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GSN Transfers 100 Gigabytes in Less than Four Minutes

Gigabyte System NetworkTM and Scheduled Transfer Protocol Technology Debut at CERN

GENEVA, October 16, 1998 - Members of the High Performance Networking Forum (HNF) demonstrated Gigabyte System NetworkTM (GSN) and Scheduled Transfer (ST) technology publicly for the first time earlier this week at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics. CERN, located on the Franco-Swiss boarder, is a leading global institution maintaining and developing high-energy particle accelerators for physics research. GSN, also known as HIPPI-6400, can carry data more than six times faster than Gigabit Ethernet. ST is a lightweight transaction-based protocol stack for high performance networking.

The CERN demonstrations included Silicon Graphics, Inc. (NYSE: SGI) showing data transfer between a pair of Origin 2000 servers with a GSN connection. The network was based on SGI's new GSN interface for the SGI XIO bus. Silicon Graphics also showed data transfer over the ANSI draft Scheduled Transfer (ST) Protocol, moving data at more than ten times the speed of Gigabit Ethernet. The demonstration included the transfer of 100 Gigabytes of data, the equivalent of moving the contents of 150 CD ROMs, in less than four minutes.

GENROCO, Inc. (OTC BB: GRCI) demonstrated a GSN link between an ALPHA 4100 computer from Compaq Computer Corporation (NYSE: CPQ) and a SPARC 450 system from Sun Microsystems Corporation (NASDAQ: SUNW). The Compaq and Sun machines both utilized the GENROCO TURBOfibre SHP-6464 64 bit 66 MHz PCI GSN adapter to transfer data. All products used the Silicon Graphics SuMAC GSN Controller.

"This event is a technological milestone in the development of the coming ANSI standards," said Arie van Praag, CERN senior engineer and HNF board member. "This demo showed that the technology is real and that products are on their way. It is fitting that the first public demonstration of GSN technology took place at CERN where the World Wide Web was invented. GSN and ST certainly will be the foundations of the next generation of high performance networks."

GSN is the highest bandwidth and lowest latency interconnect available and provides full duplex, dual 6400 megabit (800 megabyte) per second error-free, flow-controlled data. GSN technology is well suited for organizations that require timely movement of large amounts of information including scientific and technical computing, HDTV, data mining, transaction processing, video and film archiving, and storage management. The proposed ANSI standard provides for interoperability with Ethernet, Fibre Channel, ATM, HIPPI-800 and other standards.

About High Performance Networking Forum

The High Performance Networking Forum (HNF) was organized to promote the Gigabyte System Network and High Performance Parallel Interface (HIPPI) networking and network attached storage standards. This industry-wide effort is committed to providing customers with open and interoperable GSN and HIPPI solutions. The HNF is comprised of approximately twenty organizations worldwide, including platform vendors Compaq Computer Corporation, Silicon Graphics, and Sun Microsystems plus CERN, Los Alamos National Laboratories and other research institutions. Information about GSN and the High Performance Networking Forum can be accessed on the World Wide Web at http://www.hnf.org. Information requests can be directed to hnf@genroco.com.

Gigabyte Systems Network is a trademark of the HNF. All other products and company names mentioned are used for identification purposes only, and may be the trademarks of their owners.

Last Updated: 18-May-1998 ddw