AT&T Paradyne, NCR's sister company, already offers remote channel-to-channel connectivity via an OEM agreement with IBM that allows it to resell the 3172. Any effort by NCR to address that market with the 5900 series would be "redundant," Babich said.
NetWorth, Inc. last week provided a glimpse into its future when it displayed a prototype of its next-generation hub at the NetWorld 93 trade show here.The NetWorth Series 6000 is a multigigabit-capacity device that will provide integrated switching and Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) capabilities in addition to support for the traditional token-ring, Ethernet and Fiber Distributed Data Interface networks.
A key component of the new device will be the Network Services Engine (NSE), which Tiffany 1837 Money clip serve as a high-end personal computer platform supporting a variety of network services.Users, for example, could load Novell, Inc.'s software-based MultiProtocol Router onto the platform, as well as applications for net management and local-area network-to-host connectivity.The NSE will be a revamped version of the NetWare Application Engine (NAE) processor module found in existing Series 4000 hubs. It will be housed in a drawer that occupies the bottom half of the 10-slot 6000 and be based on an Intel Corp. 80486DX2 microprocessor.
Last week, NetWorth also rolled out HubWare, a series of NetWare Loadable Modules (NLM) Return to Tiffany Cuff links run on the 4000's NAE. Initial HubWare offerings will include the local-and wide-area version of MPR and a NetWare for SAA gateway. The applications range in price from $495 to $6,995 and are available now.It is expected that the HubWare products will also be able to run in the NSE, giving users access to more than 30 applications Engine-turned money clip services via NLMs.Because the NSE is housed in a separate compartment, it will not take up any slots, unlike the current NAE, which requires two slots in the 4000. The NSE connects to the 6000's backplane and management bus, so it can be used to compile net management information about the segments and devices attached to the 6000, eliminating the need for a management module.The NSE, which is field-upgradable to Intel's Pentium chip, also offers five drive bays and 10G bytes of storage. A stackable version of the NSE is under development that will be geared to remote office environments.
"Users can load the needed server and routing software onto the NSE, creating a branch in a box that could be shipped out to a remote site, where technical support staff is usually nonexistent," said Phyllis Dyer, the 6000's product-line manager.Since management functionality has been offloaded to the NSE, all 10 of the 6000's slots can be used for a variety of interface modules. The 6000, which features dual power supplies for Tiffany Engine-turned money clip, will also support existing 4000 modules.According to Dyer, the 6000 will feature integrated switching and ATM functionality, but the company has not made the final determination on how that will be incorporated into the device.The 6000 will be officially unveiled in either late November or early December and ship soon after that. Pricing has not been determined.Cray Communications, Inc. this week will become the latest in a long line of vendors to invade the lucrative low-end router market.
Scott Rey, Cray's director of marketing, said his company's new router line will address Tiffany 1837 bookmark user requirements for remote branch office routers, including simplicity, centralized network management and, perhaps most importantly, low price.Cray's new router line includes two versions: the Ethernet BR6100, a three-port device that supports a single Ethernet and two wide-area network ports; and the Ethernet-Token Ring BR6500, a four-port model that supports one Ethernet, one token ring and two WAN interfaces.
Blanchard, however, was supportive of the overall 5000 strategy, especially because SynOptics has taken pains to protect the users' investment in the LattisNet System 3000 installed base, SynOptics' current flagship hub."No one has to throw away their 3000s," he said. "You can still have them spread throughout your network and use the 5000 as the central hub in the collapsed backbone."The 5000 will also address one of the biggest knocks against the 3000, which involves the way it handles network management. The 3000 required a network management card for every LAN that the hub supported, reducing the number of users and Tiffany Somerset heart ring segments it can support."The 5000 will feature an integrated distributed net management approach that will eliminate the need for all those management modules," said one source.At long last, NCR Corp. answered IBM's 3172 Interconnect Controller with last week's introduction of the first in a line of controllers that connect local-area networks to IBM and compatible mainframes.
NCR unveiled the Comten 5909 processor, a device that attaches token-ring and Ethernet LANs to an IBM or compatible mainframe channel, facilitating high-speed file transfers for applications such as data storage and backup, as well as file and database serving. NCR officials Atlas I.D. money clip the 5909 allows users to recast their large mainframe machines as LAN servers instead of deploying them in the traditional role of centralized information system hubs.
The 5909, which had been expected (NW April 6, 1992, page 2), is the first member of NCR's new Comten 5900 line of LAN-to-mainframe connectivity products. It supports Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol data exchange between LANs and mainframes, and the same channel protocol used by the 3172 Interconnect Controller.
