SGI's XFS uses and agressive advanced cache system and pre-allocates sectors. What this means is that small files, like temp and working files, never actually make it to the physical disk. They are cached and used from the cache. If they are short lived, then no disk I/O occurs at all.
Pre-allocating sectors means the system can study where the best location for the file is before it actually gets written. This not only minimized fragmentation, but it also speeds up writes.
EBDA stands for ErBium Doped something, I forget what the "A" is for. In a brief nutshell...
Traditional fiber only allows a signal to travel so far before it has to be regenerated. The actual distance depends on the quality of both the fiber and the light source. Regeneration means turning the signal back to an electrical one and retransmitting it. Bleh!
A few years back Bell Labs scientists figured out that certain rare-earth elements (Erbium) have interesting optical properties -- it will absorb energy at one frequency and when prodded, release it at a different frequency.
Erbium, it so happens, releases that stored energy at about 1351 nm. So, by placing a fiber that has erbium mixed in with it at a certain point on a run, it can be "pumped" and then triggered by an incoming 1351 nm wave to release energy and "boost" the incoming signal.
Two lasers are shown down the fiber -- the one with the signal (about 1351 nm) and the "pumping" laser, at a different frequency. The "pumping" laser "charges" the erbium-doped section. When the faltering 1351 nm signal laser comes thru, it triggers the charged section to release it's stored photons and they lockstep with the existing signal, boosting it.
Other elements are used to dope fiber from 1500 nm signals, the other common type.
I'm not sure where on the web to find technical info on this. Everything I have is training materials from Lucent (I'm an ATM/FR/Optical field Engineer).
"Dense" in DWDM commonly means more than 10 wavelengths simultaneously, though it varies depending on the vendor.
Pushing beyond 40 Gbps requires turning the laser on and off faster -- something that is going to be a real trick considering how fast it is moving right now.
Of course, finding the other components that can actually USE data moving at 40 Gbps, much less multiple streams of it, THAT will be the trick.
Lucent is shipping, Nortel is not. Nortel delayed the HDX recently -- insiders were citing customer dissatisfaction.
Yes, it was a Lucent press release. However, Bell Labs is the inventor of so many optical inventions (DWDM being only one). Lucent holds more patents on this area of technology than almost all their competitors combined. It really helps.
Actually, Time Warner was one of the first Lambda Router customers last year. The LambdaXtreme unit is what the article mentions and it is a super-long-haul unit. AOL/TW was supposed to be using the 1.6 Tbps version for their coast-2-coast backbone.
1. Getting OC-192 to work reliably is a bitch. Over that, it is a black art. Nortel recently pushed back their 40 Gb unit, and Lucent is the only one really shipping one to customers. It is NOT cheap 6-figures+
2. There are several types of fiber, and not all of it is suited for DWDM.
3. Streets are dug up every day to install water pipes, sewers, etc. Laying fiber is dirt cheap compared to the backend switching equipment.
3a. Gigabit ethernet is a joke for WAN. Sonet/SDH, ATM and MPLS are what works/is used. None of the above is cheap. Switches, port interfaces, switching fabric all costs a truckload of money.
4. Greed? How about just getting paid? The big switch makers financed so many start-ups that it killed them when they went under. They lost billions and are cutting things left and right to stay afloat. Telco spending is down 30%+ from last year.
It WILL come back, but a brief shortage is possible. not a lot of comapnies have the $$ right now to shell out to light that fiber.
ATM/Sonet/SDH switching equipment is damned expensive. Fully decked out switches can easily cost $250,000 - $1,000,000+ depending on port density and speed (OC3 - OC192).
You also have to deal with what TYPE of fiber is in the ground already. Older stuff can't support the big DWDM equipment. Zero-dispersion fiber was popular until we cranked up the speeds and found that certain problems occurring about OC-48 result in exponential loss (no data making it thru). Newer fiber is dispersion-shifted, with erbium or another rare-earth doping.
This is why ATM never caught on in the LAN, even with cheap OC-3 cards -- switches cost a friggin' fortune!
E-mail went out to all Lucent today -- starting ASAP all access to webmail accounts (HotMail, Netscape, Yahoo, etc.) will be blocked and is against policy. It seems they don't like the threat of viruses getting thru around the normal e-mail checks.
However, they have expressly allowed limited personal use of company e-mail.
I downloaded the.iso and installed Lycocis on two machines the other day. One was a pretty dismal failure, the other was a pretty fair success.
