Previous Table of Contents Next


Processor Speeds

The speed of processors and associated MIPS are rising at 35% per year. By the end of the decade, workstations and high-end PCs will be at 1,000 to 2,000 MIPS performance based on new processor development trends. (Exhibit 2 shows processor speeds and I/O standards rates for several technologies.) Intel has announced its goal of 2,000 MIPS by the year 2000 for its widely used series of processors and RISC successors based on the HP/PA RISC technology. Similar trends are evident from IBM, Motorola, and Apple PowerPCs, in addition to Sun SPARC workstations.

The rate of information I/O must keep up with processor performance increases. Whether it takes an information connection operating at 1/10, 1/2, or full MIP rate to match the processor, there is a significant gap. Most channel and networking technologies do not track increased processor performance. Fiber channel meets the speed requirements and is also scalable to accommodate future rates. SSA is a very limited, short-term solution aimed at serial SCSI only. ATM has promise on the wide area, but complexity and high costs make it unsuitable for serial memory busses. Exhibit 3 illustrates the difference in processor speeds among several data communications technologies.


Exhibit 3.  Processor Speed and Data Communications Technologies.

FIBER CHANNEL AS A SERVER TECHNOLOGY

When fiber channel is used as a server technology, the same interconnection can rapidly time-multiplex several functions with only one external I/O channel required. The server functionality of fiber channel offers great promise in the long term. New paradigms of computing and interconnection are possible with a technology that can share storage, computing, and network resources. The greatest advantage of fiber channel is the single I/O connection that provides the capability to create resource sharing in multiple dimensions.

When combined with management services such as MIBs and SNMP, fiber channel has the structure to work in a highly distributed environment. Not only does fiber channel offer rate scalability, it also provides multiple server functions on the same structure, which makes it the most cost-effective interface in many situations. A single adapter board can provide the multiple functionality. The connection is fast enough that time multiplexing is an effective strategy. The server function not only implements distributed low-latency, high-bandwidth clustering, but also enables setting up object-oriented exchanges between diverse classes of computers.

NETWORKING

Fiber channel is also a network. TCP/IP, the main methodology used for networks, is carried seamlessly over fiber channel. Fiber channel can connect up to 16M users in a single fiber channel domain. Fiber channel supports traditional peer-to-peer message routing. In addition, because fiber channel is faster than other networks, a very practical methodology of transporting Ethernet, ATM, FDDI, and other networks is possible. SONET-to-Fiber Channel connections for private data lines or Fiber Channel-to-ATM for public data switching are effective ways of providing connections between local fiber channel high-speed data islands to remote sites.

Systems management through SNMP is built into the fiber channel standard. A number of methodologies including OpenView or NetWare can be used to provide the information gathering in addition to SNMP. Several vendors are creating management products to work with fiber channel networks. Fabric services such as a name server are built into the standard. Broadcast, multicast, and hunt groups are part of the architecture. Near-term extensions of the standard provide for up to 256 virtual subchannel connections to any one user; asynchronous services have been defined and will be part of the formal standard soon.

APPLICATIONS

Fiber channel has been successful with high-rate OLTP database applications and in distributed graphics/video simultaneous editing. For example, Sun Microsystems installed its SPARC servers in Fingerhut, a large catalog sales company. Fingerhut needed a distributed client/server solution that would provide for more than 500 simultaneous users being connected and a transaction rate of more than 8,000 IOPS. Fiber channel connected to several parallel NFS connections provided performance better than any competitive system.

AT&T needed rapid ad generation for its long-distance unit. Advertisements were created by agencies in New York and Boston and needed to be turned around much faster than the typical four to five weeks required with existing technology. After transmission by D3 lines (45M bps), extensive real-time editing was required at the New Jersey headquarters. For the video, 270M bps was required, and additional amounts were required for voice interaction and whiteboard display. Originally, AT&T attempted to use an internal ATM network to do the job, but concluded that it would be several years before the required performance could be achieved.

AT&T has selected Ancor Communications’ gigabit-per-second fiber channel switching fabric and now estimates that the time savings would pay for the network investment within a year. Editing of ads can now be done in 7 to 10 days. Similar gains in productivity and performance using fiber channel can be expected in other business areas.

CONCLUSION

Fiber channel is actually both a channel and a network. It offers channel features such as simplicity and guaranteed performance in addition to network features like distance and protocol multiplexing.

Network administrators in search of more bandwidth may wish to explore fiber channel as the solution for bandwidth-intensive applications. By combining the speed and performance of channel communication with the extended reach and flexibility of a network, fiber channel offers reliable, high-throughput communication.

Fiber channel is poised to become the most important new information connection technology. In an information economy where access, management, cost, and exploitation of information assets are the most critical business issues, such a technology is essential.


Previous Table of Contents Next

Copyright © CRC Press LLC