14037 DISTRIBUTED UNIX MAY BE USED TO ENHANCE NT'S KERNEL 10.09.98 (fwd)

["Richard H. Fifarek" <rfifarek@som.siu.edu>]

Subject: 14037 DISTRIBUTED UNIX MAY BE USED TO ENHANCE NT'S KERNEL             
      10.09.98

DISTRIBUTED UNIX MAY BE USED TO ENHANCE NT'S KERNEL                10.09.98
FEATURES AND COMMENTARY                                             HPCwire
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  Redmond, WA -- As PC Week reported, Plagued by Windows NT 5.0 delays and
the uncertain future of enterprise-class NT clustering, Microsoft Corp.
appears to be exploring a surprising strategy: licensing distributed Unix
technology from Silicon Graphics Inc. The technology could be used to
enhance NT's kernel, enabling the operating system to support thousands of
processors and participate in the future of Computing Fabrics.

  Although Microsoft wouldn't comment on the talks, SGI officials would. "We
have been in discussion about ways to bring our technologies together that
will really help both of us," said Forrest Basket, chief technology officer
at SGI, in Mountain View, Calif. Specifically, Basket said, SGI is in
discussions to license technology from its Cellular Irix operating system to
Microsoft.

  An agreement such as this would allow Microsoft to run NT on SGI's upcoming
SN1, a Computing Fabric system that will incorporate more than 1,000 Intel
Merced processors. To achieve this goal, Microsoft must push NT toward
distributed processing.

  Cellular Irix, a distributed version of SGI's Unix, is currently in
development, with release projected for the first quarter of 2000. The new
version promises to support a single address space across more than 1,000
tightly coupled processors. Cellular Irix would do that by defining cells of
processors and allocating processors and memory to them. No other general-
purpose version of Unix approaches this level of scalability while
maintaining a single system image. Sun's Solaris, by comparison, currently
supports no more than 64 processors.

  Microsoft's own efforts in the area of Computing Fabrics complement, rather
than duplicate, SGI's cellular operating system technology. Microsoft, in its
Millennium project, has focused on attaining a tight coupling of systems with
distributed object software.

  The Millennium project, led by Rich Draves, of Mach operating system fame,
would allow for the automatic distribution of objects of COM+ (Component
Object Model+) programs across systems of thousands of processors without
demanding any special programming at the application level.

  Now working on the project's third phase, referred to as Continuum, Draves'
group is applying to COM+ lessons learned from earlier prototypes based on
Java and COM.

  Coupled with COM-compliant Cellular Irix, Millennium could help Microsoft
distance itself from its NT woes and help it leapfrog Unix competitors.

  Microsoft and SGI are already sharing many technologies. The companies
agreed earlier this year to jointly develop Fahrenheit, a three-dimensional
graphics architecture based on SGI technology. And SGI recently agreed to
support Microsoft's COM architecture -- in addition to CORBA -- in Irix.

  By licensing Cellular Irix technologies and integrating them with the NT
kernel and Millennium, Microsoft could finally provide enterprise-class,
highly scalable distributed processing while retaining control over Windows
services, GUIs, programming interfaces and the NTFS file system.

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 [ ] 936) Sony                             [ ] 905) MAXSTRAT
 [ ] 930) NEC                              [ ] 902) IBM Corp.
 [ ] 909) Fujitsu                          [ ] 932) Portland Group
 [ ] 937) Digital Equipment                [ ] 942) Sun Microsystems
 [ ] 940) Eudora                           [ ] 943) Northrop Grumman
 [ ] 941) HAL Computers                    [ ] 945) NAG
 [ ] 921) Silicon Graphics Inc.            [ ] 946) QSW
 [ ] 944) Raytheon Systems                 [ ] 948) Tera Computer Company
              [ ] 947) Dolphin Interconnect Solutions   
              [ ] 934) HP, High Performance Systems Division

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