Lycoris did NOT like my dual-processor, no-IDE hard drive main system. While it DID install, it couldn't recognize my LS-120 drive as a floppy drive to make a rescue disk. Red Hat 7.2 does. Lycoris botched the LILO install on my main SCSI drive leaving me with LI and no boot disk. It made no mention of recognizing the second processor and the box has 1 Gb of RAM, which requires a kernel toggle -- I have no idea if it actually did. It also defaults to NOT installing the necessary Xine plugin to play CSS-encrypted DVDs. You've gotta track that down yourself.
However, on the single-processor Athlon, w/768 Mb of RAM and an IDE HD and a normal floppy, it worked fine. Install went smoothe and everything was recognized. It was very similar to Windows, which is the point -- keep the mental transition to a minimum.
Personally, I don't like the wallpaper. I found it to be too garish and distracting. However, that is easily enough fixed. I also don't like the theme that fakes transparency (liquid?), as it chews up too much CPU time and seems to make the machine a little sluggish. Again, easy enough to fix.
Recommendations: Kit, while functional, is a bit spartan for most Windows people's IM. A nice Jabber client or the actual Netscape AIM client would be much better. Install DeCSS by default and the plugin for Xine to play encrypted DVDs. It played everything else, though -- DivX, MPEG, OGG, MP3, etc.
KOffice is nice, if you don't need major compatibility with MS Office. Since they left out Konqueror and used Mozilla, I'd suggest replacing KOffice with OpenOffice.
Finally, work a deal with the Crossover people and include the Crossover plugin installed and a wizard to install Quicktime and Shockwave.
It is actually a real good distro for people who know little to nothing about PCs. For power users, it is something to avoid.
It is kind of hard to get motivated for KOffice when OpenOffice, Star Office, Applix (still around?) and other acceptable components such as Abiword, Gnumeric, etc. exist.
There is nothing wrong with KOffice, though personally I have a hard time with frame-based word processors. It just seems that there is a lot of redundancy in these office projects and that sort of saps the strength of those with the necessary skills. You can only do so much.
The Windows Media Player 8, shipped with Windows XP "phones home" to check on DVD titles, etc. This was reported a couple of weeks ago. Blatant spyware.
However, this isn't "free software from the Internet", it was shipped with the OS or pre-installed on the computer. Did you read the umpteen pages of legalese before installing XP or clicking "I Agree" when your new computer first booted up?
http://computerbytesman.com/privacy/wmp8dvd.htm
What are your options in this situation. "Signing" of the code doesn't mean a thing, as all code belongs to MS.
This is the main reason laws like UTICA are bad -- they legitimize "click thru" agreements and such nonsense.
Something like this was addressed, sort of, before with Windows Return Day -- when people noticed the clause in the Windows EULA telling you if you don't agree to take the software back to the vendor for a refund.
Until someone actually sues a major company -- and wins -- this sort of thing will go on. Liability is how the new world spells Responsibility. (God, I hope I spelled both of those correctly!)
NewTek reps have said that there will be an official announcement about Linux and Lightwave "soon". Of course, that was said around November 2001 -- so "soon" is relative.
This could have a wonderful effect on upgrades. No more mixing fixes and feature adds -- too dangerous (aka Service Packs).
Can you imagine MicroSoft's position? New license agreements with WinXP require users to upgrade every two years. MS will be held legally liable for the stability of those upgrades. They better damn well get it right.
Remember that U.S. Navy ship that switched to NT and was dead in the harbor? Imagine the Navy sending a bill to Bill.:-)
The biggest obstacle I faced in changing an office full of non-tech people from Windows/Office to Linux was training time. Despite the cost of Windows, Office, Project, Exchange seats, etc. it was nothing compared to the loss of time/productivity/money retraining them would have. Hell, just the 3-button mouse causes dozens of phone calls from Windows end-users!
Making the tools similar to what they are used to will get rid of most of that problem.
The big benefits come to an office with what ISN'T included in this package -- BSODs, Fatal Exceptions, and 5x-daily reboots.
It took me two years, but eventually I had trained most people in the office to accept the fact that Excel, IE and Word crashed on a regular basis. No, it was not their fault. Reboot and get on with life.
The final benefit was the statement "it is pure Linux in there".
Power to those that know how to find/use it. Functionality to those that don't.
