[Beowulf] Rackable / SGI

[Stuart Midgley]

>
>> So, to get back to the original discussion, SGI disappearing from the
>> landscape means one less option to choose from.
>
> You think SGI designed the hardware for their non-shared-memory
> clusters?  I don't thnk so.
>
> -- greg


No, SGI use supermicro.  But that isn't really the point.  They did  
design their own shared memory systems and they will be sorely missed  
if they are not continued.  We were really looking forward to a large  
shared memory x86 system.  Hopefully it still eventuates.

Having just purchased a heap of nehalem systems from SGI, the one  
thing we love about them is their fleet-of-foot.  I can ask SGI for a  
quote, they understand what I want and get back to me within a day, no  
stuffing around.  I ask Sun/IBM/HP for the same quote, 2 weeks later,  
6 or 7 phone calls, 3 visits I still don't have a quote.  Once they  
get it in, it is, without doubt, considerably more expensive and we  
have usually placed a PO with SGI 2 weeks prior.