Originally named Sequel,13 Sequent was formed in 198314 when a group of seventeen engineers and executives left Intel after the failed iAPX 432 "mainframe on a chip" project was cancelled; they were joined by one non-Intel employee. They started Sequent to develop a line of SMP computers,15 then considered one of the up-and-coming fields in computer design.161718
Sequent's first computer systems were the Balance 8000 (released in 1984) and Balance 21000 (released in 1986).19 Both models were based on 10 MHz National Semiconductor NS32032 processors, each with a small write-through cache connected to a common memory to form a shared memory system. The Balance 8000 supported up to 6 dual-processor boards for a total maximum of 12 processors.202122 The Balance 21000 supported up to 15 dual-processor boards for a total maximum of 30 processors.2324
The systems ran a modified version of 4.2BSD Unix the company called DYNIX, for DYNamic unIX. The machines were designed to compete with the DEC VAX-11/780, with all of their inexpensive processors available to run any process. In addition the system included a series of libraries that could be used by programmers to develop applications that could use more than one processor at a time.
Their next series was the Intel 80386-based Symmetry, released in 1987. Various models supported between 2 and 30 processors, using a new copy-back cache and a wider 64-bit memory bus. 1991's Symmetry 2000 models added multiple SCSI boards, and were offered in versions with from one to six Intel 80486 processors. The next year they added the VMEbus based Symmetry 2000/x50 with faster CPUs.
The late 1980s and early 1990s saw big changes on the software side for Sequent. DYNIX was replaced by DYNIX/ptx, which was based on a merger of AT&T Corporation's UNIX System V and 4.2BSD. And this was during a period when Sequent's high-end systems became particularly successful due to a close working relationship with Oracle, specifically their high-end database servers. In 1993 they added the Symmetry 2000/x90 along with their ptx/Cluster software, which added various high availability features and introduced custom support for Oracle Parallel Server.
In 1994 Sequent introduced the Symmetry 5000 series models SE20, SE60 and SE90, which used 66 MHz Pentium CPUs in systems from 2 to 30 processors.25 The next year they expanded that with the SE30/70/100 lineup using 100 MHz Pentiums,26 and then in 1996 with the SE40/80/120 with 166 MHz Pentiums. A variant of the Symmetry 5000, the WinServer 5000 series, ran Windows NT instead of DYNIX/ptx.27
Recognizing the increase in competition for SMP systems after having been early adopters of the architecture, and the increasing integration of SMP technology into microprocessors, Sequent sought its next source of differentiation. They began investing in the development of a system based on a cache-coherent non-uniform memory architecture (ccNUMA) and leveraging Scalable Coherent Interconnect. NUMA distributes memory among the processors, avoiding the bottleneck that occurs with a single monolithic memory. Using NUMA would allow their multiprocessor machines to generally outperform SMP systems, at least when the tasks can be executed close to their memory — as is the case for servers, where tasks typically do not share large amounts of data.
In 1996 they released the first of a new series of machines based on this new architecture. Known internally as STiNG, an abbreviation for Sequent: The Next Generation (with Intel inside), it was productized as NUMA-Q28 and was the last of the systems released before the company was purchased by IBM for over $800 million.
IBM then started Project Monterey with Santa Cruz Operation, intending to produce a NUMA-capable standardized Unix running on IA-32, IA-64 and POWER and PowerPC platforms. This project later fell through as both IBM and SCO turned to the Linux market, but is the basis for "the new SCO"'s SCO v. IBM Linux lawsuit.
With their future product strategy in tatters, it appeared Sequent had little future standing alone, and was purchased by IBM in 1999 for $810 million.29 IBM released several x86 servers with a NUMA architecture. The first was the x440 in August, 2002 with a follow-on x445 in 2003. In 2004, an Itanium-based x455 was added to the NUMA family. During this period, NUMA technology became the basis for IBM's extended X-Architecture (eXA, which could also stand for enterprise X-Architecture). As of 2011, this chipset is now on its fifth generation, known as eX5 technology.3031 It now falls under the brand IBM System x.
According to a May 30, 2002 article in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) entitled "Sequent Deal Serves Hard Lesson for IBM":
The following is a more detailed description32 of the first two generations of Symmetry products, released between 1987 and 1990.
