fostel@ncsu.UUCP (Gary Fostel) (04/26/84)
Someone recently asked about the relative advantages of putting a micro
on every desk versus putting a dozen (or so) micros into a single box
thinking to save money that way. "Network In a Box" is one name which
has been coined for these, and a nice glossy intro article in a rag called
High Technology talks about who makes them and some numbers and such. I
recall it being an issue in Late Fall or Winter, a few months back.
It seems that there are two primary differences as far as cost effectiveness
is concerned: the packaging of the NIAB must be lower since the cabinet
powersupply and such can be done more cheaply. (And there's always
Grosches Law). On the other hand, there will be more costs for the cabling
to interconnect the (presumably) remote workstations. It seems that the
NIAB will win if the workstations are all close together, but should start
to lose (all things equal) as the distances increase.
Now, IF you were intending a high perf LAN to interconnect the seperate
processors, you may find yourself paying the price for cabling as well as
the extra packaging costs. But recall, if the processor and memory are
remote from the screen, its is going to take a lot of bandwidth out of your
LAN to support bit mapped screens. The result will be LANS carrying largely
screen re-fresh data rather than FTP, file server etc etc. Not immediately
obvious which will lead to higher bandwidth requirements, tho it seems that
a blunt screen refresh could be very high bandwidth indeed for bit-mapping.
Comparable to video? The bandwidth can come down if the remote display
is smart and the NIAB uses some compression techniques. But my guess is
that RS-232 at 9600 is what the available NIAB's use. Phone lines are
maybe good enough for that up to a point.
Of course maintenance and that stuff is much easier with the NIAB.
----gary----rpw3@fortune.UUCP (04/28/84)
#R:ncsu:-257000:fortune:16500011:000:1064
fortune!rpw3 Apr 27 19:19:00 1984
Notice that hierarchical principles again come to the rescue in the
network-in-a-box scheme. The answer is simply to have no (physically)
bigger cluster than the length of the video cables from the "box" to the
tubes, with the LAN connecting boxes. Once you get more than 3-4 users
in a box, the economies of scale taper off. Big power supplies are NOT
appreciably cheaper per watt than medium-sized ones. Size and fan noise
also put a limit to how big a "box" can be in the office environment.
Have you noticed the recent proliferation of 4-16 terminal systems?
By the way, with the (new? not any more) FCC rules, RS-232 cables are
getting nearly as expensive as high-speed LAN cables. This has the
effect of shifting the cost balance such that "network-in-a-box" has
an alternative: "computer-in-a-terminal".
Rob Warnock
UUCP: {ihnp4,ucbvax!amd70,hpda,harpo,sri-unix,allegra}!fortune!rpw3
DDD: (415)595-8444
USPS: Fortune Systems Corp, 101 Twin Dolphin Drive, Redwood City, CA 94065
("Hierarchy": Literally, "Heavenly Order". Loosely, "the way things are".)