End to server war coming tomorrow
By Stephen Shankland
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
August 30, 1999, 11:10 a.m. PT
The computing industry's biggest players will announce a resolution to a
server design battle tomorrow, resolving a months-long struggle over a
key part of future high-end computers.
The disagreement pitted Intel, Sun Microsystems, and Dell Computer on one
side against Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Compaq Computer on the other. The
new specification, with the working name of "system I/O," will be announced
at a news conference tomorrow, sources familiar with the negotiations said.
The new standard is expected by the end 1999, with computers using it
scheduled to be available by the end of
2001.
The dispute had been holding hostage
the future design of many components
of next-generation servers and had
divided Intel and some of its biggest
customers. Until the resolution, two
different standards were competing for
the resources of those who made the
computers themselves, the network cards
and other components that plug into
them, and the supporting chips that are
the computers' nervous system.
The Intel camp favored a standard
called Next-Generation Input/Output, or
NGIO. HP, IBM, and Compaq initiated
Future I/O, and rounded up support from
3Com, Adaptec, and Cisco. The
specifications govern how equipment
such as network cards or disk systems
plug into the servers.
Although it's not yet clear which companies will be in charge of the new
standard, Intel and IBM will serve as co-chairman of the committee, a source
said. Each company in the committee will get one vote--a resolution of a key
governance issue, the source said.
The resolution addresses concerns from Intel that the standard would only
work in expensive machines, not the lower-priced computers that Intel sells in
such large quantities, sources said. In addition, the new standard has room
for server makers to extend it to accommodate more proprietary technology
that make their products stand out from the pack.
The standard will merge Future I/O with a high-speed version of NGIO,
called "fat pipes," which had been championed by Sun. The initial version
of the standard will allow data to be transferred at 2.5 gigabits per second,
said a source familiar with the technology.
Both the Future I/O and NGIO standards will be scrapped to make way for the
new standard, sources said. It's not yet clear how the resolution will affect
planned meetings of each group that were scheduled for September.
The new standard is timed to arrive in time for "McKinley," the second in
Intel's line of high-end 64-bit processors. However, the standard also will work
in machines built around lower-end 32-bit Intel chips, which still are
expected to ship in large quantities for years.
The debate was resolved in final votes over the weekend, a source said.
See Story in Context
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• Intel CEO: Healing server rift a top priority August 26, 1999
• Truce in the server technology wars August 24, 1999
• Sun urges August deadline in server wars July 29, 1999 |
