Buyer's guide

NASA's Scientific and Engineering Workstation Procurement III contract covers 14 classes of products and services. Listed below are summaries of the capabilities and typical uses of the products in each category, as well as vendors and a representative selection of available products.

SEWP III vendors offer products and services that meet NASA's requirements, as well as related systems, peripherals, software and other items and services, not all of which are listed here. In some categories, vendors have not yet been selected or no proposals from vendors were submitted.Class 1: Electronic circuit design computer systems, computer-aided engineering/ design (CAE/CAD). For the development of electronic devices, including custom analog chips, custom and semi.custom ultralarge-scale integration, application-specific integrated circuits, field-programmable gate arrays and high-speed digital, analog and mixed-signal printed circuit boards.

Hewlett-Packard Co. offers B-, C- and J-class Unix workstations. The high-end J-class systems feature dual Precision Architecture, reduced instruction set computing (PA-RISC) processors and up to 16G of memory and 146G of internal storage. The company's i2000 workstation is available with dual 800 MHz Itanium processors from Intel Corp.; HP-UX, Linux or Microsoft Corp. Windows XP operating system; and up to 16G of memory. Also available are HP's entry-level, midrange and high-end families of Unix servers. High-end servers include the HP 9000 V-Class Enterprise Server and the 9000 Superdome. Itanium-powered servers include the rx4610 and rx9610. Class 2: Mechanical design computer systems, CAE/CAD.

For mechanical engineering tasks, including structural analysis, mechanical design and thermal analysis. Must be able to run a wide suite of engineering applications, including commercial mechanical CAD software, structural analysis programs, and analysis pre- and post-processing tools. Systems in this class are considered turnkey with minimal applications development required.

GTSI Corp. offers Sun Microsystems Inc.'s entire product line, including the high-end Sun Enterprise 10000 server; the Sun Fire 6800, 4810, 4800 and 3800 midframe servers; and the Sun Enterprise 6500, 5500, 4500 and 3500 lines. Workgroup servers include the Sun Enterprise 450, 420R and 220R lines and, from the rack-optimized line, the Netra X1 server. Desktops include the Sun Blade 100 and Sun Blade 1000 UltraSPARC workstations. Storage products range from the preconfigured Sun StorEdge T3 array to the high-end data center StorEdge 9900 line. Class 3: Mass storage servers.

For Unix-based servers capable of storing and retrieving hundreds of gigabytes of data around- the-clock.

No proposals were received for this class. Class 4: Database servers.

For hosting large data volumes and databases. Applications are typically based on commercial database management systems. Typical uses include maintaining databases of spacecraft mission parameters and catalogs of telemetry and derived-science datasets, as well as archival and digital libraries. IBM Corp. offers the high-end pSeries line of Unix servers, including systems such as the RS/6000 SP, which allows for up to 8,192 individual processors packaged in shared memory nodes of up to 16 processors each to be combined and managed as a single system. The RS/6000 line of workstations is also available. Other server offerings include the Intel-based xSeries line and the zSeries mainframe family. Related storage, database, security, graphics and other products are also available. Class 5: High-performance visualization computer systems.

For providing high-quality visual representations of data. Typical applications include manned and unmanned spacecraft studies; launch and deployment sequences; data analysis; photorealistic representations of data, such as Earth with full texture maps; robotic systems models for the International Space Station and space shuttle; and virtual reality. Systems must be able to display large numbers of polygons per second to meet the animation needs of the robotics community, as well as provide a highly graphical representations of the objects displayed.

Offerings from SGI Federal Inc. a wholly owned subsidiary of Silicon Graphics Inc. include the SGI Onyx 3000 series of high-performance visualization systems, the Silicon Graphics 750 system for Linux with an Intel Itanium processor, the SGI Reality Center 3300W wall display, the Silicon Graphics O2+ visual workstation and the SGI Graphics Cluster. Class 6: High-performance compute servers.

For performing compute- intensive traditional optimized applications, such as modeling and mathematical analysis. Applications include atmospheric and oceanographic modeling, ocean color or crystal dynamics studies, ozone and sea-ice mapping, radio astronomy, high-energy astrophysics applications, flight dynamics computations and fluid flow dynamic process modeling. SGI Federal offers the SGI Origin 3000 series of modular, high-performance servers, including the high-end Origin 3800, which can be configured with up to 516 processors. Related storage, networking and other products are also available.

Government Micro Resources Inc. offers Cray Research Inc. supercomputers, including the Cray SV1 series, the MTA (multithreaded architecture) system and the T3E-1350 system.

