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Technology Stocks : Son of SAN - Storage Networking Technologies -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Ox who wrote (1613)	11/16/1999 12:57:00 PM
From: Greg Hull	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 4808

George Gilder isn't too keen on Fibre Channel. In the November issue of his report, he states that NAS should have a much brighter future than SANs and that FC will be marginalized by GE. This is not too surprising since he has long advocated dumb networks, and FC networks are anything but dumb. Here is an excerpt: SAN hyped For specialized storage systems that need very tight management, such as Video "non-linear" editing, multimedia post production systems, and streaming video centers, a more complex and intelligent-and more hyped-technology is finding a niche: Storage Area Networks. Consisting of multiple storage devices linked by specialized Fibre Channel hubs and software sold by Vixel (VIXL), Brocade (BRCD) and Gadzooks, and governed by master servers mediating between the SAN and the network, SANs are an ambivalent transitional step toward the new paradigm. But Network Attached Storage hardware and World Wide Web software and standards, are the wave of the future. Fibre Channel marginalized SANs are dependent on finicky Fibre Channel, limiting them to enterprises that find their IT departments underworked and have a compulsion to hire more network engineers starting at $80,000 per year. As David Doering of TechVoice.com quips, "IT managers aren't worrying about thin clients or thin servers, what's on their mind are thin staffs." Fibre Channel is not viewed as helpful. Brocade recently partnered with Vixel on a way to relieve some of these problems by combining complex SANs with NAS. The defense of SANs is essentially a defense of smart Fibre Channel against the threat from dumb gigabit Ethernet. The case reads exactly like a defense of SONET (see GTR October 99). Fibre Channel is specialized for input-output (I-O) and requires expensive local integration. Ethernet is a familiar, modular, largely plug-in network system. And with the advent of 10 gigabit Ethernet, created and tested at Lucent (LU) and Cisco (CSCO), demonstrated all over the floor at Networld+Interop, and even deployed (in Canada's Canarie next generation IP network), Ethernet will be not only cheaper and simpler but faster as well. The throughput gains, guaranteed quality of service, processor cycle savings, and other performance features claimed for Fibre Channel all will be amply supplied by the tenfold greater bandwidth of ten gigabit Ethernet, plus the advances in processors from companies such as AMCC (AMCC) and Broadcom (BRCM). Otherwise needed functions can be incorporated in software, perhaps in programmable DSPs and Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) from Xilinx (XNLX), which now run at up to 40 gigabits per second. Like all specialized I/O links, Fibre Channel faces the future as an increasingly marginal technology. The entire architecture and topology of the computer system-indeed its very existence as an integrated unit-reflects a time when bandwidth inside the computer was greater than bandwidth outside it. Today, however, not only is bandwidth outside the computer generally larger than inside, but outside bandwidth is growing some ten times faster. Such divergent deltas-different rates of change-tear systems apart and wreak new paradigms. As the network becomes faster than I/O, I/O is absorbed by the network. Since I/O is the defining structure of the computer, its dissolution means that the computer disaggregates and becomes a series of peripherals attached to the network. This is the "hollowing out of the computer" that Eric Schmidt, now Novell CEO, predicted five years ago. He is now focusing on storage innovations and on directories which separate your identity from a specific machine. Your disk drive, your printer, your keyboard and finally even your processor can be anywhere on the network. Meanwhile, the heart of the information infrastructure becomes the storage repository and the increasingly object-oriented and multimedia-centric databases it contains. Embracing all will be the World Wide Web, Java, XML, IP and Ethernet, running on the vast boulevards of Wavelength Division Multiplexed optical circuits. Dumb networks and stupid storage will become the smart solution for the new millennium. The simultaneous explosion of bandwidth and storage dictate a similarly massive growth in web caching, a solution that paradigmatically "wastes" these two crucial abundances, while conserving the two great scarcities of the Telecosm, the speed of light and the span of life, aka the customer's time. Banishing the World Wide Wait, the dumb paradigm embraces so called push or multicast technologies which can be integrated with ordinary customer "pull."

To: The Ox who wrote (1613)	11/16/1999 5:00:00 PM
From: Douglas Nordgren	Respond to of 4808

And Now for Fibre Channel on Linux, by LSI. I understand MTIC will be coming out with Linux support also. LSI Logic Supports Linux OS With SCSI and Fibre Channel biz.yahoo.com Worldwide Storage I/O Leader Partners With Linux Developers to Provide SCSI and Fibre Channel Solutions MILPITAS, Calif., Nov. 16 /PRNewswire/ -- LSI Logic Corporation (NYSE: LSI - news) today announced a Linux open-source operating system initiative that will expand its suite of software drivers supporting Symbios-brand SCSI and Fibre Channel devices. LSI Logic will provide the necessary tools, hardware and development support for the Linux development community to ensure full compatibility. LSI Logic will demonstrate its Linux solution during Comdex in Room N206, upstairs in the Las Vegas Convention Center. ``LSI Logic is seeing real interest and activity from our customers regarding the open-source movement, particularly with Linux,' said Harry Mason, director of strategic alliances in LSI Logic's Storage Components Division. ``As a result, we have partnered with the Linux community to make our SCSI and Fibre Channel storage solutions available to Linux users worldwide. LSI Logic will strive to ensure that future releases of Linux will have high performance full LSI Logic SCSI and Fibre Channel hardware support capability. Our feedback indicates that there is great demand for robust, high-performance storage solutions among Linux users, and this new working model will allow users to immediately address these needs.' LSI Logic is committed to providing hardware, integration testing, and technical support to our Linux partners to ensure compatibility and interoperability in mission critical enterprise server environments. LSI will also work with the Linux community to drive other server management initiatives to Linux such as Desktop Management Interface (DMI) and Common Information Model (CIM). ``LSI Logic has provided hardware, extensive expertise and worked hand in hand with the Linux community to provide the very best performance,' stated Alan Cox, a leading Linux kernel developer. ``LSI Logic's new working relationship with Linux developers worldwide will help to ensure that their storage technologies will continue to remain an integral part of this rapidly evolving operating system.' As a result of this partnership with leading Linux developers, Linux version 2.2, (Red Hat version 5.2) and future versions of the Linux Kernel beginning with version 2.2.3 will support LSI Logic's line of industry-leading Symbios brand SCSI SYM53C8XX controllers. Symbios brand high performance Fibre Channel SAN SYMFC9XX controllers will be supported by the end of this year.