Intel Investors - Intel's NGIO - the Next Generation I/O - draft spec is in final review.
This I/O will, reportedly, feature a switched fabric connection scheme for communications between new CHip Sets and Input/Output devices.
The IBM/Compaq/HP Future I/O proposal is a competitive approach.
Paul
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newsalert.com
April 26, 1999 06:32
NGIO Forum Announces That Version 1.0 of the Draft Specification is in Final Review; Growing NGIO Forum Membership Includes Leading Companies from all Segments of the Computing Industry Business Editors, Technology Writers SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 26, 1999--Eight weeks after establishing a non-profit, independent, industry-wide organization, with the goal of addressing the system I/O challenges that standards-based servers face, the NGIO Forum(R) (Forum) announced today that version 1.0 of the NGIO specification is in final review. The entire membership is currently reviewing the specification and the Forum is on track to publish the specification by mid-year. Next Generation Input/Output (NGIO) is an open-industry specification that defines an I/O architecture which optimizes information flow and reliability between servers and their communications, networking, storage and processing subsystems. It is a reliable, modular, scalable, low-cost solution based on channel-oriented, switched fabric architecture. The CPU is decoupled from system I/O, potentially eliminating the delays created by today's shared-bus architectures, resulting in more processing headroom. Charles Andres of Sun Microsystems, chair of the marketing working group for the NGIO Forum, said, "I am very pleased by the momentum in the Forum membership gains and the timely progress on the NGIO architecture specification. We are on track with our promise to announce Version 1.0, giving developers the blueprint they need to design next generation I/O systems. Members believe that the NGIO architecture offers the best commercially viable solution to server I/O requirements. With both the Standard and the Fat Pipe specifications, the NGIO architecture provides a complete I/O solution for half-a-terabit/second aggregate throughput and beyond. The NGIO architecture addresses server requirements from low-end to high-end throughout the next decade." Since the announcement of the NGIO Forum in January, and 'opening for business' in late February, many industry leaders have joined the Forum. The Forum now includes representatives from every industry segment from chips to systems, including telecommunications, networking, storage, internet, semiconductor, system and host adapters. (See the complete membership list on the web site at ngioforum.org). Under the guidance of members of the Forum steering committee, the NGIO specification has been in development for more than two years. The steering committee includes industry leaders Dell Computer Corp., Hitachi Limited, Intel Corp., NEC Corp., Siemens Information Communication Network, Inc., and Sun Microsystems, Inc. Each steering committee member has one vote in determining the specification content and its implementation. The NGIO architecture is designed to deliver new levels of reliability, scalability and flexibility for data flow in servers - vital in developing a complete and robust internet-connected data center. NGIO technology provides a direct, high-performance and expandable interface between main memory and the controller devices for I/O subsystems. It defines a very simple message-passing mechanism between the I/O controllers and host memory. The NGIO driver model greatly simplifies driver development for IHVs and provides a much more robust and reliable platform. Lack of contention between drivers and I/O controllers contrasts with the design of a shared-bus system, which sees bandwidth degradation where there is contention. The NGIO Forum was organized as a non-profit industry standards group in February, 1999. Companies interested in joining the Forum, or obtaining more information about the Forum, the specification or the activities of the working groups, may contact the NGIO Forum at 404 Balboa Street, San Francisco, CA, 94118, phone 415-750-8358, fax 415-751-4829, or visit the web site at www.ngioforum.org.
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