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To: 44magnumpower who wrote (8219)	11/3/2000 7:10:47 PM
From: 44magnumpower	Respond to of 14451

Gigabyte System NetworkTM, or GSN, is the highest bandwidth and lowest latency interconnect standard, providing full duplex 6400 Megabits per second (800 Megabytes per second) of error-free, flow-controlled data transmission. The technology is ideal wherever organizations require timely and efficient movement of large amounts of information, including scientific and technical computing, HDTV, data mining, transaction processing, video and film archiving, and storage management. The proposed ANSI standard provides for interoperability with Ethernet, Fibre Channel, ATM, HIPPI-800, and other standards. SGITM GSN brochure (PDF, 153K) GSN Overview: Applications, Technology, and Products (Microsoft® PowerPoint, 112K) GSN Technology and Applications (PowerPoint, 702K) Gigabyte System Network Datahseet (PDF, 156K) Benefits An outstanding price/performance value: Unmatched Performance Payload bandwidth: up to 800MB per second full duplex, more than eight times faster than Fibre Channel, ATM OC12, Gigabit Ethernet, and HIPPI Adapter latencies under 10 microseconds; MPI latencies under 30 microseconds First adapter with a parallel protocol stack -- not just multithreaded Interoperability: GSN and ST standards provide for: IP over GSN ST over GSN ARP over GSN Value Adapters are priced to provide an outstanding price/performance ratio For technical computing applications such as clustering and system area networks and for enterprise applications of big data client-server functions (e.g., HDTV, post-production scanners, MR medical imaging) and storage management backbones that need huge bandwidth, low latency, and extremely efficient CPU utilization, SGITM GSN is the ideal networking solution. It is also the only network capable of providing the bandwidth necessary for the film and video industry's migration to digital studios and HDTV. Customers with large data warehouses can use the technology for ultrahigh-performance file servers and backup servers capable of moving terabytes of data an hour. While every major computer vendor is developing GSN products, SGI has been the technology leader and is the only major vendor to introduce GSN before the end of the century. The GSN Standard Gigabyte System Network is a new technology for switched networks with a reliable, flow-controlled transmission of user data at 800MB per second or 6.4Gb per second per direction. This is roughly equivalent to a link three times the speed of an ATM OC48c circuit or eight times the speed of a Gigabit Ethernet link. GSN evolved out of the ANSI T11.1 HIPPI task group as a next-generation HIPPI, or HIPPI-6400; however, it has characteristics that provide some of the best properties of HIPPI, ATM, and Ethernet. GSN uses four multiplexed channels called the virtual channels. These virtual channels are allocated to control traffic, low-latency traffic, and bulk traffic to avoid the issues HIPPI users saw with only a single channel when attempting to mix both bulk and interactive traffic. Data is transferred in micropackets of 32 bytes plus an out-of-band control word. The use of small packets and the virtual channels means that very large file transfers cannot lock out a host or switch port for interactive traffic. Link control and look-ahead flow control are done with admin-micropackets that are the same size as data micropackets. Correct link behavior is checked by CRC check summing on the link level acting internally only and for data integrity by a second CRC check summing acting over the full data path. Two common media types are used: a copper cable or a parallel fiber connection. The copper cable uses 20 coaxial wires for each direction with a signaling rate of 500 MHz and has a maximum length of 40 m. The parallel fiber cable uses 10 multimode fibers for each direction and has a signaling rate of 1 GHz for connections up to 300 m. It will be generally available during 1999. A single mode fiber connection is planned to cover distances up to 2 km. Switches are in development for 32x32 connections and less. Part of the switch specification is a translational bridge that allows up to eight HIPPI-800 connections made into a single GSN node. GSN also uses a standard MAC address format that will allow bridging between GSN and other media using 802.2 headers such as Ethernet and FDDI. The Scheduled Transfer (ST) specification allows the possibility of transparent memory to memory transfers. As it is technology independent it offers the possibility of combining GSN easily with other network technologies such as Fibre Channel, ATM, and Gigabit Ethernet. ST will be offered in addition to other standard protocols such as IP. The History of GSN and SGI's Leadership Role SGI joined the High-Performance Networking Forum in January 1995 and has aggressively developed GSN as today's highest bandwidth networking solution. SGI has been providing much of the technical leadership in the ANSI work group standardizing HIPPI-6400 and scheduled transfer. The creation of GSN began at a meeting of SGI and a large customer in 1996 discussing the new OriginTM architecture and, in particular, the NUMAlinkTM interconnect technology. From the initial conception, the ideas were brought to the ANSI Technical Committee T11 on device level interfaces, and work began on the HIPPI-6400 specifications. GSN, also known as HIPPI-6400, is well defined at the physical and protocol levels and is in the final stage of the ANSI international standards process. GSN is a physical layer (PHY) currently being developed within the HIPPI family of interconnect standards. The official project number is 1213-D. SGI has been the leader in developing this technology and working on the ANSI T11.1 task group to develop the protocol specifications.