With the proliferation of LANs in mainframe sites, NCR Elsa Peretti Open Wave ring high hopes for its 5900 line.The 5909 supports up to four Ethernet or token-ring interfaces and a maximum of two bus and tag channel connections to the mainframe. It runs at 1.6M byte/sec when linking a single LAN to one mainframe channel and operates at a combined speed of 2.2M byte/sec when linking two LANs to two channels.Although the speed of an IBM bus and tag channel connection is 4.5M byte/sec, the 5909's channel throughput is comparable to IBM's 3172, said Suzanne Babich, director of product planning for NCR' s communications processor Paloma's Galife Ring unit.
The NCR controller sports a throughput of 3,400 TCP/IP packet/sec for packet sizes of 64 bytes. It can also support from 3,000 to 25,000 Telnet terminal-emulation sessions.The 5909 can also transfer data in one-tenth of a second, even when the device is 90% utilized.On the LAN, the 5909 supports any TCP/IP package on the market, including NCR's System 3000 Unix TCP/IP implementation. For mainframes, the 5909 handles any TCP/IP package that supports the 3172 channel protocol, including IBM's TCP/IP for MVS and VM, Interlink Computer Sciences, Inc.'s SNS) TCP access product and SNS/SNA Gateway package.
IBM's 3172, meanwhile, can be configured to connect LANs to hosts or to link Tiffany 1837 ring channels over wide-area nets. As a LAN gateway, the 3172 channel attaches IBM Token-Ring, Ethernet, Fiber Distributed Data Interface and token-bus LANs to Systems Network Architecture and TCP/IP hosts. As a remote channel-to-channel controller, the 3172 can attach two Enterprise System Connection (ESCON) or bus and tag channels to a remote host over T-1 links.
Upcoming versions of NCR's 5900 line are expected to support FDDI LANs, SNA, Internetwork Packet Exchange (IPX) and Network Basic I/O System protocols, as well as ESCON channel connections.
While generally enthusiastic, analysts said SynOptics needs to provide more details on its switching capabilities."SynOptics announced an architecture, a platform and a management approach, but it's missing some key modular pieces," said Todd Dagres, vice president of data communications at The Yankee Group, a Boston-based consulting firm. "They built the house, but the furniture hasn't been delivered."The house provides a number of Tiffany Signature ring for users. "The 5000 compares favorably to next-generation hubs under development," Dagres said. "[SynOptics] will be doing segment and port-level switching, which will also include token-ring switching. That will be important for users as they build high-speed nets."
SynOptics Communications, Inc. later this month will roll out its next-generation hub, which will be positioned as a centralized switch for collapsed backbone architectures--a move likely to result in a protracted turf battle between switch and router vendors.The LattisNet System 5000 will be based on a frame switching architecture and come equipped with multiple backplanes supporting a combination of Ethernet, token-ring and Fiber Distributed Data Interface local-area networks, according to sources.
The overall backplane capacity will be around 2G bit/sec, and the device is expected to offer connectivity to as many as 50 LANs. An Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) switching fabric will be added in a future release."The 5000 will look similar to [Optical Data Systems, Inc.'s] Infinity hub with those multiple backplanes and switching capabilities," said one source. "Like the Infinity, the 5000 will eventually offer ATM and token-ring Tiffany Signature ring. Sterling silver, white enamel. capabilities, as well."
SynOptics will position the 5000 as a hub of hubs, switching traffic among departmental and work group LANs, thus ruling out the need for local routing or bridging capabilities (see graphic, page 1). This will put SynOptics squarely up against router and switch vendors whose Tiffany Paloma Picasso Loving Heart ring have been used to anchor these collapsed backbone architectures."The SynOptics move points to an emerging trend where inherent switching capabilities in hub platforms will obviate the requirement for routers as the main backbone device," said Fred McClimans, program director at Gartner Group, Inc., a consultancy in Stamford, Conn. He expects that trend to evolve over the next six to 12 months, with LAN-switched collapsed backbones becoming the norm and the hub vendors becoming the dominant players.
"The requirements for a router in the network will shift from the center of Tiffany Signature ring net to more of the periphery in many cases, with the core of the network evolving into the high-speed switching arena," he said. "Once you want to enter a foreign environment, AKA the WAN, then the router becomes advantageous."As indicated when SynOptics announced it was dropping plans to develop an integrated routing module for its new hub with Cisco Systems, Inc. (NW, April 12, page 1), the firm will recommend the use of a separate router for wide-area network access.The SynOptics strategy is in direct contrast with that of 3Com Corp., whose High Performance Scalable Networking approach relies on the use of its NetBuilder II router to anchor collapsed backbones. While 3Com will use the NetBuilder combined with an ATM switch from Fore Systems, Inc. to create routed ATM environments, SynOptics will integrate its ATM switching capabilities into the 5000 to reach the same Paloma Picasso Double Loving Heart ring with a single device.
