erance, multiple storage options, and the ability to share data with other servers are essential.
Redundant Power
Continuous power is an essential item for a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week network system. To provide it, Acer uses three 400-W power supplies in its servers. A server needs 800 W of power at any given time. Because the chances of two power supplies failing at the same time are remote, you're assured of continuous power. Acer is working with power-supply manufacturers to make the power supplies hot-pluggable.
Johnson Chen, server project manager for First International Computer (FIC), says the company uses a dual hot-swappable power-supply system in its servers. "Soon we will also include a UPS that fits into a 5 1Ž4-inch external floppy drive bay."
Compared to most desktops, servers use a SCSI mass-storage I/O instead of IDE. The
reason for this, according to Acer's Sun, is that SCSI can support more than four devices.
Servers typically use a RAID configuration of hard drives that continually stores information across a group of drives. According to both Sun and Chen, RAID 5 is the most secure and often-used mass-storage mechanism. To achieve this type of memory storage, the server requires a backplane board configured for RAID as well as a RAID controller.
If one hard drive fails, the other drives retain the information and you can hot-swap a replacement drive into the system. With redundant power and redundant mass storage, the system stays up even if a component fails.
For many companies, this is not a real concern. For small Internet service providers (ISPs), however, the network manager will be happy that if something fails at 3:00 a.m., it can wait until 8:00 a.m. for him or her to come in to replace it.
I
2
O is a new advance in server systems that uses a combination of network and hard drive c
ontrollers and a bridge ASIC in conjunction with a RISC coprocessor. The intelligent I/O processors off-load I/O tasks from host CPUs onto themselves, thus increasing overall system performance and I/O performance. One of the main uses for I
2
O is video on demand.
Intel designed the i960 RP I/O processor to work with the I
2
O specification, thereby handling much of the interrupt-intensive I/O traffic. Use of the i960 as a distributed intelligent processor throughout the network, on network interface cards (NICs) and storage interface cards or on server-platform motherboards, reduces bottlenecks from overloaded I/O channels.
The I
2
O special-interest group (SIG) numbers over 100 companies, including Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Microsoft, and Novell. It promotes the interoperability, performance, and ease of use of I/O subsystems. In mid-March, the SIG announced the adoption of version 1.0 of the I
2
O specification, which aims to alleviate I/O-processing b
ottlenecks in PC servers. This initial specification targets mass storage and network interfaces -- the two most I/O-intensive applications servers use in today's enterprise computing environment.
The I
2
O architecture separates the functionality of the driver, which manages devices, from the nature of the OS it serves. It acts as an abstraction layer to allow the part of the device driver that manages devices to become portable among OS environments and to be portable and usable across vendor implementations. I
2
O hides the nature of the communication between various mechanisms. In doing so, it provides processor and bus technology independence.
The SIG has committees that are working toward extending the specification to include other application technologies in future versions. They will initially focus on clustering connectivity and fault tolerance; peer-to-peer communications; server/network management; Fibre Channel technology; asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) and WAN app
lications; 64-bit addressing; mass storage/RAID; and intelligent real-time OSes (IRTOSes).
Ease of Use
For the Taiwanese, creating servers that are easy to install and maintain is a major design point. Because Taiwanese companies lack the large distribution and service webs of Compaq or HP, they need to ship systems that are as solid as possible.
Acer bundles its servers with Easy Build software to help ease installation. Once a server is up and running, Acer's Remote Diagnostic Management (RDM) software lets you monitor the nodes of a network from the server.
Asustek Computer, a major Taiwanese manufacturer of mainboards, is recommending that its server manufacturers use Intel's LANDesk Server Manager. This Windows-based software manages system voltage, CPU and system temperatures, fan speed, and other critical performance parameters. It also checks detailed information on such system components as CPU speed, the amount of DRAM installed, and the size of the hard drive. T
he Manager of Information Services (MIS) can access this information regarding any node on the network as well as remotely reset and audit each client.
Chen has an idea for future servers that incorporate the idea of network management while decreasing server cost. Because servers don't need to display highly graphic information to the MIS, Chen proposes using very low-end VGA cards with small LCD screens. The screens on servers are needed only to display such system status parameters as CPU/system temperature and hard drive status, so you don't need an expensive display option. Chen says that FIC is working on such a solution, but that the company must resolve BIOS issues involved at boot-up.
High-end servers feature high-end computational muscle that also differentiates them from desktop systems. Intel's 440GX chip set can handle up to four Pentium II CPUs. Acer and FIC both offer servers with this option. The use of I
2
O will allow the clustering of servers for increased performance a
nd redundancy. Clustering ties several servers together via a Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) link. You can do mass-storage mirroring and parallel processing at a distance.
The better-than-desktop profit margins in the server business, along with better installation and diagnostic software, have led the Taiwanese into this market. As has historically happened in this industry, when the Taiwanese enter a market, prices drop as the competition increases.
Where to Find
Acer, Inc.
Taipei, Taiwan
Phone: +886 2 545 5299
Fax: +886 2 545 5308
Internet:
http://www.acer.com
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