Hitachi Data Systems Unveils Mainframe Server

Hitachi Data Systems this week will unveil its new SkylineTrinium mainframe server, the most powerful single systemavailable. But Hitachi says high availability and flexibleconfiguration will be the server's biggest selling points.

Trinium performs at more than 1,000 Mips when configuredwith four processors, and can exceed 3,000 Mips whenconfigured with 16. By comparison, IBM's G5 Series mainframewith 10 processors performs at 1,069 Mips. Four- to 12-processor Trinium servers will be available this summer, thebigger models at the beginning of next year. Not manyorganizations need 3,000 Mips, but Hitachi's target marketis the top 5% of worldwide IT users. In this upperstratosphere, many companies have 10,000 Mips of processing,and according to Hitachi, a few have 25,000 Mips. Serverconsolidation is an important topic for these businesses.

Despite the power advantage it currently has over IBM,Hitachi is through playing performance leapfrog. Triniumcustomers will care most about the system's highavailability and flexible configuration, says Ira Kramer,director of server product marketing for Hitachi. Everycomponent of Trinium is equipped with a backup that can takeover if the primary component goes down. Hitachi is alsoworking with Computer Associates on a Virtual Servercapability, which will let customers have multiple CPUs in asingle system.