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

To: George Dawson who wrote (613)	5/25/1998 12:10:00 PM
From: Neil S	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4808

Article: Jay Kramer [ Unisys ] Killer Application "Bandwidth" fcloop.org By Jay Kramer Killer apps are the cornerstone of a new revolution in computing. As Visicalc set off the PC explosion, Netscape captured the next wave called the Internet. As the computer industry seeks out the next killer app, it is hiding under the infrastructure of computer architecture called bandwidth. Bandwidth is the next frontier in computer architecture. As we look at all the facets of overall information access, the stage has been set with the following : rapid improvements in network infrastructure (both Lan/Wan) computing power at both the Intel and RISC chip sets is growing at exponential rates bandwidth of magnetic disks has been improving by about 20% per year due to the increasing recording density and faster rotational speed As the above three facets form the foundation for greater performance, there has been a paradigm shift in the new wave of computing applications. These new applications are no longer packing just traditional ASCI characters, but are now being surrounded by the richer content of multimedia and GUI front ends which thirst for bandwidth. Distance Learning Video on Demand Electronic Commerce Digital Libraries Internet Web Services Decision Support Data Warehouse/Mart Tele-Medicine Why is Bandwidth Important The significance of bandwidth is simply providing a higher level of customer service. The exploitation of this bandwidth will give many organizations a competitive edge which not only services clients better, but attracts a new wave of clients. One look at bandwidth through visionaries like Dave Guerrero of Healion Technologies in Irvine CA, is already experiencing the benefits of Fibre Channel being applied to medical imaging through Tele-Radiology and other aspects of Tele-Medicine. "Now that we have the bandwidth, health care now has the potential to reach 3 billion people on this planet. Bill Gates today is only reaching 200 million people." The healthcare marketplace in the US alone is a $1.2 trillion industry. Bandwidth enables more than doing existing applications faster, but is now empowering applications that were not previously possible. Where's the Bottleneck I/O has traditionally been regarded as a bottleneck. Computing bottlenecks relocate as technology shifts occur. When processors reach a certain speed the memory bus limits performance, so energy is expended to come up with a new bus that will last for several processor cycles. Channel speeds have traditionally lagged behind memory bus speeds but that is changing as serial interfaces like Fibre Channel come on stream. "For the first time, system designers will be unable to blame disappointing system performance on I/O, the fault will lie somewhere else in the data path between device and application space.", according to Computer Technology Consultant Dal Allan, of ENDL in Sarasota CA. The promise of Fibre Channel is being able to install a server/storage infrastructure that has head room to spare. That means several generations of computers can be installed and replaced without having to upgrade the channel interface. This translates bandwidth into investment protection and lower total cost of ownership. High Availability/Performance/Price Triangle What good is a sports car that can do 0 to 60 in 4 seconds, if it spends most of its time in the shop being repaired. All the computer speed in the world only has value for as long as the system is up and running. As we become more and more dependent on the real time access to information, high availability attributes become vital considerations. One look at the requirement for RAID in storage subsystems, demonstrates this criteria. Mirroring and striping data in a RAID level 10, delivers the best of availability and performance, yet many people who have champagne tastes on a beer budget need to make compromises in these attributes. This has created the demand for other implementations of RAID such as level 3 and 5. The beauty of Fibre Channel is that it compromises nothing in this triangle. Fibre Channel offers unparalleled levels of performance, at price tags comparable to SCSI. With attributes like dual ported drives, dual loop connectivity, XOR functionality, and fiber optic cabling distances for disaster tolerance, Fibre Channel delivers state of the art embodiment of mission critical computing. Application Workload Dynamics What constitutes commercial processing? Application workloads span bulk data movement on one end of the pendulum and OLTP database requirements on the other end. A typical IT organization deals with balancing these dynamics to meet the service level objectives of the enterprise. Fibre Channel excels at delivering both full bus saturation for bandwidth hungry applications and I/Os per second at volume levels never before possible with any other interface standard. The Emergence of SAN Storage Area Networking (SAN) allows applications to take advantage of the speed of Fibre Channel to address the three major entities of a computing enterprise. SAN allows client interconnect, server clustering, and network attached storage to mesh into a new wave of computing architecture. As the bottleneck of computing shifts between different points in the topology, these three SAN entities can scale to new levels of performance. Fibre Channel Performance Scaling Fibre Channel encompasses three forms of implementation to achieve results. Point to Point - Sun Microsystems' architectures have been the industry leader in embracing Fibre Channel to address the connectivity of server to storage. This early adoption and success of a simple point to point connection allowed Fibre Channel investments to flourish in the technology community culminating in the implementation of more advanced levels of topology. Loop - Loop implementations provide a low cost implementation of connectivity of lots of relatively slow devices like disk drives. There is almost universal support for this architecture as an effective storage to server environment. Fabric - Fabric switches represent the performance killer app since it provides simultaneous point to point transfers at 1 gigabaud transmissions. This topology truly can exploit the essence of Fibre Channel for storage, clustering, and interconnect applications, but at higher price points. Future Expectations The Fibre Channel standard has defined speeds well beyond the 1 gigabaud level. It is expected to see 2 gigabaud solutions in 1998 and 4 gigabaud by the year 2002. Leading edge computer suppliers will continue to push the envelop of bandwidth and enable the next generation of killer apps. As the killer app "Bandwidth" is truly realized, there is no telling what the future holds for computing into the 21st century. Summary The secret to maximizing the killer application of bandwidth is the highly tuned integration between software (operating systems and applications) and being driven by new and innovative enabling hardware technologies (processor, memory, I/O, and network infrastructure). As new design wins are achieved in each facet of computer architecture, we are faced with new challenges to maximize the performance potential of that technology. This is not much different than the work of a symphony orchestra conductor striving to achieve that beautiful blending of multiple instruments into an integrated musical expression. Fibre Channel to many in the IT community, is music to ones ears. Jay Kramer Director of Business Development & Marketing Unisys Corporation Mission Viejo, CA jay.kramer@unisys.com