User Tackles Big Challenges With 16-Way ServerUser Tackles Big Challenges With 16-Way Server

The Wintel forces keep launching assaults on Unix, arguing that the low-cost Windows-on-Intel platform can handle most jobs done by more powerful and expensive competitors. One of the biggest Wintel weapons, a 16-processor server from Unisys Corp., is being put to the test this week when a Canadian liquor company migrates from Unix to Windows.

One knock against Wintel servers is that they can't handle huge applications unless they're linked in a cluster. But Josie Bradley, VP of IT at Mark Anthony Group in Vancouver, British Columbia, expects the Unisys ES7000 server to easily handle a QAD ERP application and Cognos PowerPlay and Impromptu business-intelligence applications as she migrates them from Unix to Windows.

Mark Anthony is buying an ES7000 with 16 processors, which ranges in price from $240,000 to $550,000. Bradley plans to use 12 for the QAD and Cognos applications and the rest for Microsoft Exchange. More than 500 users access the applications. When usage increases and more horsepower is needed, Mark Anthony, Canada's largest privately held alcoholic beverage company, can scale the ES7000 to as many as 32 processors.

"QAD on Unix was stable and successful," Bradley says. But the company is shifting to Windows because it doesn't want to support multiple platforms. "I can't see anything we won't be able to run on this platform," she says.

Still, Bradley and other Windows users will have to do without some high-end features that are available on mainframes and big Unix servers, such as dynamic partitioning that lets customers program a system to change capacity levels for applications automatically. Those capabilities won't be available until 2003.

Analysts say new versions of Windows and the newer Intel-based servers pose a stronger threat to Unix machines when it comes to running large enterprise applications.

"Yes, Windows scales to 32 processors," says Aberdeen Group analyst Tom Manter. "There's a big improvement in reliability and scalability and the new Intel-based machines are outperforming anything." He says IBM will deliver a 16-processor Wintel server this summer, but Unisys will be the only vendor with a 32-processor server.

And the ES7000 will get more powerful. Mark Feverston, VP of enterprise server marketing at Unisys, says Intel is expected to provide emulation technology later this year that will let the ES7000 scale to 64 processors.