SGI: HOODS

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Silicon Graphics, headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA., manufactures high-end computers for technical and creative applications. Its main focus is on High Performance Computing. Customers ranging from scientists, graphic artists, and engineers to large corporations and government agencies use its workstations, servers, and storage systems. The company's advanced graphics computers have been used to create some of Hollywood's most striking special effects. Other key sectors for SGI include the energy and manufacturing industries. The company emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October 2006, six months after it filed for protection. Revenue in 2006 was $516M.


Contents

[hide]

[edit] Objectivity Case History

[edit] Important

This information is an archive, so any use of the present sense in the text should be taken in the historical context, generally determinable from the Status section below.

[edit] Customer Information

[edit] Status

  • First Contact: Middle of 1994.
  • Lead came from: Magazine article.
  • Evaluation Start Date: September 1994.
  • Evaluation Finish Date: December 1994
  • First Purchase Date: August 1995.
  • Deployment Date:
  • Current Status:
  • Can we talk about this customer and the product/project?
  • Referenceable?:

[edit] Environment

  • Hardware: Sun, then SGI.
  • Operating System: Sun/OS, Solaris, then moved to SGI.
  • Precision:
  • Development language: C++
  • Compiler: Manufacturer's.
  • Third Party vendor tools: RogueWave Tools.h
  • Open Source tools:

[edit] The Project/Product

[edit] Project Background

(They have created a standard set of tools for easily reusing existing designs in future products.)

[edit] Project/Product Description

The project started in mid-1994. The goal was create a standard set of tools for easily reusing existing electronic designs in future products. HOODS stores component parts (such as printed circuit board) and related connection information. Joe Gorman (who has now left the company) read about Objectivity in a DBMS oriented periodical.

The evaluation was supposed to take three months. However, they were not familiar with C++ and had to work through that learning curve. They felt they took the training class too early and would have gotten more out of training if they had experimented on their own with the database and developed questions beforehand. The evaluation actually took a total of six months, ending in January, 1995.

[edit] Buying Criteria

[edit] Business Priorities

[edit] Technical Priorities

  • C++ compatibility, reliability and speed.
  • Features used:
    • Indexes - no
    • Maps - yes
    • Named Objects - no
    • Associations - yes
    • Iterators - yes
    • Versioning - not yet - will in future enhancements (unknown)
    • SQL - yes, later.
    • ODBC - no
    • FTO - Considering especially if they implement at SGI California over a Wide Area Network.
    • DRO - Considering - same as above.
    • Schema Evolution - Considering
    • Other - Browser (they love it)
  • Features they considered using but aren’t:
    • Versioning and SQL (FTO and DRO if SGI buys in). They are waiting for subsequent upgrades to their product.
    • How are they using Containers? One per PCB in the component DB. One per project in product DB.
  • Biggest problems encountered since development started? Lack of knowledge internally (C++, OO Design, Data Base).
  • They have loaded several project designs into the “Data Base”. They are rolling out the initial release which includes some scheduling, Allegro netlist generation and some rule checking. Documentation has been started.
  • Things they like most about Objectivity:
    • Support and the Tool Manager.
  • Things they like least about Objectivity:
    • They want(ed) more tools.
  • Things about Objectivity that didn’t live up to their expectations?
    • None.
  • Enhancements they would like to see:
    • None.

[edit] Competitors/Alternatives

[edit] Why They Chose Objectivity

  • Liked the browser and met the criteria of C++ compatibility, reliability and speed.

[Leon: The old browser was pretty good for those days. I don't think the comment about it is a hoax]

  • A majority vote of 8 people made the decision to pick Objectivity? The result was six for Objectivity and two for Ingres, because it had a lot more tools.

[edit] Partners

  • None (though SGI eventually became a partner when we started seriously approaching the Intelligence and High performance Computing communities).

[edit] Collateral

  1. Press Releases:
  2. Fliers:
  3. White Papers:
  4. Case Study:
  5. Other: SGI presentation at WorldView 2005

[edit] Contact Information

  • Objectivity Rep:
  • Customer Contact: Joel Garcia
  • Customer Phone:
  • Customer Email:
  • URL:

[edit] External Links

[edit] Related Pages

[edit] Categories

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