Media related to Sequent Computer Systems at Wikimedia Commons
Sequent was overmatched, CEO says, a July 1999 article from CNET Networks http://news.cnet.com/Sequent+was+overmatched,+CEO+says/2100-1001_3-228478.html ↩
Sequent Computer Systems To Be Acquired by I.B.M., a July 13, 1999 article from The New York Times https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE2DB113CF930A25754C0A96F958260 ↩
IBM lays off 250 in Beaverton, a May 2002 article from Portland Business Journal, one of the American City Business Journals http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2002/05/20/daily45.html ↩
"HP pays for PolyServe while IBM and Dell watch". The Register. February 27, 2007. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/27/hp_buys_polyserve ↩
"Hewlett-Packard to buy PolyServe". March 2007. https://www.infoworld.com/article/2635806/hewlett-packard-to-buy-polyserve.html ↩
"SCO Falls Downstairs, Hitting its Head on Every Step — Updated: SCOsource is Born". Groklaw. 17 May 2003. Retrieved 27 September 2023. http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=6 ↩
"Oh, That is Why They Are Saying That". Groklaw. 17 June 2003. Retrieved 27 September 2023. http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=59 ↩
"And They Call Linus Careless". Groklaw. 18 June 2003. Retrieved 27 September 2023. http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=66 ↩
"Why Cringley Says SCO Will Lose". Groklaw. 20 June 2003. Retrieved 27 September 2023. http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=72 ↩
Aliza Earnshaw (28 February 2007). "PolyServe to join HP division". Portland Business Journal. Retrieved 27 September 2023. http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2007/02/26/daily23.html ↩
Advanced Architecture Computers and Part Two, Argonne National Labs, Technical Report No. 57, Jack J. Dongarra and Iain S. Duff http://www.netlib.org/papers/advarch ↩
"Sequent Symmetry 5000". http://www.ricomputermuseum.org/Home/equipment/sequent-5000 ↩
with some of their names included here [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sequent_Computer_Systems&diff=902882568&oldid=896743436 ↩
"DEC 1077 and SMP". http://www.ultimate.com/phil/pdp10/10periphs ↩
VAX 8820/8830/8840 System Hardware User's Guide: by 1988 the VAX operating system was SMP http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/vax/8800/EK-8840H-UG-001_88xx_System_Hardware_Users_Guide_Mar88.pdf ↩
was up & coming @ 1077, already came by VMS ↩
R. W. Hockney; C. R. Jesshope (1988). Parallel Computers 2: Architecture, Programming and Algorithms. Taylor & Francis. p. 46. ISBN 0-85274-811-6. 0-85274-811-6 ↩
"Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2016-04-12. Retrieved 2022-07-17.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) https://web.archive.org/web/20160412082437/http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/cgi/rni/comp-arch.pl?Shmem%2Fsb.html%2CShmem%2Fsb-f.html%2CShmem%2Fmenu-seq.html ↩
Foster, Richard; Kaplan, Sarah (2011-04-20). Creative Destruction: Why Companies That Are Built to Last Underperform the Market--And How to Success fully Transform Them. Crown. ISBN 9780307779311. 9780307779311 ↩
Machines. Sequent cs.berkeley.edu http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~culler/machines/sequent.ps ↩
"Growth in Balance". UNIX Review. April 1986. pp. 79–80. Retrieved 24 June 2022. https://archive.org/details/sim_unix-review_1986-04_4_4/page/79/mode/1up ↩
"Sequent Unveils New High-End Systems for Windows NT; Based on Industry-Leading Platform Symmetry Platform". Business Wire. 1995-05-23. Retrieved 2009-03-23. http://www.allbusiness.com/technology/software-services-applications-computer/7126055-1.html ↩
"IT news, careers, business technology, reviews". Archived from the original on 2019-06-23. https://web.archive.org/web/20190623084303/https://www.computerworld.co.nz/article/518203/auckland_university_first_buy_sequent_numa-q_box ↩
"IBM drops Intel high-end server". Computerworld. May 13, 2002. https://www.computerworld.com/article/2576139/network-servers/ibm-drops-intel-high-end-server.html ↩
"IBM eX5 flexible enterprise systems: EX5 systems overview". www.ibm.com. Archived from the original on 25 January 2013. Retrieved 22 May 2022. https://archive.today/20130125221915/http://www.ibm.com/systems/info/x86servers/ex5/ ↩
"XREF: System x Reference | IBM Redbooks". http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/Redbooks.nsf/pages/xref?Open ↩
Sequent Computer Systems (1991). Symmetry Multiprocessor Architecture Overview. Company publication number 1003-50113-01 ↩
"The Sequent Symmetry". February 24, 1994. http://www.cs.uoregon.edu/research/paraducks/papers/sc93.d/subsubsection3_3_2_3.html ↩
"Sequent Symmetry S27 and Symmetry S81 Parallel Bus Architecture". https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~culler/machines/sequent2.ps ↩