On Mon, 4 Dec 2000, Stan Sieler wrote:
> Re:
> > Sounds like a patent suit :-)
>
> No...just an argument, really! (I'd mention if it was patent
> oriented.)
>
> > This is kind of a specious argument. There were volume shadowing (aka
> > hardware mirroring) products available before people started calling it
> > "RAID" and in fact the IBM DASD farms could do volume shadowing and it
> > isn't "RAID" because RAID is "Redundant Array of *Inexpensive* Disks" and
> > 3380's certainly weren't "inexpensive."
>
> I dug up a copy of the original RAID article: "A Case for Redundant Arrays
> of Inexpensive Disks (RAID)" by Patterson, Gibson, and Katz (from June,
> 1988).
>
> They must have trained to be patent lawyers, because their definition
> of RAID is verrrry broad! (To the point where software implemented
> mirroring would still be called RAID1.)
But actually, don't they have the cart before the horse and it is really
a case of one form of RAID being mirroring?
- don
> Basically, I found that if I tried to forget that RAID was an
> acronym with a meaning, I can see how people claim that any and all
> disk mirroring is a form of RAID ... even if the mirroring preceded
> the name "RAID".
>
> BTW, I found a reprint of the article in "Readings in Computer
> Architecture", edited by Hill, Jouppi, and Sohi,
> published in 2000 by Morgan Kaufmann. This is a great reference
> book. Articles include:
>
> Architecture of the IBM System/360; by Amdahl, Blaauw, & Brooks
>
> Parallel Operation in the Control Data 6600
>
> The Cray-1 Computer System
>
> Cray-1 Computer Technology
>
> Cramming More Components onto Integrated Circuits; by Gordon Moore
>
> wait...maybe there's a web site...
>
> http://www.mkp.com/books_catalog/catalog.asp?ISBN=1-55860-539-8
>
> Chapter 1 - Classic Machines: Technology, Implementation, and Economics
> Chapter 2 - Methods
> Chapter 3 - Instruction Sets
> Chapter 4 - Instruction Level Parallelism (ILP)
> Chapter 5 - Dataflow and Multithreading
> Chapter 6 - Memory Systems
> Chapter 7 - I/O: Storage Systems, Networks, and Graphics
> Chapter 8 - Single-Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) Parallelism
> Chapter 9 - Multiprocessors and Multicomputers
> Chapter 10 - Recent Implementations and Future Prospects
>
> Highly recommended!
>
> Stan Sieler sieler_at_allegro.com
> www.allegro.com/sieler/wanted/index.html www.allegro.com/sieler
>
Received on Mon Dec 04 2000 - 18:24:39 GMT