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Available in various configurations, including Web servers, this midnight-- blue system can keep your surfs up around the clock.
This month we examine the Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI) Origin 200, the little brother of the Origin 2000 behemoth we reviewed last October ("SGI's Origin 2000 Server," p. 49). The Origin 200 (0200), one of the company's most popular products, is a leading contender in the price/performance segment of the low-end UNIX server market-including multiple Web hosts, media streaming applications, and networks of small business servers that require remote administration capabilities-being in a bare-silicon bout with Sun's Enterprise 450 for leadership in that ring. The basic configuration of the 0200 is either a single- or dual-processor system in a deskside tower chassis. The single-tower configuration can be upgraded with a second tower, however, to provide up to four 225MHz Mips R10000 64-bit processors, using a CrayLink interconnect. For this review, we took a dual-processor, single-tower configuration, and performed the upgrade to a four-CPU system.
OF NOTE
As you can see from our photographs of the 0200, the system continues SGI's tradition of striking industrial design. The deep blue color and unconventional shape of the cabi net differ substantially from rectangular and boringly beige tower designs. The front-panel access door is a metallic screen that both adds to the appearance of the unit and provides almost unrestricted air flow for system cooling. The swing-out feet at the bottom of the cabinet improve lateral stability and raise the unit a couple of inches off the floor.
Although the onboard circuitry of the 0200 differs from its big brother, the Origin 2000, the 0200's architecture still borrows heavily from that of the Origin 2000. The 0200, like the larger system, is a ccNUMA design. While the Origin 2000 is made up of modules, each of which can hold up to four nodes of two processors each, the 0200 can be thought of as a single-node module. The ccNUMA architecture lets you add a second tower with another pair of processors, should your processing requirements expand. Additionally, if more expansion slots are needed beyond those in the two towers, or greater interprocessor I/O bandwidth is required, a GIGAchannel expansion cabinet can be added.
The 0200 can be rackmounted...