[Info-vax] OT: Steve Wozniak

[Richard B. Gilbert]

David J Dachtera wrote:
> Neil Rieck wrote:
>> I, along with 700 others, just had breakfast with Steve Wozniac at a
>> conference sponsored by Waterloo Ontario companies like RIM, Dalsa and
>> Open Text.
>> http://www.communitech.ca/en/
>>
>> Boy, I thought I was an optimist but this guy's optimism is
>> overflowing and infectious. Why would you OpenVMS people care about
>> this? The Woz now works for a company called "fusion i/o"
>> http://www.fusionio.com/
>> and he mentioned that big companies, like HP and IBM, are using
>> "fusion i/o" solid-state storage technology to set new TPC transaction
>> records while beating fiber-connected storage arrays by 10 times or
>> more (and costing a whole lot less)
>>
>> http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9100218/HP_adding_solid_state_memory_to_its_servers
>>
>> In their view, multi-core CPU processors will only get faster which
>> means that magnetic storage will continue to starve them of data. They
>> feel that solid-state storage will become the primary system memory
>> while hard disks will be relegated to doing off-system backups.
>>
>> Now let's see if their vision comes to fruition.
> 
> Hhhmmm... Sounds like we're talking about a new storage interconnect as
> well, something akin to the Memory Channel, as I think it was called, so
> data would transfer at near memory-bus speeds.
> 
> Think about it - how else could clusters share storage?
> 
> Unless you're totally stuck in the UN*X shared-nothing paradigm,
> cluster-wide access to storage is what makes the clustered world go
> around.
> 
> Even with the current generation of storage arrays (the common misnomer
> is "SAN"), the interconnect is still the limiting factor. Until FC
> speeds get up into the same range as memory bus speeds, this will remain
> true.
> 
> Almost makes me wonder if the current serial paradigm of FC might
> someday give way to a "parallel" paradigm where you have eight or more
> FC cables per FC link rather than just one, or perhaps eight (or more)
> parallel bit channels running over a single FC cable.
> 

There are sound technical reasons for preferring a serial interface to a 
parallel interface.  It's not easy to determine when all the bits in a 
parallel interface have settled to their final values.  The wider the 
parallel interface is, the more difficult it is to make it work.