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To: Snowshoe who wrote (5689)	7/2/1999 10:12:00 AM
From: Ramsey Su	Respond to of 10309

Greg, may be the beginning of some I2O stuff? Ramsey Buyer's Guide: What's New in Video Servers July 1, 1999 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NETWORK COMPUTING via NewsEdge Corporation : The past year has seen unprecedented growth in the market for video servers. Three important elements are now being factored into the video-server equation: the ability to do IP multicasting; the requisite fat network pipes; and fast servers with vast hard disk space. The video-file server segment of this market presents a wide array of products, but they are far from technically stable. Product capabilities, prices and longevity vary widely among vendors. For canned video serving-that which is executed from an existing archive of video clips-you can choose from turnkey systems or build your own. Server requirements in this case are the same as in any high-traffic situation where back-end hardware stability is a must. It's preferable to have a couple of fast processors, as much RAM as you can afford and a RAID-based disk subsystem that's been tweaked for smooth file transfers. It's also wise to use a high-speed network connection. Intel has thrown another bone at video-server manufacturers with its introduction of I2O using its i960 processors. I2O-capable RAID controllers can provide an extra-wide data path for streaming video traffic, and using additional processing muscle, they can bump I/O traffic rates to greater than 100 MB per second. External storage chassis and storage area networks also have become popular. Remember, though, that hardware is only half the story. Video-management software should come with any video-file server, and its capabilities are easily as important as any hardware consideration. For example, having the ability to send video streams at different packet sizes is important, depending on your existing application traffic patterns and switching hardware infrastructure. Some switches are better at handling large or small packets than others; the server needs to fit into your existing network, not take it over. The ability to vary the size of video streams is also important, not only for protecting network bandwidth, but for ensuring broadcast-level quality, if this a priority. Finally, the player component is another hurdle. The best new players run inside client Web browsers, either via new plug-ins or using an existing capability, such as RealNetworks. That means no application distribution headache, though this advantage needs to be balanced by the quality of the player software. TV-quality rendering on the client side should be expected for ATM, Gigabit Ethernet or Fast Ethernet, as should the ability to render video images at full-screen sizes. Oliver Rist is a contributing technical editor at InternetWeek. Send your comments about this article to him at orist@cmp.com. Copyright c 1999 CMP Media Inc. By Oliver Rist <<NETWORK COMPUTING -- 06-28-99, p. PG101>> [Copyright 1999, CMP Publications]