[Beowulf] Rackable / SGI

[Mike Davis]

Stuart Midgley wrote:
>>
>>> 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.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf at beowulf.org
> To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit 
> http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
My experience is the polar opposite. SGI quotes took forever. And that 
situation goes back to the mid 90's. I can usually have a Sun quote in 
hours.

SGI produced some really good hw for crunching numbers. I used 
everything from Indy, to Origin2000's, to Origin350's. I also tried some 
of their initial PC hardware in 2000 or so. i was also impressed with 
their field Engineers. I hired one when he was laid off in 2001. But I 
never had a timely response oin a quote request.

Mike