Since SynOptics is on the verge of shipping the stand-alone ATM LattisSwitch it developed with help from Washington University in St. Louis (NW, Sept. 28, 1992, page 1), that integrated hub/ATM switch plan left some users scratching their heads."If they already have an ATM switch but are planning to integrate the ATM switching functionality into the 5000, how will they position both devices in the market?" asked Bryan Blanchard, data communications analyst at World Vision USA in Monrovia, Calif.
For Mentor, the new net has brought much-needed relief. "The bottom line is that instead of having 20 screaming engineers on a routed subnet, we can give 50to 60 engineers on different subnets switched access to a centralized set of net resources," Thomsen said.SynOptics Communications, Inc. last week rolled out its next-generation Lattis System 5000 hub, a multigigabit-capacity device that combines switching capabilities with distributed management to serve as a control point for collapsed backbones.
The 5000 is at the heart of a new star-of-stars topology, dubbed structured networking, being touted by SynOptics. The 5000 will sit in the center of a network interconnecting work group and departmental hubs throughout a campus via switching. The hub will also act as a Return to Tiffany Oval tag ring control platform that allows an administrator to oversee an entire net by pulling management and traffic analysis data from all connected devices.
"The 5000 is a hub of hubs that brings different technologies together and makes them work in Tiffany 1837 concave ring," said Andrew Ludwick, president and chief executive officer of SynOptics. "By tightly integrating net management into the device, users get better control over their networks."The hub is a 14-slot device that supports as many as 52 Ethernet, 26 tokenring or five Fiber Distributed Data Interface network segments across a three-tiered backplane. One slot is reserved for a management module.
The hub provides 12G bit/sec of aggregate capacity when all three backplanes are fully utilized. One backplane supports 12 Ethernets and nine token rings, as well as the common management bus, which is used to control the 5000 and connected devices.
A separate FDDI backplane supports five FDDI rings, and the third Tiffany 1837 ring is divided into a 10G bit/sec portion that can support two of SynOptics' FastMatrix Asynchronous Transfer Mode switch modules, and a 2G bit/sec segment for fast frame switching modules for technologies such as 100M bit/sec Ethernet. The modules that can take advantage of the third backplane will be part of a future release.
The 5000 is made to link LattisNet System 3000 and 2000 hubs in work group and departmental local-area networks throughout a campus net. To facilitate those connections, SynOptics rolled out new cluster modules that support fiber downlinks from the hubs.The modules come in Ethernet and token-ring versions. The Ethernet model can support as many as four 3000s or 2000s so the hub can provide connectivity for as many as 52 Ethernet segments when fully configured with cluster modules.
For each of the four hub connections, the cluster module also offers four copper-based ports that can provide connectivity to a centrally located server cluster or a local Ethernet segment.The token-ring cluster module offers connectivity for up to two 3000s or 2000s--for a maximum of 26 token rings--as well as four copper-based ports for each of the hub connections.The hub supports distributed Simple Network Management Protocolbased capabilities Tiffany Notes ring Data Collection Engines (DCE), which are multiprocessing daughterboards for the Ethernet and token-ring management modules that can deliver traffic analysis and problem resolution information.
In conjunction with the 5000 rollout, SynOptics introduced a new Tiffany Natural Rose Ring of its management software, Optivity 4.0, which provides virtual network capabilities and will be initially available on SunConnect's SunNet Manager. It allows net managers to group devices linked to the 5000, including those indirectly connected to other hubs, into logical groups.If a user needs access to two servers on separate LANs in different buildings, for example, an administrator can logically assign that person to both LANs.
Previously, Mentor had a router-based Fiber Distributed Data Interface backbone that serviced a campus net of four buildings and 1,000 users. The net was divided into about 70 subnets, which included a combination of Ethernet and token-ring work groups.
Each segment had a direct Ethernet link back to one af four Cisco Systems, Inc. AGS+ routers in the central computing center that were interconnected via a dual-attached FDDI ring. This setup put a tremendous strain on the Cisco routers since virtually all net passed through them. In addition, some traffic was double-routed because the token-ring segments were front-ended by Proteon, Inc. P4100 token ring-to-Ethernet routers. The fact Tiffany 1837 Interlocking circles necklace file servers and other resources were scattered across the network created more traffic overhead because user queries sometimes had to go throuh several
router hVops to reYach their destination. When Mentor made the decision to upgrade its high-end workstations to even more powerful Hewlett-Packard Co. 9000 Series 700 workstations, it I became readily apparent that the net could not handle the added strain. 1 "Two of those machines on the same piece of Ethernet could saturate the segment, so you can imagine the nightmare that 20 or 30 of those workstatians on one work group would pose," Thomsen said.
