J, desperate times engender desperate measures. And I am not just referring to Brocade. The internet is truly a double edged sword.
The internet is clearly a farsighted move for Intel. Builds a market for the next generation too. Have to view their webcast.
Next-generation server architecture gains support
By Sonia R. Lelii, PC Week
October 28, 1999 7:10 AM PT
URL: zdnet.com
Even before it was born, the new I/O architecture was christened with four names.
It was called Future I/O and Next Generation I/O, when a schism erupted between Intel Corp. and some of its major OEMs over the direction the new standard should take. Then this summer it was renamed System I/O after the two sides declared a truce.
Now the upcoming architecture has a new name: Call it InfiniBand.
The InfiniBand Trade Association, a consortium of industry-leading computing and networking companies that is responsible for designing the new I/O standard, introduced the name at an event Wednesday in San Francisco. Moreover, the group introduced new company sponsors for the project, including Adaptec Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., Fujitsu-Siemens, Hitachi, Lucent Technologies Inc., NEC and Nortel Networks Corp.
They join founding members Compaq Computer Corp., Dell Computer Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM, Intel, Microsoft Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc.
Draft specifications for the new standard are expected by the end of the year. Final specs are scheduled for early 2000, with products to follow in 2001.
Seven special working groups, each focused on a particular technology, will work on developing the specifications for the standard. A steering committee will oversee the groups as they hammer out a design plan.
It's been a long and winding road to get to this point. In August, Intel resolved differences with Compaq, HP and IBM regarding the next-generation interconnect standard.
The schism between the two groups came to light a year ago, when Compaq, HP and IBM announced they were developing an extension to the PCI bus, called PCIX. The extension would speed data between the host computer and peripheral devices. The group also planned to develop its own switch fabric interconnect. Intel then said it was developing a switched fabric design.
The two groups then agreed that the current PCI bus standard and its PCIX extension would be the starting points for future specifications.
The I/O specifications that were developed separately by Intel and the three OEMs will be merged to form the new standards for switched fabric technology called Infiniband. |
