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Corporate networks are continually coming up against performance ceilings as a result of bandwidth constraints, inefficient I/O, and memory limitations.
According to many LAN administrators, a solution of superhero proportions is needed. In many corporations over the past year, superservers have come to the rescue. Superservers are being called upon to support increasingly complex network applications and ever more end-users.
Initially introduced as a technology to consolidate multiple LAN servers in a single, easily managed, highly reliable box, superservers today are being used for everything from relational databases and workflow activities to electronic messaging and bulletin boards. More significantly, they have become serious contenders in the downsizing arena and a reliable platform for production-oriented client/server computing.
HIGH AVAILABILITY. Superservers cover a range of technologies from souped-up PC servers with enhanced architectures that support high-speed I/O and memory requirements to specialized devices with optimized bus designs and multiprocessing CPUs.
Those most frequently used in PC LANs sport multiple Intel processors along with a proprietary, high-speed internal bus. They provide gigabytes of disk storage, often in the form of redundant array of inexpensive drives (RAID) technology. They provide high availability and data reliability features such as disk mirroring, error checking and correction (ECC) memory, and on-line disk replacement. Increasingly they offer sophisticated diagnostic and management tools.
Superservers typically run a general-purpose operating system such as OS/2 or Unix. They also support network operating systems such as Novell NetWare, Banyan Vines, IBM LAN Server, and Microsoft LAN Manager.
The growth of superservers has led to market segmentation. Various categories of superservers have emerged to meet increasing user demands. Tom Nolle, president of CIMI Corp., a Vorhees, N.J., research firm, divides superservers into three classes: the enhanced PC server, the high-availability server based on Intel CPUs, and proprietary multiprocessing systems.
SOUPED-UP PCs. At the low end are upscale PCs. Vendors pump them up with more memory and use tower cabinets that accommodate disk expansion, but they are essentially just big PCs, he says. Advanced Logic Research Inc., AST Research Inc., Everex Systems Inc., and other vendors of high-performance PCs are typical of this group. With rudimentary high-availability features, these machines are used primarily for server consolidation.
Since their introduction about three years ago, 75 percent of the superservers...