GENROCO Demonstrates Network Independent SAN
SLINGER, Wis., Aug 23, 1999 (BUSINESS WIRE) --
Variety of interconnect technologies used as part of
Next Generation Storage Area Network demonstration
GENROCO, Inc. (GENROCO) (OTC Bulletin Board: "GRCI") unveiled the
industry's first network independent, high-speed Storage Area Network
(SAN) at the University of New Mexico this month.
Multiple operating systems and server platforms were involved as part
of this open SAN environment that will ultimately be used by commercial
enterprises and government agencies for mission-critical computing and
archiving applications.
The demonstration was held in conjunction with the University of New
Mexico's Chautauqua 99 conference held in Albuquerque. The display,
which featured SCSI over Schedule Transfer (ST), a new ANSI standard
protocol, is the framework for the highest performing SAN solution
available utilizing disparate networking technologies.
To date, SANs have been implemented almost exclusively with proprietary
software and Fibre Channel transport media. ST's small control messages
and pre-arranged data movements provide full-rate, flow controlled,
non-congesting information transfers regardless of the specific
physical network making it an ideal vehicle for implementing
non-proprietary, media independent SANs. ST creates a uniform access
method across a broad range of servers andnetworks. SANs based on ST
are scalable far beyond the possibilities of a single interconnect such
as Fibre Channel.
"ST is a key component for the future of high performance storage,"
said Barney Maccabe, head of hosting University of New Mexico Scalable
Systems Laboratory. "This demonstration shows that ST and GSN are
capable of providing a high-speed, robust infrastructure supporting the
interoperability that will be needed in tomorrow's multi-vendor storage
solutions."
The demonstration employed Fibre Channel storage attached to a port on
the GENROCO TURBOstor(R) Fibre Channel to Gigabyte System Network (GSN)
bridge. The bridge communicated the SCSI on ST protocol to an SGI
Origin 2000 configured with SGI's XIO GSN adapter. The data was then
bridged to HIPPI-800 through GENROCO's GSN Network router and ODS
Networks' GSN switch providing the data to both a Compaq Alpha Tru64
UNIX server via ST and a Sun Microsystems Solaris workstation via
traditional NFS.
Current FC RAID storage subsystems have only one eighth of the
throughput of GENROCO's product and can only use FC for network
communication. GENROCO's bridge is currently available with FC, GSN,
and HIPPI and will soonhave (more)
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