Timothy Parker Consulting Incorporated

Questions and Answers Part 2 

Q: I heard about Lightning Data Transport at a trade show. What is it, what does it do, and is it a viable product?

A: Lightning Data Transport has been renamed to HyperTransport. HyperTransport was developed by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD, of Athlon fame) as a new data transfer architecture for PC expansion cards, replacing PCI. HyperTransport can, in theory, move up to 6.4GB of data a second, which is over twenty times the data that can be moved by the fastest existing PCI system (which peaks at 266MB per second). HyperTransport allows up to 32 devices to be daisy chained on a channel, with multiple channel support allowing for very expandable systems.

Why did AMD develop HyperTransport?  Primarily to allow the company to make multiprocessor motherboards, allowing AMD to expand into the server market. So far, Intel has the multiprocessor market sewn up, although a few dual-Athlon motherboards are now available. With HyperTransport, AMD could produce servers that run faster and support more CPUs than Intel’s motherboards.

HyperTransport has some support from other hardware manufacturers. Sun Microsystems, Cisco Systems, and Nvidia Corp have all publicly announced support for HyperTransport. Other initiatives are underway to expand the PCI standards, including PCI-X and InfiniBand. AMD claims HyperTransport will be compatible with both these systems.

Right now you can’t buy a HyperTransport motherboard.  You can expect to see them in the next couple of years, though, unless the standards war erupts and causes a fuss between PCI-X, InfiniBand and HyperTransport. If that happens, HyperTransport is the better technical solution, but whether it has the political clout to win a standards war remains to be seen. 

Q: A client has asked me about Storage over IP. Is this the same as a SAN (Storage Area Network)? What’s so good about Storage over IP?

A: Storage-over-IP is a still-developing standard (expected to be finalized next year), but there are two companies actively moving into the SOIP market.  Originally, there was only Nishan’s IPS series of storage switches, but IBM has recently added its marketing muscle to the game.

SOIP devices are essentially stand-alone disk servers that include Ethernet ports for network connection. They use the IP protocol to transfer data.  The obvious question is whether this is different than existing network storage devices and SAN products now on the market.  The primary difference between the products is that SOIP is intended for Gigabit Ethernet, which allows massive amounts of data transfer between network nodes.  Existing systems run on 10/100Mbps Ethernet, and hence are slower. 

IBM’s announced TotalStorage IP Storage 200i system, due for release this summer, offers up to 1.7TB of data storage on a 1Gbps Ethernet link, with the ability to move to 10Gbps Ethernet when a standard is adopted. Most of the SOIP systems use RAID 5 disk arrays to increase performance, and they all tend to be expensive.  IBM’s new product, with a minimal amount of disk space, will sell for around $20,000 US. 

SOIP isn’t for most networks yet.  Until Gigabit Ethernet is readily available and clients need huge amounts of data storage, existing network devices are more inexpensive and easier to work with.  Still, SOIP will be the future for larger installations. 

Q: I am moving an existing Windows network to Linux.  The users want Windows-like functionality from their Linux applications and I’ve installed Corel WordPerfect Suite for Linux.  They love most of the apps in that Suite. However, the big disappointment is the mail and calendar application.  Is there Outlook for Linux?

A: Not quite, but soon.  Currently in beta, Ximian’s Evolution is as close to Outlook as you’re going to find.  It looks the same, behaves the same, and works under Linux. There are a few things to be straightened out with Evolution, most importantly the ability to work with Exchange Server, and there is no enterprise-wide calendaring ability in the first release, but Evolution will suit end-user needs perfectly. Ximian expects to ship final product by this summer, and they are positioning Evolution as a drop-in replacement for Outlook under Linux.

Q: I need a Linux package for both end users and a server.  I don’t want to mix packages, and I want good manuals.  What’s the best Linux on the market.

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Last modified: January 23, 2007