Compaq Computer Corp.'s ProLiant family of servers includes the ProLiant 8000, which features up to eight 700 MHz Intel Pentium III Xeon processors, and the DL590/64, which ships with two 800 MHz Intel Itanium processors. ProLiant operating systems include Windows 2000 and NT, Novell Inc.'s Netware, Linux and SCO UnixWare from the Santa Cruz Operation Inc. The high- performance AlphaServer line includes the ES40, with up to four 667 MHz Alpha processors; the GS series, with up to 32 1 GHz processors; and the SC supercomputing series, with up to 512 processors. Class 7: Science and engineering research computer systems.

For data conversion, plotting and similar tasks. Specific uses include analyzing compressor/combustion/turbine data, climate modeling techniques and data from satellite systems.

No proposals were received for this class.

Class 8: Earth science computer systems.

For modeling, data processing, mathematical analysis and similar compute- intensive or input/output- optimized operations. Applications include simulating climate conditions; modeling atmospheric, oceanic and land processes; processing large quantities of spacecraft data and reducing them to usable information; and assimilating spacecraft data into models. The critical features of this class are high compute capability, fast primary storage and network communications, and large data storage capability.

Hewlett-Packard offers Unix and Intel Itanium-based workstations and servers, as well as a range of storage-area network technologies and supporting products. Also available is the NetServer family of servers, including the LXR8500 with up to eight 700 MHz Pentium III Xeon processors.

Class 9: Space science computer systems.

For compute-intensive optimized applications such as modeling and mathematical analysis.

No proposals were received for this class.

Class 10: Computer support devices.

For input/output peripherals and other items that support and complement the deployment of Unix-based computer systems throughout NASA. Included are printers, multifunction machines and plotters for outputting textual and graphical files; X terminals and other low-end client systems to allow user connectivity to a full range of computer systems; scanners to allow inputting of information from hard-copy forms; and personal digital assistants and Unix portables.

Vendor to be determined.

Class 11: High-end networking.

For full deployment of Unix-based computer systems in the NASA network environment. Products include hubs, switches, routers, concentrators, and diagnostic tools and software. GTSI offerings include Alcatel's 1000 Softswitch and the OmniCore 5052 switch/router, and from Cisco Systems Inc., the high-end 12000 series Internet routers and the Catalyst 6000 family of switches. Hewlett-Packard servers and printers, including the NetServer LH 6000 and the Color LaserJet 4550 series, are available, as are Panasonic products, including the Toughbook CF-28 wireless notebook in numerous configurations.

Logicon FDC offers networking solutions from Cisco such as Cisco 12000, 10000, 7500 and 7200 routers; voice-over-IP tools; and IP telephony components Foundry Networks' Layer 3 switches and Internet routers; and Enterasys Networks Inc.'s Vertical Horizon and Matrix switches, along with products from other leading manufacturers. Network security software from Network Associates Inc., Symantec Corp. and others is also available.

Unisys Corp. offers networking systems, network management software, enterprise and departmental servers, enterprise management software, enterprise server software, network security software, assistive technology devices, peripherals and storage devices. Among the company's core SEWP solutions are customer relationship management services, e-Government Architecture Migration, Enterprise Information Management, Supply Chain Management, Enterprise Consolidation, Information Security and Section 508 compliance.

Class 12: Computer security tools.

Products include password tools, firewalls, auditing tools, intrusion-detection systems, encryption capabilities, monitoring tools, remote access and authorization tools.

Vendor to be determined. Class 13: Mass storage devices.

This class consists of hard disks and tape systems that can be used with mass storage server and other computer systems.

GTSI supplies storage-area network (SAN) and network-attached storage (NAS) products from EMC Corp., including Clariion IP4700 and FC4700 storage systems and the Symmetrix line of enterprise storage systems, scalable to nearly 70 terabytes. Also available are EMC's Connectrix family of Fibre Channel products and the Celerra file server; from Advanced Digital Information Corp., the StorNext family of NAS appliances and the SAN-enabled Scalar 10K library; and from Brocade Communications Systems Inc., the SilkWorm 12000 Core Fabric Switch.

Logicon FDC carries Clariion Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) systems and the IP4700 NAS system from EMC; NAS filers from Network Appliance Inc.; Veritas Software Corp.'s data management software; high-speed Fibre Channel SilkWorm switches from Brocade; and a host of other leading storage products. Computer peripherals and other components are also available.

Government Micro Resources' many products include the Lightning 9900 series and the Thunder 9200 from Hitachi Data Systems; the SAN DataDirector from DataDirect Networks Inc.; UDSS RAID subsystems from Legacy Storage Systems Corp.; Fibre Channel SAN and SAN-management tools from QLogic Corp.; the Enterprise Storage Server from IBM; the RamSan-520 and RamSan-210 storage appliances from Texas Memory Systems Inc.; the Modular Array 8000 and Enterprise Modular Array 12000 storage systems from Compaq; Brocade fabric switches; and a wide array of data- and storage-management software products. Class 14: Advanced video and display tools.

For equipment that supports digital TV image production and related imaging and display tools.

No proposals were received for this class.