SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 10, 1999--
CIO of Burlington Coat Factory describes the company's
implementation of Sequent's switched-fabric SAN and offers proof
points to performance gains and cost-saving benefits
Sequent Computer Systems (Nasdaq: SQNT.O), the leader in
Intel-based solutions for the data center, demonstrated the industry's
only multi-path, switched-fabric fibre channel SAN today at
GartnerGroup's Storage 99 conference. The SAN, developed by Sequent
and best-of-breed partners, EMC, Emulex, and Brocade Communications
Systems Inc. (BROCADE(R)), offers high-speed access to enterprise
storage, centralized management and non-disruptive scalability.
A highlight of the Storage 99 conference was the presentation
made by Mike Prince, who is the CIO of Burlington Coat Factory, a
long-standing Sequent customer. Prince provided a tutorial on early
SAN experiences citing as an example Sequent's multipath fibre channel
SAN, which has been in production at the company for almost two years.
"Burlington Coat Factory has grown rapidly from sales of 24
million in 1978 to over 2 billion per year today. With a network of
over 250 stores selling over a million and a half individual products,
not only are our storage requirements enormous, but any downtime would
equal a business disaster," said Mike Prince, CIO, Burlington Coat
Factory. "Sequent helped us implement a highly scalable and available
SAN architecture able to meet our needs while leveraging our current
technology investment."
The SAN demonstrated at Storage 99, similar to the Burlington
Coat Factory implementation, is a clustered system providing up to 112
active paths from the cluster, through the switched fabric to the
storage devices providing unprecedented levels of capacity,
availability and bandwidth. The multiple active paths are enabled with
the combination of the multipathing capability that is designed into
Sequent's DYNIX/ptx UNIX operating systemand the multiple paths
provided by the switched fabric. No other system in the industry can
offer this combination of software and hardware features.
Using switches from fibre channel switches from BROCADE, Sequent
is able to separate the nodes of the cluster up to 10KM apart. The
cascading of the switches allows the transmission of information
between the nodes at full fibre channel speeds of 100MB/sec per
channel for high-speed availability. This configuration, the first of
its kind, allows the data center to remain online even if an entire
site fails.
Attendees who view the SAN demonstration will get a close look at
the first cluster running the industry's only clustered file system,
which allows multiple nodes to see a single file structure. This
configuration brings performance gains over alternative
implementations wherein each system maintains its own file system and
needs to coordinate file access between multiple file systems.
Performance of the entire SAN demonstration environment is
monitored by ViewPoint(R) from Fairfax, Virginia-based Datametrics(R)
Systems Corporation. ViewPoint automatically monitors, alerts,
analyzes and correlates thousands of performance metrics for complex
environments like the SAN demonstration configuration including NUMA-Q
systems (CPU, memory, I/O), Brocade switches, EMC storage and Oracle
database software.
Sequent is Defining the Place for Storage Area Networks in the Industry
Sequent was the first vendor to provide full-speed fibre channel
switched fabric fibre channel SANs providing significant performance
advantages over arbitrated loop. The company, in cooperation with
partners including BROCADE, EMC and Emulex, was also the first to
deliver zoning to provide separate sections of the SAN for each
system. In the Sequent SAN, any devices connected to a fabric may be
configured into one or more zones allowing system resource allocation
changes to be done through the management console rather than by hard
cabling. Devices in different zones will not see each other thereby
eliminating the potential of an interruption in service as downed
devices are being removed and brought back on line.
Heterogeneous Storage Area Networks
The next step in the evolution of storage area networking is the
introduction of Windows NT servers in the shared storage environment.
SAN solutions for Windows NT have been constructed using a very
limited point-to-point arbitrated loop technology. Sequent, working
with EMULEX, a fibre channel host adapter vendor, has delivered a
mini-port driver enabling a Windows NT system using an EMULEX LP7000E
host adapter and driver to connect into a technically superior
switched fabric and be a member of a switched fabric environment.
Sequent, with its NUMACenter architecture provides a single source for
the design, delivery and support of the entire SAN from the CPUs to
the disks. Sequent's heterogeneous SAN, which has already been
successfully implemented at customer sites, is the only one of its
kind and represents a major step forward in SAN development.
About Sequent Computer Systems, Inc.
Sequent Computer Systems (Nasdaq: SQNT.O), the leader in
Intel-based solutions for the data center, is committed to the success
of its end-user and system integrator customers. Sequent's platform
architectures and services are optimized for the scalability,
availability and manageability requirements oflarge, growing corporate
infrastructures leveraging Internet technologies, database
technologies and best-of-breed partnerships.
Sequent supports more than 10,000 installations worldwide,
including many of the world's largest and most sophisticated
e-commerce, CRM and business intelligence environments. For further
information, phone Sequent at 503/626-5700 or 800/257-9044, or
visit our Web site at www.sequent.com.
Trademarks
Sequent is a registered trademark and NUMA-Q, and NUMACenter, are
trademarks of Sequent Computer Systems, Inc. All brand and product
names appearing in this release are registered trademarks or
trademarks of their respective holders.
--30--LM/na*
CONTACT: Sequent Computer Systems, Inc.
Mike Fay, 212/317-5710
mikefay@sequent.com
or
Catherine King, 503/578-7820
kingcath@sequent.com
KEYWORD: CALIFORNIA ARIZONA
INDUSTRY KEYWORD: COMPUTERS/ELECTRONICS COMED
INTERACTIVE/MULTIMEDIA/INTERNET PRODUCT TRADESHOW
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