FeaVer: Hardware Support

To speed-up the search process beyond what is achieved by the iterative search process, FeaVer executes its verification jobs on a 16-CPU multiprocessing system. The image to the left shows the system as it was being built in October 1999, at that point with the first 11 of the 16 CPU's online.

Each CPU was an off-the-shelf 500 MHz Pentium III system, without local disk. 15 of the CPU's ran the Plan9 operating system, and were configured as diskless compute servers. The 16th CPU, called FeaVer, held the main database of properties, the systems code and the web server that gives access to the verification system. This 16th system ran a standard Windows NT operating system and was connected to the 15 Plan9 CPUs via a 100 Mbs ethernet link.

A detailed description of how the system executed jobs, and how functionality was divided between the NT system and the Plan9 compute servers, can be found here.