1. SCSI can handle between 15-30 devices on one good controller, *not* including support for multi-disk changers via LUNs. Most IDE can handle 2-4.
2. SCSI drives don't turn into slugs when you access more than one at a time. IDE does. Want to see it REALLY screw up, access an ATAPI CD-ROM slave the same time as a HD Master on the same controller.
Anything in a crowded area like Akihara (sp?) in Japan; (hell, lots of areas in Japan) and some shopping districts in Hong Kong, NYC or anywhere else where space is a premium.
Mega-sized flea markets also comes to mind.
+/- 6m leaves a lot of room for overlap.
However, I believe the U.S. is shipping new sats up that are supposed to cut that in half by about 2005. +/- 3m will be real nice.
Of course, if I could slap little tags on everything in my closet/storage shed/garage I could finally find something! +/- 3m isn't gonna help in my 10x10 storage shed. However, to within 10 cm -- that would be fantastic.
More likely UWB will compliment GPS nicely. GPS will be used for wilderness, nautical and aviation. UWB will be used to supplement GPS by giving much more accurate measurements in the urban and sub-urban areas -- where 80% of the population lives.
+/- 6 meters isn't good enough for things like parking cars; locating stores/kids in malls; densely populated areas and it really sucks for vertical distances. Yes, differential GPS with ground stations really helps, but UWB could make location-based information and services pervasive.
Slashdot Mirror
It depends.
SGI's XFS uses and agressive advanced cache system and pre-allocates sectors. What this means is that small files, like temp and working files, never actually make it to the physical disk. They are cached and used from the cache. If they are short lived, then no disk I/O occurs at all.
Pre-allocating sectors means the system can study where the best location for the file is before it actually gets written. This not only minimized fragmentation, but it also speeds up writes.
EBDA stands for ErBium Doped something, I forget what the "A" is for. In a brief nutshell...
8 07 0/
Traditional fiber only allows a signal to travel so far before it has to be regenerated. The actual distance depends on the quality of both the fiber and the light source. Regeneration means turning the signal back to an electrical one and retransmitting it. Bleh!
A few years back Bell Labs scientists figured out that certain rare-earth elements (Erbium) have interesting optical properties -- it will absorb energy at one frequency and when prodded, release it at a different frequency.
Erbium, it so happens, releases that stored energy at about 1351 nm. So, by placing a fiber that has erbium mixed in with it at a certain point on a run, it can be "pumped" and then triggered by an incoming 1351 nm wave to release energy and "boost" the incoming signal.
Two lasers are shown down the fiber -- the one with the signal (about 1351 nm) and the "pumping" laser, at a different frequency. The "pumping" laser "charges" the erbium-doped section. When the faltering 1351 nm signal laser comes thru, it triggers the charged section to release it's stored photons and they lockstep with the existing signal, boosting it.
Other elements are used to dope fiber from 1500 nm signals, the other common type.
I'm not sure where on the web to find technical info on this. Everything I have is training materials from Lucent (I'm an ATM/FR/Optical field Engineer).
Try...
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Circuit/
"Dense" in DWDM commonly means more than 10 wavelengths simultaneously, though it varies depending on the vendor.
Pushing beyond 40 Gbps requires turning the laser on and off faster -- something that is going to be a real trick considering how fast it is moving right now.
Of course, finding the other components that can actually USE data moving at 40 Gbps, much less multiple streams of it, THAT will be the trick.
Lucent is shipping, Nortel is not. Nortel delayed the HDX recently -- insiders were citing customer dissatisfaction.
Yes, it was a Lucent press release. However, Bell Labs is the inventor of so many optical inventions (DWDM being only one). Lucent holds more patents on this area of technology than almost all their competitors combined. It really helps.
Actually, Time Warner was one of the first Lambda Router customers last year. The LambdaXtreme unit is what the article mentions and it is a super-long-haul unit. AOL/TW was supposed to be using the 1.6 Tbps version for their coast-2-coast backbone.
No, 'cause the LambdaXtreme unit used is unbelievably expensive, and you need at least 2 of them.
Also, you need EBDA single-mode fiber, which isn't the majority in the ground.
Soon, though.
Charles E. Hill
Core Network Engineer
Lucent Worldwide Services
1. Getting OC-192 to work reliably is a bitch. Over that, it is a black art. Nortel recently pushed back their 40 Gb unit, and Lucent is the only one really shipping one to customers. It is NOT cheap 6-figures+
2. There are several types of fiber, and not all of it is suited for DWDM.
3. Streets are dug up every day to install water pipes, sewers, etc. Laying fiber is dirt cheap compared to the backend switching equipment.