After running a benchmark test to determine the maximum load capacity of the network Isee graphic, page 1). Mentor discovered an Ethernet segment could support 10 Series 700 machines during regular operation. To provide a performance buffer, the company limited the subnets to Elsa Peretti Teardrop ring maximum of eight Series 700 workstations and upgrade its Auspex Corp. file servers to FDDI once interfaces were available from Auspex. WitlrihcgLncreasing performance and keepingft cost of any upgrade to a minimum, Mentor looked at several routing and switching options. Ethernet switching proved to be the best alternative.It required no changes Return to Tiffany Heart tag ring the desktop and offered the needed performance gains by delivering dedicated 10M bit/sec links between each subnet and the servers, which were moved to the data center to make them easier to manage, back up and secure.
"From a performance viewpoint, it was a fairly easy decision," Thomsen said. "In the routed environments, we could only get throughput of about 15,000 packet/sec as opposed to a switched approach that could deliver 50,000 packet/sec."Financially, it was also easy to cost-justify, he added."Previously, because of the number of collisions that would occur in a routed net, we had to assign less workstations to each router port. That meant creating more subnets, which required more routers."
Mentor placed a Synernetics, Inc. LANplex 5000 switching hub in each of the four buildings on campus. Each 5000 contains a four-port FDDI concentrator and three Ethernet Switching Modules (ESM), and is linked back to one of seven Paloma Picasso Double Loving Heart ring in the data center via three 100M bitlsec FDDI pipes. The data center 5000s, in turn, are connected to the centralized servers and the four routers via Ethernet.
In the new configuration (see graphic, page 1), Fibermux Corp. Crossbow hubs supporting work group LANs on each floor feed traffic into a single 5000, which provides switched access to the centralized resources.Only when a user needs access to another work group in the same building or to one in a separate building does traffic have to pass through a router.
"We organized the subnets into work group cells that are working together on the same Coin Edge ring or application, meaning, in theory, that 90 of the traffic remains local to that cell, he said. "The routers now have less to do because [of that]."
ATM can provide this capability because it handles call setups on the fly. When a switch receives a cell, it checks the destination address and sets up a dedicated path through the network. These connections can either be switched virtual circuits, where the connection is set up and torn down after every transmission, or permanent virtual circuits, where a fixed logical channel between two nodes is defined once and maintained each time those nodes communicate.
New, high-powered applications have raised the question of whether ATM will have a significant impact on existing network operating systems (NOS), as well. According to McClimans, there will be two waves of ATM winners in regards to that issue. The Elsa Peretti Teardrop Earrings ATM providers will be the major networking players who have huge installed bases, which will force them to keep most of their NOSes intact to keep disruption and change to a minimum.
In about two years, however, new players will emerge who have no allegiance to any users because they have no installed base to protect. "There is the potential for a very different winner who has the luxury to look at the technology, architecture and applications and rework the NOS to take advantage of this new high-performance switching system that is not broadcast-oriented like we have in place today," McClimans says. "Heavyweights such as Microsoft Corp. are hinting that they are going to do those things, but they have these massive installed legacy bases to deal with, so they can't be radical in the near future."
Even if these ATM-oriented applications surface, the percentage Paloma's Zellige drop earrings the market that will make use of them is pretty small, McClimans added."There is only about 10% to 15% of the market that will ever need the power of ATM down to the desktop," he said.MPACT ON PERFORMANCEA physical infrastructure that has been altered far ATM and a new class of applications that are bandwidth-hungry begs the obvious question of network performance: Once the LAN has been outfitted for ATM, how will it perform?
Unfortunately for users, this question cannot be answered. While proposed rates for ATM range from 25M to 622M bit/sec, no one is sure what strains that level of performance will put on the LAN.The reason for the uncertainty regarding performance is related to the amount of questions that still remain to be answered. "Issues of congestion and blocking, for example, are still on the table," Robbins says. "These are the critical technical issues that are a little esoteric but could kill the networks once ATM gets out of pilot phase and into real production."Yet everyone agrees that the performance ATM can bring to the whole infrastructure Elsa Peretti Teardrop drop earrings architecture will significantly change the way users think about their business.
"The technology is still in a stage where we don't fully understand what the potential can be in terms of the whole network landscape," Yankee Group's Shuler says. "Today, we design, build and architect networks with bounds, constraints and caps in mind, Paloma's Zellige earrings prohibit innovation, application development and business reengineering. While ATM promises to remove those barriers, we just don't know what will ultimately happen."
Because no one is quite sure how ATM will affect the network or react with existing network technologies, initial installations will likely run in parallel with existing nets or in small work groups attached to the periphery of a larger net.
"Given the price points that ATM has today as well as the marginal track record Atlas drop earrings have of pragmatically introducing technology from a user's perspective in a fully consumable form, ATM--by default--will be introduced in the LAN in pockets," Shuler says. "We'll first see ATM where the users will get the maximum amount of value with the minimal amount of aberrations in their operation. That's the bottom line. Users are going to go for the simplest set of options with the highest level of payback tied to them."