Computers and Computer Systems VII

RECENT TRENDS IN COMPUTER SYSTEMS

OPEN SYSTEMS.

The most significant trend in computer systems, aside from the expanding capabilities of the devices that make up those systems, has been the growth of compatibility between software and hardware products from unrelated suppliers. Formerly, all components of a computer system originated from the same manufacturer, and there were no guarantees that these would be compatible with similar components from other sources. In the more distant past, although it still occurs today, was the common practice of designing software that could only be run on one manufacturer's computer, or even one particular model from a manufacturer. Open standards in operating systems and CPU instructions have done much to combat such limitations.

Open systems tend to be more cost-efficient and easy to manage, for the buyer isn't dependent on a single vendor and can shop around for the best prices, options, and delivery terms for each piece of the system. When open standards are widely deployed, as in the Windows/Intel PC standard, or better yet, the emerging Internet standards, they can improve worker productivity by offering a familiar interface on different systems. Standards also help facilitate data exchange across companies, such as between customers and suppliers, and allow one company to integrate its system more easily with that of another company, such as in a merger or acquisition.

STORAGE AND MULTIMEDIA.

New storage devices and media (e.g., optical discs and removable storage devices) along with multimedia computing have been two strong development areas since the mid-1990s. In the storage sector, the 1990s saw a parade of newer, and moreover, higher capacity storage devices to support burgeoning storage requirements, critical system backups, and data portability. Hard disk capacity on PCs and workstations, and to a lesset extent on midrange systems, has grown vastly since the early 1990s, when it was common to find new PCs with as little as 100 megabytes of disk space. By 1999, the typical new PC was equipped with at least several gigabytes of storage space, and top-of-the-line models came with 20 or more gigabytes.

While hard drives were gaining capacity, new forms of storage emerged. At the start of the 1990s, CD-ROMs were becoming a popular add-on and began showing up as standard features on higher end systems. CD-ROMs, which store data optically and are read by a laser that scans the disc while it spins, offered benefits to both users and software providers because they had relatively large storage capabilities (approximately 650 megabytes of data) and were durable and cheap to use relative to their size (blank discs in the late 1990s cost less than $2 each at retail). Particularly as software applications grew dramatically in size, it became much more practical both for software publishers and users to install program files from CD-ROMs rather than a dozen or more floppy disks. CD-ROMs also led the way toward multimedia use of computers. At their most basic, CD-ROM drives could play conventional audio CDs provided that the user had a sound card and speakers. Many other kinds of software and data products also appeared on CD-ROM in the early and mid-1990s, including a host of database and information retrieval products for business users. Though less common, recordable CD devices were also popular alternatives for users who needed to save large amounts of data for storage or portability, as well as for software developers who wanted to share internally a quick working demonstration version of a program.

While the speed of CD-ROM drives increased steadily, the medium's capacity was limited in light of the needs of more advanced applications, particularly video. By the late 1990s, a successor technology called digital versatile disc (DVD-ROM) was introduced. DVD-ROMs had significantly greater capacity than CD-ROMs, at 4.7 gigabytes, and DVD readers were backward compatible with all of the older CD technology. DVD-ROM offered enough space to fit a full-length digital movie, spawning a new category in the entertainment markets. A related technology was known as DVD-RAM, introduced in 1998, and it promised double-sided capacities of up to 5.2 gigabytes (to start) in a rewritable format. Planned enhancements to DVD-RAM were expected to boost capacity to 17 gigabytes in the early 2000s.

Another important area of storage development lay in so-called removable storage media, including omega Corp.'s Zip and Jaz drives and similar devices. These high-capacity magnetic disk systems allowed users to store 100 megabytes (Zip) or even a gigabyte (Jaz) or more on a single, removable disk. Second-generation Zip drives, the most popular removable media format, with some 16 million U.S. users in 1999, were designed to handle up to 250 megabytes per disk, while retaining compatibility with the older format. Many of the drives themselves were made as external add-on devices for desktop computers and thus could be shared by several users in an office if so desired. More recently, several leading computer manufacturers have offered these drives as standard built-in equipment.

Finally, on a larger scale, more advanced storage systems for entire businesses are an topic of much interest to system administrators. With the proliferation of storage devices and storage needs, large companies have found they need sophisticated management techniques to coordinate enterprise-wide storage in a timely and cost-efficient manner. One key solution has been the development of storage area networks (SANs), which are networks of storage devices that link to other corporate computer systems. SANs provide a high degree of storage management power and reliability. Similarly, network storage management software can perform computer-selected archiving of unused files to free up space on high-traffic network file servers.