NEWS BRIEFS

Mountain View, CA — SGI announced that the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) has validated that the SGI IRIX 6.5.3 operating system is compliant with the Defense Information Infrastructure (DII) Common Operating Environment (COE).

The DII COE certification process provides an opportunity for vendors of POSIX-based application platforms, such as SGI, to provide a common operating system interface to the Department of Defense (DOD) command and control environment.

IRIX version 6.5.3, running on the SGI Origin 200 server and Silicon Graphics O2 visual workstation, successfully met the criteria and certification process set forth in the DII COE Kernel Platform Compliance (KPC) Program and was validated as a compliant application platform. The DII COE Kernel is now supported on SGI IRIX 6.5.3 as well as the IRIX 6.2 operating system. IRIX is compliant with UNIX System V Release 4 and The Open Group’s many standards, including POSIX, as established by the KPC Program’s baseline document Draft Version 0.8 dated October 10, 1997.

The DII COE is a “plug and play” open architecture designed around a client/server model that provides the DOD with a foundation for building open systems that are interoperable across multiple platforms and DOD organizations. The KPC Program allows DISA to validate a vendor’s certification of a specific software platform against specific criteria, including compliance with industry standards, commercial testing, and satisfaction of DISA interoperability, security and functionality requirements.

“We congratulate the SGI team on successfully completing the Kernel Platform Compliance Program and achieving for IRIX 6.5.3 the much-sought-after designation as a DII COE-compliant operating system platform,” said Fritz Schulz, DISA’s KPC program manager. “We are pleased to welcome SGI into an elite club of vendors that have applied for and successfully completed the prestigious KPC Program.”

“SGI is committed to supporting DOD standards such as the DII COE and Joint Technical Architecture,” said Anthony Robbins, president, SGI Federal. “With the rigorous KPC certification process completed, we look forward to providing best-value solutions to the defense community for many years to come.”

As part of the KPC Program certification process, SGI reviewed more than 750,000 lines of code and compiled over 1,000 pages of supporting documentation. In addition, DISA personnel assigned to the Operational Support Facility in Sterling, Va. and the Joint Interoperability Test Command at Fort Huachuca, Ariz. put the IRIX software through its paces using 29 extensive validation procedures, including rigorous operational and security checks.

IRIX 6.5 is a fifth-generation UNIX operating system and is one of the most important and mature UNIX operating system releases in the industry. IRIX 6.5 is characterized by a rich set of scalability, big data management, real-time 3D visualization enhancements, and middleware features, along with an improved release process for increased robustness and stability for broader server and workstation deployment.

SGI has leveraged the capabilities and benefits of industry-standard UNIX through its IRIX operating system technology. IRIX has been instrumental in enabling SGI to deliver generations of leading-edge, high-performance computing, advanced graphics and visual computing platforms.

SGI provides a broad range of high-performance computing and advanced graphics solutions that enable customers to understand and conquer their toughest computing problems. Headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., with offices worldwide, the company is located on the Web at http://www.sgi.com .

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