Broadband net ties engineers over two T3 links - digital communications technology

Storage Technology (StorageTek) faced a critical challenge in 1992 when we opened a new development and manufacturing facility in Longmont, Colo., 18 miles from our nine-building campus in Louisville.

We needed to be able to perform interactive engineering design, and transfer massive amounts of LAN-to-LAN traffic and IBM channel extension backup information between sites cost effectively and with "next door" response times.

We are a leading manufacturer of information storage and retrieval devices for large computer systems, with revenues of $1.52 billion (ranked 239 on the Fortune 500). Our solution was to build a high-speed broadband network using two T3 links which are managed by T3plus Networking BMX45 Broadband Bandwidth Managers.

Like most computer and peripheral manufacturing companies today, we operate in a highly competitive marketplace. As rapid innovations spawn quicker product life cycles, we must deliver complex products to market much faster than ever before.

The broadband network enables us to perform real-time interactive development that slashes product development time significantly, a critical advantage in a volatile and fast-moving market.

To be sure that engineers have available the most current data--not yesterday's news--each engineering design application retrieves up-to-the-minute data from as many as 30 devices across the network simultaneously. Multimegabit-size files that are needed to display a product blueprint on a workstation can be retrieved within seconds using the broadband network delivering 44.5 Mb/s of bandwidth.

Using advanced engineering design programs on Silicon Graphics and Sun workstations, our engineers share data and client-server applications across the network. Engineers in one group can work on a tape library's robotic retrieval mechanism while engineers at another site work on the tape cartridge itself.

In addition to engineering data, LAN-to-LAN traffic from PC LANs running Novell NetWare and LAN Manager, Apple Macintosh computers supporting Appletalk, DEC VAX clusters, Cisco routers and hubs is all consolidated over the T3 links using the T3plus BMX45 managers. High Speed Serial Interface (HSSI), a widely used internetworking standard initially developed by T3plus and Cisco, is key to sending LAN router traffic at multimegabit speeds.

Channel extension backup of our IBM mainframe to StorageTek AS 4400 Automated Cartridge Systems occurs nightly across one of the T3 links. (Implementing T1 solutions was not viable over farther distances for these remote channel extension applications). Known as the Remote Electronic Storage Solution (RESS), the backup application serves as a showcase to potential customers of the feasibility of reliable, high-volume tape archiving at data rates matching local channel connections.

The ability of the BMX to reconfigure bandwidth on the fly further maximizes their channel extension applications with their LAN and engineering applications, reducing costs by dynamically allocating communications based on

business needs and not leaving bandwidth idle. Competing products use drop-and-insert cards that require hardware modifications.

We can reassign bandwidth to specific applications using the system's software.

For example, to determine the most effective amount of bandwidth to dedicate to our channel extension backup applications, we set the BMX45 to reallocate bandwidth to various amounts during the night. Because of its automatic configuration capability, we could easily run tests without requiring a network manager to be physically present.

Network management is also critical. BMXview is a graphical and point-and-click management system that runs on a Unix and X-Windows/Motif system platform. Competing network management products were bulky and difficult to use, requiring that we enter long strings of information. Support of SNMP is even more important because of our extremely heterogeneous computing environment.

As we look down the road, we are interested in asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) and Sonet to handle our ever-growing communications and new applications. We feel we have a smooth migration path from today's technologies to these emerging technologies. With these options and a high-speed network able to handle new applications we might not even be able to predict today, we have the communications capabilities the company needs to deliver the most advanced products to market in the quickest time frame.

COPYRIGHT 1993 Nelson Publishing
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group