Silicon Graphics Ultra Large Shared Memory Capability Enables New Algorithms and Boosts Productivity for Critical Applications

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Feb. 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) (Nasdaq: SGIC) is in a category all by itself when it comes to massive globally shared main memory and globally addressable memory on SGI(R) Altix(R) 4700 systems. With numerous installations in the 4 TB range, and a number more in the 8 TB range, the groundbreaking scalability of SGI systems extends to 21 TB of globally addressable main memory at customer sites. This is over five times the size of memory that other vendors can offer today. The system is designed to accommodate 128 terabytes of globally shared memory under the control of a single instance of the Linux operating system! The system may also be partitioned among multiple instances of Linux and provide globally addressable shared memory among OS instances via SGI's unique NUMAlink(R) interconnect technology.

Large global shared memory saves time: time-to-results, time-to-solution and time-to-innovation. It significantly simplifies application development and debugging for all multi-threaded applications but is mandatory for several categories of applications including memory-resident data base applications with uses in Internet data centers and transaction processing, as well as those based on 'graph theory,' an important area of mathematics with uses in defense and homeland security applications, multi-disciplinary science, and data assimilation.

'There are applications emerging in the market that require extremely large shared memory: one such application area is graph theory,' said Dr. Eng Lim Goh, senior vice president and chief technology officer, Silicon Graphics, Inc. 'In addition, the study of complicated networks and relationships between objects in business or scientific computing require the ability to put the entire database or model into memory to analyze and/or compute. Some of these applications demand an SGI Altix system, which is the only server that offers sufficiently large shared memory capability to achieve such large scale endeavors.'

The power of SGI's largest global shared memory and globally addressable memory capabilities has been adopted by a number of strategic customers for their projects, including:

-- Northrop Grumman Corporation recently added two SGI Altix 4700 systems, each with 128 Intel(R) Itanium(R) processors that leverages the unique memory-only blade design of the Altix family of systems, and 5 TB of shared main memory.