IRIX operating system environment runs on all Silicon Graphics products from desktops to supercomputing servers, providing complete binary compatibility across product families.
System administrators use a Motif TM graphical use window interface to set up and administer NetWorker. In just seconds, administrators can add new clients to a backup group, change a schedule, check the status of a recovery, and more. All this can be done from any Silicon Graphics workstation on the network.
Using a Motif windowing environment, IRIS Volume Manager acts as a safe, simple, and effective guide allowing system managers to easily control even the most complex storage arrays and RAID disk subsystems. The result is better informed, more effective decisions concerning disk-resource management, which can boost performance and minimize the cost of mass storage.
CHALLENGE L and XL servers are built around a hireachical bus architecture optimized for high I/O bandwidth. These models come standard with Silicon Graphics unique POWERchannel-2" I /O processor technology. One to four I/O processors can be configured to deliver up to 320 megabytes (1.2GB total) per second of sustained data throughput.
The CHALLENGE M server uses a highly integrated SCSI-2 peripheral controller and a digital signal processor to increase I/O throughput and decrease CPU overhead for I/O throughput and decrease CPU overhead for I/O transactions. The system is expandable to support 15GB of SCSI-2 disk storage. CHALLENGE M also incorporates industry standard EISA and GIO buses. EISA provides a lower interface cost for a wide range of options, and GIO delivers higher performance and data throughput capability for workgroup servers in demanding environments.
The CHALLENGE resource servers utilize 4" cartridge tape drives for convenient, economical backup. Multiple 8mm helical scan drives and an automated tape robot can be connected to provide over 75GB of unattended backups on inexpensive tape cartridges. Several CD-ROMs can also be added for low cost software distribution.
In addition, CHALLENGE L and XL include Silicon Graphics second generation POWERpath-2" parallel RISC architecture for symmetric multiprocessing. Multiprocessing minimizes system complexity and provides automatic load balancing to maximize I/O and network throughput.
CHALENGE L and XL can be field-upgraded by simply adding additional CPU boards (up to a maximum of 36 processors in the XL) without replacing the existing CPUs. UP to 2GB of high density memory can also be added. These features provide maximum investment protection for customers who want the file and storage management capabilities of a CHALLENGE resource server but also need the integer performance and memory capacity to handle demanding database and compute applications in the same machine.
CHALLENGE servers support Silicon Graphics NetVisualyzerTM and SPECTRUMTM products, the industry's first integrated visual network management solution. NetVisualyzer is a network troubleshooting tool that provides centralized, real-time monitoring of traffic across multi-vendor environments.
SPECTRUM provides a scalable enterprise-wide management umbrella for heterogeneous networks. It allows a single executive control server to actively query network devices for information, and to deduce, correct, and report problems anywhere in the enterprise.
Together, these products help network managers understand, manage, and control huge networks more intuitively through real-time visualization of network status, activities, and traffic flow.
With the power to match today's high performance supercomputers and the tools to share and manage large volumes of infomation across complex networks, CHALLENGE servers allow users to break through barriers imposed by slow and cumbersome systems.
By reducing operating costs, improving user access, increasing data transfer rates, making better use of existing resources, and providing the flexibility to expand with future technologies, the CHALLENGE server family brings users the network resource server solutions for the 1990's and beyond.
The CHALLENGE series performance puts today's distributed computing environments squarely in line with tomorrow's demands.
The new generation of applicatoins, which integrate color, 3D, motion, and sound, will demand the kind of performance that only a server with a true 64-bit architecture can provide. Resource servers in these environments must incorporate 64-bit design features and accomodate vastly larger files and new file types.
The ideal machine would have 64-bit data paths, a multi-terabyte virtural address space, and huge physical memory addressability. The next generation of resource severs must also have the compute performance to handle the real-time calculations necessary to make next generation applications fly.
Only the CHALLENGE network resource servers from Silicon Graphicscan help you prepare for the future right here, right now.