Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : The New QLogic (ANCR) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Craig Stevenson who wrote (16141)	5/8/1998 10:15:00 AM
From: George Dawson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29386

Craig, I could not have said it better. I was referring to the computer side where SAN = "system area network". The excerpt from my previous post's link that speaks to this concept is: "Recent events in the marketplace, as well as newly available products and technologies, have made the notion of clustering commodity PC servers into highly available, high-performance alternatives to the minicomputer or mainframe a practical reality." There still may be a place for FC. I remember when people talked about Sequent using FC for their cluster interconnect. If prices come down and FC gets faster with lower latency you could use it to connect everything, but there seem to be as many market forces operating against this as for it. Two good examples would be some of the engineers working with the other technologies describing FC as a nightmare of complexity (I am paraphrasing) and current FC powers not having sold enough of their 1 gig submicrosecond latency gear. George D.

To: Craig Stevenson who wrote (16141)	5/8/1998 11:24:00 AM
From: KJ. Moy	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29386

Craig & George, <<I won't speak for George, but I agree that server clustering is part of the SAN strategy for Fibre Channel. (At least on the storage side.) The argument becomes whether something other than Fibre Channel will be used for clustering servers on the LAN or computing sides of the equation. That was the reason for my question during the conference call regarding ClusterNet and VIA becoming competitors to FC in the server clustering space. There still seem to be performance advantages to the proprietary schemes, but when FC takes off, the cost advantages of a Fibre Channel implementation could outweigh them.>>> Your points are well taken. But, these proprietary schemes existed for ages and no doubt some of them may even perform better when clustering servers is the 'ONLY' concern. The very reason that FC is becoming popular is that it allows storage devices and computers to speak the same language and hence they can be 'NETWORKED' together over distance too. If these proprietary schemes are used to perform clustering, these same servers have to resort back the old ways of accessing storage or develop a new way? NO way. FC will win hands down. Sequent has their own proprietary way of clustering. It is called IQ-link. As far as talking in between computers, it is fine. Other than that, it needs Brocade and FC. KJ