bloom america

Chapter 287 Hard Drives and Patents

Compared with ordinary PCs, servers have higher requirements in terms of stability, security, performance, etc. Therefore, the CPU, chipset, memory, disk system, network and other hardware are different from ordinary PCs.

For example, although the performance of the current SFC is very good, it may not be suitable for use on the server. The stability of the server must be enhanced.

If an ordinary user's personal computer has a problem, it doesn't matter. It just needs to be restarted and it will be solved. Even if the chip is broken, it doesn't matter. At most, the computer will not be used today.

The server is different. Because it is connected to the Internet, the server must ensure its stability.

From a category perspective, servers include mainframes, small machines, and microcomputers.

For the average business, they may need a small computer. This is why Catherine asked Olson to come over - no one likes small computers more than Olson.

"College students? In this case, they should not have high requirements for the server. I think we can completely transfer these websites into our large server, and then only transfer the information of each university and each enterprise."

"But the question is, the price of large servers is very cheap. Will they change it?" Ralph knew that if it were replaced by a small machine, the cost of building a separate website would increase a lot...

"This..." Olson was also stumped for a moment.

"Olson, if we build a small machine as a server, how much will it cost? What about a microcomputer?"

"As for the cost issue, I think I may need to discuss it with the technician. What the server needs is stability. Compared with the computer performance we are pursuing now, there are some inconsistencies in the direction. But there are some things that can be learned from IBM's 360

.”

Catherine's company also purchased two IBM 360 mainframes. One of them is used for research and development software, while the other has been completely dismantled into parts by Intel employees for research.

After all, IBM has developed for so many years, and IBM has invested as much as 5 billion in its 360 computer. Even if Catherine's Ark quadruples its market value, I'm afraid it won't have that much money - so many of IBM's technologies are worth learning from.

of.

Of course, pure plagiarism is too low-tech. And after IBM discovers that Ark is plagiarizing, I'm afraid they themselves will be the first to laugh - if a lawsuit comes, Ark will 100% be dragged down, and its reputation will also be ruined.

All destroyed.

"Um...Ralph, is our server no longer available?"

"No, but we are not far from the limit. If we keep the current growth rate of websites, in another two months, our server may not be able to handle it."

It seems there is still room for maneuver.

"...Ralph, let's add a group of servers for the time being."

Using a Celeron supercomputer as the core, although such a server is expensive, compared with millions of dollars and the company's reputation, the latter is obviously more important.

"OK."

Catherine told the matter, and then she began to think about how to operate the server.

In the "future", servers are roughly divided into five types.

The first is the entry-level server, which is the most basic and low-end. However, Catherine feels that if it is for student users, this kind of server is also worth learning from; then there is the workgroup server, which can be heard from the name.

For its purpose, such a server can only be connected to one workgroup (about 50 people); then there are department-level servers, which are probably the first choice for small and medium-sized enterprises; then there are enterprise-level servers, some of which are enterprise-level

The server even uses a mainframe as the core; the last is a video server, which Catherine will not be involved in for at least five years, so it will not be considered.

For a server, the performance design goal of the server is how to balance the performance of each part so that the performance of the entire system can be optimized. If a server has the ability to process 1,000 service requests per second, but the network card only

It can accept 200 requests, but the hard disk can only bear 150, and the load capacity of various buses can only bear 100 requests, then the processing capacity of this server can only be 100 requests/second, which is more than 80%.

The computing power of the processor is wasted.

Therefore, the performance of the server may not necessarily be higher than that of a personal computer, but it must be more balanced and stable.

These are easy to solve. Today's memory can support up to 4MB. Just add a few more memory sticks and you can solve it.

But on the other hand, Catherine's company has a weakness...

"Hard drive..."

Although current personal computers have other storage solutions, personal computers do not need large hard drives, but servers do...

“What should I do with the hard drive!”

Catherine suddenly thought of such a serious problem.

