Sequoia Computer Systems? - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

9 Mar 2016

Anyone have any pictures, datasheets, or other ephemera related to Sequoia
Systems line of fault tolerant systems?

This is unrelated to the "IBM Sequoia". The Sequoia computers I'm referring
to were around roughly '86+ish maybe and were fairly large minicomputers.
Their claim to fame was being "massively fault tolerant". I am not sure, but
Ian Sandler may have worked there on that design before heading to General
Automation perhaps, not sure I have my history right.

What I do recall for sure, is I worked on a lot of programming on the
Sequoia systems (the ones I used ran Pick or one of the MVRDBMS's) at Eagle
Snacks (back when that was part of the Anheuser-Busch family). On a whim I
decided to google and while I can find a few white papers on the Sequoia
Fault Tolerance design, I see no marketing brochures, datasheets, pictures,
etc.

I do recall a story from back when I worked there. the head of eagle snacks
was called into the office of the VP of AB for a dressing down, because all
the other departments submitted downtime reports to him on their systems and
Eagle Snacks (running on the Sequoia) did not submit any reports for over a
year. When asked why he wasn't submitting downtime reports the eagle snacks
guy replied "because we haven't had any". The VP said - yes, but I see here
maintenance logs that you had cpu boards failed and replaced, memory boards
failed and replaced, "etc etc". and the ES guy said "Right. No
downtime".

Anyone remember these systems?

Best,

J