FRAMINGHAM (03/29/2000) - With an eye toward supporting an embedded Linux operating system in its Internet Exchange (IX) architecture products, Intel Corp. last week made a minority equity investment in Lynx Real-Time Systems.
Lynx develops embedded, real-time operating systems for telecommunications applications. Lynx already offers a suite of embedded Linux products, such as BlueCat Linux, which supports Intel's x86 architecture. Intel has been bolstering its investments in network technologies, having recently bought Basis Communications for $450 million with plans to incorporate Basis' network-processor technology into Intel's IX architecture.
IBM Corp. has plans to boost the power of its server family. The firm last week announced a new device for its Netfinity servers called the Double Data Rate (DDR) module.
The DDR sits in the core chipset and boosts the speed of the memory data bus up to 2100M bit/sec, twice as fast as is currently possible, IBM says. This means faster execution of applications for end users and a quicker response to perishable data. IBM also plans to add DDR to its line of NUMA-Q Intel-based Unix servers. Pricing for the DDR was unavailable.
On the Unix server front, IBM plans to extend its workload manager feature in AIX to cover I/O operations in a server. Work-load manager is an AIX feature that oversees the allotment of RS/6000 memory and CPU resources for certain crucial applications. Now workload manager will be able to ensure that certain applications get priority access to I/O resources. This feature should be available with the release of AIX 4.3.4 later this year.
IBM: www.ibm.com.