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From: OMOND@EMBL.BITNET (Roy Omond)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Info wanted on SIlink
Message-ID: <8708172047.AA09511@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Mon, 17-Aug-87 12:41:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8708172047.AA09511
Posted: Mon Aug 17 12:41:04 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 18-Aug-87 05:58:04 EDT
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Fellow Netters,

Would anyone out there have any experience of SIlink from System Industries ?

It's claimed that SIlink can enable one to build VAXclusters without the
need for HSC and CI;

This would be a typical SIlink cluster :

    ---+------------+-----------------------+---------  Ethernet
       |            |                       |
     uVax-II      uVax-II     ....     any Vax       (up to 8 nodes)
        \            \                      /
         \            \                    / DMA connections
          \            \                  /
     +-----------------------------------------+
     !          SI 9900 controller             !
     +-----------------------------------------+
           /            /                 \
          /            /                   \
         /            /                     \
      SI disk       SI disk   ....      SI disk      (up to 8 big disks)


Basically, how SI claim this all works is that all the distributed lock
manager traffic takes place over Ethernet, but all data traffic is done
DMA through the 9900 controller (cf. DEC LAVC where the Ethernet becomes a
bit of a bottleneck).  It is claimed that the performance of this can
approach that of a "real" cluster, certainly that it outperforms a LAVC.

(Note that this is not SIMACS, which seems to have died a death, not
before time :-)

If I receive enough replies, I'll summarize to the net ...

Roy Omond
System Manager etc.
European Molecular Biology Laboratory
Heidelberg, West Germany.

Disclaimer: I have nothing whatsoever to do with SI