The ServerNet white paper on Tandem home page says that no "switching"
is involved for ServerNet, that 6 port hubs are used.
However, the following quote is from the June announcement of ServerNet new 6 port switch:
Specifically designed for use as a system area network (SAN), ServerNet technology was originally developed for Tandem's
massively parallel systems. Based on a flexible "switching fabric" as opposed to a traditional LAN architecture, ServerNet
technology uses inexpensive, intelligent ASIC switches (each with six low-latency switched ports) to move data in an efficient
any-to-any fashion between cluster components.
With the introduction of the new six-port ServerNet switches, ServerNet technology will now cost-effectively support the
building of very large clusters. The new ServerNet switches can be cascaded to form an enormous switching fabric supporting
as many as one million networked elements, including servers, storage devices, and input and output devices. As a cluster
grows, each new ServerNet switch adds its considerable (1.3 gigabits per second) bandwidth to the whole, allowing an
aggregate throughput of 150,000 gigabits per second to be achieved (150,000 times 1 gigabit Ethernet). Fault tolerance can
be achieved by the use of dual, or mirrored, ServerNet switching fabrics.
This sounds an awful like fibre channel to me. The Info world article claims that Tandem is using COTS hardware.
Of course, I may be wrong. Brad |
