Max configuration of SGI Origin 2000/Onyx2 architecture

[Pete Turnbull]

On 17/12/2007 15:55, Jules Richardson wrote:

> My recollection is of 5 or 6 rows of dual-height cabs in their machine 
> room, about 6 per row, with a further row or two for disk storage. I 
> seem to remember that a few of the cabinets were split though - an O2k 
> in one half, but framebuffer hardware in the other. I'm not sure if they 
> were supplied like that by SGI as one of their stock models, or whether 
> it was something custom (when I worked with SGI on projects they were 
> pretty good at tweaking configuration on a per-site basis).

Sounds like an ordinary (for SGI types of ordinary) Onyx2.  That has the 
framebuffer hardware in the upper module, and CPUs in the lower; one 
framebuffer module per machine, but up to 7 (IIRC) CPU modules in 
multi-rack configurations.

> It was most impressive to see that much SGI kit in one place, anyway - 
> it must have been reasonably uncommon to find such a large-scale install 
> in a non-government institution.

Biggest I saw in a university was the 32-processor (4 modules, 2 racks) 
we had in Computer Science.  There was a deskside (8 processor, 1 
module) and a later a single rack (2 modules, 16 processors) in Music. 
The one I have is a single rack with two modules (16 CPUs), but at 
present I have the two modules in separate racks and running as two 
separate machines.

-- 
Pete						Peter Turnbull
						Network Manager
						University of York