DEC and ADL reached an agreement for equipment, software and engineering assistance, culminating in the acquisition, in November 1996, of a large Digital AlphaServer 4100. This system is configured with with 2 300 MHz Alpha (64-bit) processors, 2 GB of RAM, 2 6-channel RAID controllers, and 74 4.3 GB SCSI disks, for a total of 318 GB of online storage. DEC contributed over 70% of the purchase price of this system, which will be the Testbed's primary database/Web server. Specifically, the 300 GB disk array will support multiple large (million-record) catalog databases, the 2 GB RAM will support complex queries, and the dual processors will support rapid response for database transactions and HTTP requests.
We intend for this system to support very large (multi-million record) Oracle databases, which should be able to exploit the native 64-bit memory addressing capability of the Alpha hardware. For Digital's benefit, we will help to characterize the behavior of a large database applications in this environment. Digital is also committed to help ADL clone an installation of the ADL catalog to a similarly-configured Alpha site outside UCSB.
As part of the agreement with DEC, ADL's primary deliverable will be an operational test bed for digital library technology, including a distributed but integrated software package for accessing, browsing, cataloging, storing, and manipulating distributed spatial data materials via the Internet. ADL will also cooperate with DEC engineers in characterizing performance, in the Alexandria systems environment, of the DEC hardware. Particular issues of interest include the performance potential of native 64-bit, very large (2GB) memory addressing capability of Digital UNIX on Alpha server platform and the performance of Alpha-based and other spatial database systems. ADL will also work with Digital to ``clone'' the Alexandria architecture to at least one additional Alpha-based site during the next year.