Aviion
| Company type | Product line |
|---|---|
| Industry | Computer hardware |
| Founded | 1989 |
| Founder | Data General |
| Defunct | 2001 |
| Fate | Discontinued after acquisition by EMC |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Robert E. Cousins (workstation development lead 1988–1990) |
| Products | Workstations and servers based on Motorola 88000 and Intel processors |
| Owner | Data General (until 1999), then EMC (until 2001) |
| Parent | Data General (until 1999), EMC (1999–2001) |
Aviion (often stylized as AViiON) represented a line of computers produced by Data General, serving as the company’s flagship offering from the late 1980s until the server series was phased out in 2001. Initial Aviion units were powered by the Motorola 88000 CPU, but following Motorola’s discontinuation of the 88000 in the early 1990s, the product line transitioned entirely to Intel processors. Some Aviion models based on Intel hardware operated Windows NT, while higher-tier configurations ran on DG’s proprietary Unix system, DG/UX.
History
Historically, Data General emulated DEC by providing competitive yet incompatible minicomputer platforms that emphasized strong price-to-performance ratios. However, by the 1980s, DG’s custom-designed CPUs fell behind widely available microprocessors, rendering in-house CPU development increasingly impractical. The company then shifted its strategy to utilize off-the-shelf processors optimized for enhanced performance.
By 1989, Unix-based RISC workstations from companies like Sun Microsystems were attracting customers away from both DG and DEC. To address this market shift, DG introduced Aviion that year, targeting the expanding Unix server sector. Aviion systems were built around the high-performance Motorola 88000 RISC processor, featuring multiprocessing capabilities and a streamlined architecture. These machines ran a System V Unix derivative named DG/UX, primarily developed at DG’s Research Triangle Park center. Previously secondary to DG's traditional minicomputer operating systems, DG/UX became the core OS with Aviion deployments. Additionally, some servers supported the proprietary Meditech MAGIC operating system.
Between 1988 and 1990, workstation development was overseen by Robert E. Cousins, who guided projects including Maverick and subsequent workstation series 300, 310, and 400 alongside the 4000 server series.
Aviion debuted in multiple form factors starting in summer 1989, launching with a pizza box-style workstation called "Maverick" and server models in both roller-mounted and rackmount configurations known as "Topgun." Progressive enhancements in speed and scalability led to the introduction of the 16-CPU AV/9500 and eventually up to 32-processor AV 10000 servers by 1995, which incorporated DG’s inaugural Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) architecture. Over time, emphasis shifted more heavily toward server products.
In 1992, after Motorola abandoned further development of the 88000 due to its involvement with the AIM alliance focusing on IBM POWER CPUs, DG moved to Intel’s i386-based processors—including Pentium, Pentium Pro, Pentium II, and Pentium III Xeon—for its second-generation Aviion systems. This move toward commodity hardware allowed DG to construct NUMA servers using Intel motherboards interconnected via a memory-coherent protocol called Scalable Coherent Interconnect (SCI). Competitors such as Sequent Computer Systems (later acquired by IBM) pursued comparable approaches. An earlier NUMA project named "Manx" was never commercialized. The AV 20000 ("Audubon") supported up to thirty-two Pentium Pro CPUs arranged in eight quad-processor modules; its successor, the AV 25000 ("Audubon 2"), scaled this architecture up to sixty-four Pentium II/III Xeon processors.
Intel-powered Aviion models incorporated support for Windows NT, which notably boosted revenues in lower-end segments—especially among existing DG clients migrating to NT. Nevertheless, Windows NT did not optimize for processor or memory affinity on large NUMA configurations, limiting its performance on high-end Aviion systems.
Simultaneously, DG attempted to promote an “industry standard” Unix through collaborations such as SCO’s Data Center Acceleration Program (DCAP) and Project Monterey, but these efforts failed to gain significant market adoption. As a result, DG’s NUMA servers remained proprietary Unix platforms amid an industry increasingly dominated by major players like Compaq, HP, IBM, and Sun Microsystems.
In 1999, EMC acquired Data General for $1.2 billion primarily to obtain its CLARiiON storage offerings. According to merger agreements, EMC continued producing the server line for two additional years before discontinuing it altogether, marking the end of Aviion’s presence in the marketplace.
Notes
The designation "AViiON" is commonly believed to be an anagram of "Nova II," a nod to DG's well-known Nova series. When employees were invited to suggest names for the new product line, none met trademark criteria. Initial codenames for the Eclipse systems included The Bird and The Big Bird, which inspired a name related to aviation. Although "Avion" was proposed, it could not be trademarked. Drawing inspiration from European firms such as Baan and BiiN, which utilized repeated vowels in their names, "Avion" was modified by doubling the 'i' and capitalizing the remaining letters, resulting in AViiON. (Avion translates to "aircraft" in both French and Spanish.)
This distinctive "ii" vowel pattern was later adopted in products like the CLARiiON and THiiN Line.