3a. Gigabit ethernet is a joke for WAN. Sonet/SDH, ATM and MPLS are what works/is used. None of the above is cheap. Switches, port interfaces, switching fabric all costs a truckload of money.
4. Greed? How about just getting paid? The big switch makers financed so many start-ups that it killed them when they went under. They lost billions and are cutting things left and right to stay afloat. Telco spending is down 30%+ from last year.
It WILL come back, but a brief shortage is possible. not a lot of comapnies have the $$ right now to shell out to light that fiber.
ATM/Sonet/SDH switching equipment is damned expensive. Fully decked out switches can easily cost $250,000 - $1,000,000+ depending on port density and speed (OC3 - OC192).
You also have to deal with what TYPE of fiber is in the ground already. Older stuff can't support the big DWDM equipment. Zero-dispersion fiber was popular until we cranked up the speeds and found that certain problems occurring about OC-48 result in exponential loss (no data making it thru). Newer fiber is dispersion-shifted, with erbium or another rare-earth doping.
This is why ATM never caught on in the LAN, even with cheap OC-3 cards -- switches cost a friggin' fortune!
Hmmm... I thought they were defined.
http://www.protocols.com/pbook/tcpip.htm#IP
Implementation, I have no clue about.
Good excuse to push forward the rollout of IPv6. Gov't grants to ISPs to get new, IPv6 capable, equipment.
IPv6 has better QoS than IPv4.
E-mail went out to all Lucent today -- starting ASAP all access to webmail accounts (HotMail, Netscape, Yahoo, etc.) will be blocked and is against policy. It seems they don't like the threat of viruses getting thru around the normal e-mail checks.
However, they have expressly allowed limited personal use of company e-mail.
VPN sucks.
I downloaded the .iso and installed Lycocis on two machines the other day. One was a pretty dismal failure, the other was a pretty fair success.
Lycoris did NOT like my dual-processor, no-IDE hard drive main system. While it DID install, it couldn't recognize my LS-120 drive as a floppy drive to make a rescue disk. Red Hat 7.2 does. Lycoris botched the LILO install on my main SCSI drive leaving me with LI and no boot disk. It made no mention of recognizing the second processor and the box has 1 Gb of RAM, which requires a kernel toggle -- I have no idea if it actually did. It also defaults to NOT installing the necessary Xine plugin to play CSS-encrypted DVDs. You've gotta track that down yourself.
However, on the single-processor Athlon, w/768 Mb of RAM and an IDE HD and a normal floppy, it worked fine. Install went smoothe and everything was recognized. It was very similar to Windows, which is the point -- keep the mental transition to a minimum.
Personally, I don't like the wallpaper. I found it to be too garish and distracting. However, that is easily enough fixed. I also don't like the theme that fakes transparency (liquid?), as it chews up too much CPU time and seems to make the machine a little sluggish. Again, easy enough to fix.
Recommendations: Kit, while functional, is a bit spartan for most Windows people's IM. A nice Jabber client or the actual Netscape AIM client would be much better. Install DeCSS by default and the plugin for Xine to play encrypted DVDs. It played everything else, though -- DivX, MPEG, OGG, MP3, etc.
KOffice is nice, if you don't need major compatibility with MS Office. Since they left out Konqueror and used Mozilla, I'd suggest replacing KOffice with OpenOffice.
Finally, work a deal with the Crossover people and include the Crossover plugin installed and a wizard to install Quicktime and Shockwave.
It is actually a real good distro for people who know little to nothing about PCs. For power users, it is something to avoid.
The ThinkNIC runs a stripped Linux, and comes with a Citrix Metaframe client so it is available for Linux, too.
Yet Another Office Suite...
It is kind of hard to get motivated for KOffice when OpenOffice, Star Office, Applix (still around?) and other acceptable components such as Abiword, Gnumeric, etc. exist.
There is nothing wrong with KOffice, though personally I have a hard time with frame-based word processors. It just seems that there is a lot of redundancy in these office projects and that sort of saps the strength of those with the necessary skills. You can only do so much.
The Windows Media Player 8, shipped with Windows XP "phones home" to check on DVD titles, etc. This was reported a couple of weeks ago. Blatant spyware.
