In-Depth

October Inside IBM

• 10/01/1998

IBM marked the 10th anniversary of its storage management software (SMS) architecture at the International Storage Symposium in San Francisco. Events at the week-long IBM customer symposium focused on IBM’s storage management software arena, specifically with three distinct products: DFSMS (Data Facility Storage Management Subsystem for MVS); ADSTAR Distributed Storage Manager (ADSM); and the recently announced StorWatch family.

The DFSMS/MVS family provides a set of functions for the System 390 environment, including: backup and restore; hierarchical storage management (HSM); disaster recovery management; archive and retrieval and tape management. ADSM, like DFSMS, also offers backup and recovery, archive, hierarchical storage management and disaster recovery functions.

The StorWatch family of product lays the foundation to solve problems of non-integrated storage management tools and reduces associated management costs.

IBM Global Sign-On Version 2 eliminates the need for people using multiple systems to sign on to each one individually - enabling secure access to all approved systems through a single sign-on. New features, including the Tivoli Plus Module and smartcard support, strengthen enterprise security, simplify administration and reduce users’ time spent logging on to various applications. With this new version, customers can reduce the time required to log into applications from 20 or more minutes to only a few moments. In addition, it provides a single point of entry to computing resources; reduces the security exposure generated by managing multiple passwords; increases the systems administrators’ productivity; and is available across leading operating system platforms.

Tivoli Plus Module provides: Automated installation and maintenance of Global Sign-On; Role-based administration of Global Sign-On users and logon targets, Notification of logon attempts and password resets. Stronger Primary Authentication will be provided via: Use of the industry standard PKCS#11 interfaces to support smartcards including the IBM SignCard and Schlumberger Cryptoflex smartcard from Litronic, Inc; and support for the SecureTouch fingerprint reader from Biometric Access Corporation.

Global Sign-On 2.0 supports logon access to 3270 and 5250 applications via an emulator, AS/400 Client access applications, LAN Server, OS/2 Warp Server, Novell NetWare, Windows NT Server, Lotus Notes, DCE applications, Intellisoft SnareWorks, and multiple databases (IBM DB2, Oracle, Informix, Microsoft SQL Server and Sybase). Pricing in the U.S. for the Global Sign-On client will list at $75 per user, and the Global Sign-On server will list at $1,999.

IBM’s three new semiconductor offerings include: ultra fine pitch wire bond plastic ball grid arrays (PBGAs), glass ceramic chip carriers and multichip modules on laminate (MCM-L), represent significant advances in packaging materials and design. These packages provide high-performance connectivity between the chip and the rest of the system, relieving bottlenecks that can occur as more circuitry is built into each chip.

With the introduction of ultra fine pitch wire bond PBGA, IBM has combined standard ceramic technology with printed wire board processing to produce innovative wire bond interconnect capabilities. Using this process, die pad pitch can be reduced from the 80-micron industry standard to less than 60 microns. Off-chip interconnection densities of more than 1,000 I/Os can be supported, making this new packaging suitable for 0.18-micron processes and below. Manufacturers who rely on wire bond interconnect can achieve up to a 40 percent on-edge reduction, allowing them to either significantly shrink die size - by as much as 20 to 50 percent - or to increase input/output capacity, which allows for increased chip circuitry.

IBM’s glass ceramic chip carriers feature full array flip-chip (C4) die attach, allowing for die shrink and providing improved electrical performance due to shorter interconnect lengths, distributed power and ground. That electrical performance is boosted even higher by the low dielectric of glass ceramic and the presence of copper conductors, which can speed the transfer of the signal to the board by up to 28 percent.

IBM’s advanced Multichip Module on Laminate (MCM-L) packaging solutions give customers the ability to package several chips together to simplify system-level board design and reduce the number of I/O connections. Packaging bare die in close proximity results in shorter interconnect lengths, which can enhance electrical performance through reduced time of signal transfer to the board, lower capacitance loading, lower cross-talk and lower off-chip driver power.

IBM and Lotus are donating industry-standard security software source code to the Internet community. The security software is based on Internet standards defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force, the leading international standards organization for the development of the Internet. With digital certificates, people can sign their names electronically, much like drivers’ licenses are used for identification.

The software source code, also known as a reference implementation, delivers on the IETF’s draft Public Key Infrastructure standards, commonly referred to as PKIX. PKIX provides the mechanism to issue, validate, revoke and renew digital certificates. Systems and software vendors now may take advantage of the source code, or reference implementation, and no longer need to invent their own core technology or worry about interoperability of certificates.

In addition to more than 20 organizations participating in authoring the PKIX standard, leading companies, associations and software vendors have lined up to support PKIX, including: General Motors, JP Morgan, Netscape, Sun, International Computer Security Association, Security Dynamics, Inc., Intel, Equifax and DASCOM. In addition, Tivoli will provide management support for the standards-based digital certificate environment.