MINNEAPOLIS, Nov. 6 /PRNewswire/ -- An Ancor Communications, Inc.
(Nasdaq: ANCR) GigWorks Fibre Channel network will help the world's largest
telescope in Hawaii search for the origins of life in the universe.
Ancor has announced that its GigWorks Fibre Channel switches and adapters
will provide the communications backbone for the Subaru Telescope being
developed by the National Astronomical Observatory Japan (NAOJ), Ministry of
Education, Science, Sports and Culture (MESSC), Japan. This telescope,
measuring some 8.2 meters in diameter, is designed to peer to the edges of the
universe in search of astrophysical evidence that can help explain the origins
of life and the universe.
Code named "Subaru Project," the world's largest single-dish
optical-infrared telescope will be situated at the summit of Mauna Kea on the
Big Island of Hawaii, 13,796 feet above sea level, and also will include a
base research facility on Hilo. The dedicated computer systems integration
work for this telescope is being done by Fujitsu, Ltd., which has developed a
high-performance network that can support both the enormous quantities of data
to be generated by the telescope and the complex visualization applications
used at the workstation level to interpret the data.
According to Subaru Computer Team Manager Ryusuke Ogasawara, Ph.D., the
telescope will scan the night skies, capturing and sending digital
astronomical images to a Fujitsu AP3000 data server located at the base
facility in Hilo, approximately 45 miles away. Ancor GigWorks 266 switches
provide the high-speed link between the 27 node parallel server AP3000 and
more than 50 Sun and Silicon Graphics workstations at the Hilo Data Center,
where the images will be studied and modeled by astrophysicists. The Fibre
Channel network also will support data file transfer between workstations and
the Fujitsu VPP700, a high-performance vector parallel computational server
with 22 vector processors, running astronomical visualizations.
Massive files sizes, file transfer demands and bandwidth-intensive
applications made Fibre Channel a natural choice for this project. "When
operational, the telescope will generate from several hundred megabytes to
more than ten gigabytes of data each night," said Dr. Ogasawara. "We saw
Fibre Channel as the best data communications solution to handle these large
amounts of data." Dr. Ogasawara said the data center will include
2.4 terabytes of online disk capacity and 150 terabytes of tape storage to
handle this volume of data.
Ancor's GigWorks Fibre Channel solution provides the high-performance link
between compute servers, storage and workstations. According to Dr.
Ogasawara, "Fibre Channel provided the best combination of performance, ease
of implementation and cost-of-ownership. But most importantly, it will be a
critical enabling tool that can help our scientists transform raw data into
new insights on the origins of the universe, planets and life."
When complete, the summit facility will use a high-performance Fibre
Channel network linking up to 16 workstations used for shutter control, data
collection and management. The Hilo data center will use an identical system,
allowing scientists to run telescope simulations and control telescope
functions from the base facility.
Currently, system engineers from Fujitsu America, Inc., and data center
integration specialists from Instrumental, Inc., are testing the performance
and integrity of the data center compute server, data server and workstations.
The 24-ton mirror will be delivered to the island early next spring, and Dr.
Ogasawara said the telescope will see first light in the summer of 1998. When
fully operational in the year 2000, the telescope will capture data images
from up to 10 billion light years away.
For more information on this project, contact Dr. Ogasawara at the Subaru
Telescope, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, 808-934-7788, or
ogasawara@subaru.naoj.org. Information also is available on the World Wide
Web at www.naoj.org.
About Fibre Channel
Fibre Channel is an ANSI-standard, high-speed, low-latency data
communications technology that provides gigabit-per-second transmission rates
in storage/server environments and high-performance networks. Ancor
GigWorks(TM) products combine the speed and simplicity of channels with the
flexibility of networks to solve bandwidth problems caused by the transfer of
large data files between storage, server and client nodes in high-performance
compute environments. Ancor Fibre Channel products provide optimal speed and
throughput for data-intensive applications such as shared storage, CAD/CAM,
visualization, data mining and file backup.
About Ancor Communications
Ancor Communications, Inc. provides GigWorks(TM) high-performance storage
and data-intensive network solutions based on Fibre Channel technology. The
company was the first to deliver a Fibre Channel switch, and the first to top
the one-gigabit performance level. In addition to Fibre Channel switches,
Ancor products also include adapters and connectivity solutions. Ancor is a
member of the Fibre Channel Association, the ANSI Standards Committee and the
University of New Hampshire Fibre Channel Consortium to promote the
advancement of Fibre Channel standards and interoperability. Information on
Ancor is available on the World Wide Web at ancor.com.
For more information about Fibre Channel technology and Ancor Fibre
Channel solutions, call 800-342-7379 or access Ancor's Web site.
Forward-looking statements as defined by the Private Securities Litigation
Reform Act of 1995 are qualified by the risk factors outlined in the documents
Ancor Communications, Inc. files with the Securities and Exchange Commission. |