"Isn't it enough to use a read-only ROM? Just like today's computers." Elsa seemed a little strange when she saw Catherine being so distressed.

"No, it's different. The content of the website needs to be updated. It's simply not possible to use only a read-only memory. We need a hard disk that can be written and read at any time. And this hard disk is only used by IBM."

"That means you have to purchase a large number of hard drives from IBM?" Elsa seemed to understand what was going on.

"This is impossible! Impossible!"

Catherine struggled in the chair, she was arrogant again...

"What if...can we get IBM to license it to us?"

"Do you think they will?" Catherine was a little amused.

"Maybe……"

Elsa tilted her head. Ark and IBM seemed to have deep grudges?

"No, maybe..."

Catherine suddenly reacted.

"Can what?"

"Of course we can ask them to license it to us! Just do the same as Motorola and exchange patents!"

Elsa seemed to be thinking about what patents in the company would interest IBM without causing harm to the company's interests.

At this time, Catherine seemed to be inspired: "Perhaps our 'three-phase data optical drive technology' can be exchanged?"

The so-called "three-phase data optical drive technology" is the company's three-head optical drive technology. But there is a question...IBM will really do it?

Although this technology looks very good, as long as it is not a graphical operating interface like her company, the software does not require a lot of storage capacity. And Catherine simply does not want to tell others the secrets of the optical drive and computer system.

After all, the graphical operating interface is Catherine's trump card.

The news that I want to develop a graphical operating interface has been told to everyone at last year's developer conference. If the optical drive thing is revealed again... IBM will probably know what it is going to do. Although the other party will not come over.

It is possible to seize your own market, but it is still possible to set yourself up.

"It's really troublesome... Do we have to develop our own hard drive?" Catherine curled her lips.

"Actually, we can do this too." Elsa said.

"But it's too late..."

Elsa was a little confused: "But...don't our current servers also use IBM hard drives?"

"So I don't want to use it anymore."

Catherine was wailing.

"And even if we develop it now, it may not be better than IBM. They have magnetic resistance...etc."

Catherine immediately made another phone call.

"Help me check if there is a patent on magnetoresistive head technology among IBM's registered patents. This patent is used on hard disks."

"Reluctance head? What's that?"

"A technology used on hard drives."

Catherine vaguely remembered that this was a technology in the 1980s, also developed by IBM, but she couldn't quite remember whether the other party was using this technology now. Although Catherine knew about hard drives, she only knew about them.

After suffering for a while, the phone finally rang.

"Sister Edson, we have not found any information related to this technology on IBM's mechanical hard drives."

mrgcomo-resitivehead) is the abbreviation of magnetoresistive head. MR technology can record data at a higher actual recording density, thereby increasing hard disk capacity and improving data throughput.

The giant magnetoresistive technology and disk vertical writing technology that appeared later were all based on this magnetoresistive head.

When Catherine heard this sentence, she almost jumped for joy, but the next sentence of the other party made Catherine instantly impotent.

"But... we found relevant content in IBM's magnetic core memory patent, which is the 'magnetoresistance effect'."

"Well, that's it."

Catherine shook her head, it seemed like there were some things she really couldn't force.

"What's wrong?"

"This technology has already been used in magnetic core memory...hell, this is actually happening."

Magnetoresistive heads cannot circumvent this patent at all! If you develop your own magnetoresistive heads, it will be a wedding dress for IBM!

"If it is a magnetic core memory...the patent has been for more than ten years, so it should...become invalid, right?"

Elsa's words reminded Catherine.

"Yes! The patent has expired!"

Catherine became excited again, and if I had to say it, magnetoresistance was also discovered in 1857. Although it was used in the 1960s, the theory itself has been around for more than a hundred years. Even if IBM sued itself, in the end

They can only argue with each other.

Then she stood up immediately and gave Elsa a hug.

"It's so sexy, Elsa, I really like you..."

"Well..." Elsa blushed and turned her face to the other side.