I will be using the Sun Ultra Enterprise 10000 and IBM SP/2 as examples of how some of the newer, bigger unix systems (which are increasingly being used for jobs previously performed by mainframes) present some interesting challenges in the area of system security. As you may know, the Ultra Enterprise 10000 is a SMP system that can be configured with up to 64 processors, which may then be partitioned into a maximum of 8 independent partitions. The SP/2, on the other hand, is an MPP architecture that can be configured with up to 64 8-way SMP nodes. These two architectures are different in almost every way, however both are extremely fast, and both have some security concerns not present in more traditional unix systems. What I have found is that the security problems are surprisingly similar between the two types of machines.
By failing to consider all aspects of security when implementing the system management tools provided with these computers, the vendors are selling million-dollar-plus products that are less secure than typical end-user workstations. I contend that as unix offerings start providing mainframe class computing power, they need to also look towards providing mainframe class security.