However, this isn't "free software from the Internet", it was shipped with the OS or pre-installed on the computer. Did you read the umpteen pages of legalese before installing XP or clicking "I Agree" when your new computer first booted up?
http://computerbytesman.com/privacy/wmp8dvd.htm
What are your options in this situation. "Signing" of the code doesn't mean a thing, as all code belongs to MS.
This is the main reason laws like UTICA are bad -- they legitimize "click thru" agreements and such nonsense.
Something like this was addressed, sort of, before with Windows Return Day -- when people noticed the clause in the Windows EULA telling you if you don't agree to take the software back to the vendor for a refund.
Until someone actually sues a major company -- and wins -- this sort of thing will go on. Liability is how the new world spells Responsibility. (God, I hope I spelled both of those correctly!)
NewTek reps have said that there will be an official announcement about Linux and Lightwave "soon". Of course, that was said around November 2001 -- so "soon" is relative.
This could have a wonderful effect on upgrades. No more mixing fixes and feature adds -- too dangerous (aka Service Packs).
:-)
Can you imagine MicroSoft's position? New license agreements with WinXP require users to upgrade every two years. MS will be held legally liable for the stability of those upgrades. They better damn well get it right.
Remember that U.S. Navy ship that switched to NT and was dead in the harbor? Imagine the Navy sending a bill to Bill.
The probelm is momentum. Lots and lots of people have already been "trained" on how to do things the Microsoft way.
You're right, Windows is not easy. However, lots of people have learned the basics and are afraid to try anything new -- regardless of how easy it is.
Hell, if they weren't, they'd all buy Macs and MS would go away.
The biggest obstacle I faced in changing an office full of non-tech people from Windows/Office to Linux was training time. Despite the cost of Windows, Office, Project, Exchange seats, etc. it was nothing compared to the loss of time/productivity/money retraining them would have. Hell, just the 3-button mouse causes dozens of phone calls from Windows end-users!
Making the tools similar to what they are used to will get rid of most of that problem.
The big benefits come to an office with what ISN'T included in this package -- BSODs, Fatal Exceptions, and 5x-daily reboots.
It took me two years, but eventually I had trained most people in the office to accept the fact that Excel, IE and Word crashed on a regular basis. No, it was not their fault. Reboot and get on with life.
The final benefit was the statement "it is pure Linux in there".
Power to those that know how to find/use it. Functionality to those that don't.
There is one notable exception: scratches.
I've been to midnight-showing, opening night of some movies and see scratches on the film.
The one DLP film I saw (Emperor's New Groove @ AMC Buena Vista in LBV, FL) was flawless.
>maybe it's your definition of redundancy, but if one drive fails in a RAID5 array nothing breaks. Isn't that some kind of redundancy?
Exactly -- especially if you also include a hot spare in the array.
1. SCSI can handle between 15-30 devices on one good controller, *not* including support for multi-disk changers via LUNs. Most IDE can handle 2-4.
2. SCSI drives don't turn into slugs when you access more than one at a time. IDE does. Want to see it REALLY screw up, access an ATAPI CD-ROM slave the same time as a HD Master on the same controller.
It was a quick example for people too lazy to think of one on their own.
Obviously extrapolating from this was too much for you.
Okay -- warehousing systems for companies that have hundreds or thousands of parts.
Automatic detection of proper parts that are installed in manufacturing systems to double-check.
I can think of dozens of others. Use your imagination.
Anything in a crowded area like Akihara (sp?) in Japan; (hell, lots of areas in Japan) and some shopping districts in Hong Kong, NYC or anywhere else where space is a premium.
Mega-sized flea markets also comes to mind.
+/- 6m leaves a lot of room for overlap.
However, I believe the U.S. is shipping new sats up that are supposed to cut that in half by about 2005. +/- 3m will be real nice.
Of course, if I could slap little tags on everything in my closet/storage shed/garage I could finally find something! +/- 3m isn't gonna help in my 10x10 storage shed. However, to within 10 cm -- that would be fantastic.
More likely UWB will compliment GPS nicely. GPS will be used for wilderness, nautical and aviation. UWB will be used to supplement GPS by giving much more accurate measurements in the urban and sub-urban areas -- where 80% of the population lives.
+/- 6 meters isn't good enough for things like parking cars; locating stores/kids in malls; densely populated areas and it really sucks for vertical distances. Yes, differential GPS with ground stations really helps, but UWB could make location-based information and services pervasive.
UWB has a lot of potential.