Motorola's FreeScale to be acquired by NXP

[Motorola Logo, courtesy Wikipedia]

Abstract:
The Scientific, Education, Engineering, and Server microcomputer markets were once dominated with Motorola based processors. Motorola created the necessary parts for computing platforms, from the power transistors required for switching power supplies, to the plastic coated low-cost semiconductor format which became industry standard, to analog television screens needed for human interaction, to digital HDTV digital screens for modern day human interaction, all the way down to the Central Processor unit with all their additional support chips. Today, we mark the day where America's innovation company, spun-off as Freescale by Motorola, was acquired by a Dutch competitor NXP.

[68000 microprocessor die, courtesy Wikipedia]

History:
A short history of Motorola dating to 2009 can be seen in this PDF. There is not significant concentration on Motorola's contribution to the Computer Industry, so this article completes a short summary of Motorola semiconductor & microprocessor innovations.
1928 - Motorola was started as in Illinois, USA as Galvin Manufacturing Corporation
1947 - Motorola developed their first Television (a requirement for computer monitors)
1949 - Motorola opened up their first Solid State research lab
1955 - The first high powered transistor (core of computer switching power supplies)
1963 - Worlds first rectangular Television (modern computer monitor form factor)
1965 - Developed low cost plastic semiconductor packaging (becomes industry standard)

[Motorola 6800 Microprocessor, courtesy Wikipedia]

 1974 - 6800 8-bit Microprocessor developed (for video games, computers, and cars)

[Motorola 6809, Courtesy Wikipedia]

 1978 - 6809 8/16-bit hybrid Microprocessor released (video games, small computers)

[Motorola 68000, courtesy Wikipedia]

1979 - 68K 68000 16/32 bit hybrid Microprocessor released (used in workstations & servers)
1982 - 68K 68008 8/16/32 bit hybrid Microprocessor supporting inexpensive 8 bit support chips
1982 - 68K 68010 16/32 but hybrid Microprocessor supporting Virtual Memory
1984 - 68K 68020 true 32-bit Microprocessor released (for desktop workstations)
1987 - 68K 68030 released, integrating Memory Management unit (lower cost workstations)
1988 - 88K 88000 released, Motorola's first 32-bit RISC architecture announced

[Motorola 88100 Processor, courtesy Wikipedia]

1988 - 88K 88100 released, 32-bit RISC implementation (1-4 socket shared MMU servers)
1989 - 68K 68040 released, integrating Floating Point processor (faster workstations)
1990 - Motorola acquired General Instrument Corporation (proposed digital HDTV)

[Motorola 88110 Processor, courtesy Wikipedia]

1991 - 88K 88110 announced, 2nd generation 32-bit RISC processor (integrated MMU)
1991 - PowerPC architecture released, a partnership between Apple, IBM, and Motorola
1992 - 88K 88110 first & last processors shipped (succeeded by PowerPC)
1992 - PowerPC 601 32-bit IBM CPU, PowerPC core, on Motorola 88110 bus

[Motorola PowerPC 603, courtesy Wikipedia]

1994 - PowerPC 603 32 bit 2nd generation microprocessor released
1994 - PowerPC 604 32 bit 2nd generation microprocessor released

[68060 Microprocessor, courtesy Wikipedia]

1994 - 68K 68060 last 68K compatible processor, instructions optimized in hardware
1994 - 68K ColdFire microprocessor family released, with a simplified 68K core
1995 - 68K DragonBall microprocessor family from Hong Kong, a 68K micro-controller

[Motorola PowerPC 604e, courtesy Wikipedia]

1996 - PowerPC 604e 32 bit 2nd generation microprocessor released
1997 - PowerPC 620 64 bit 2nd generation microprocessor released
1997 - PowerPC 7xx 32 bit 3rd generation microprocessor released
2001 - i.MX microprocessor family released, abandoning 68K core for ARM core

[Freescale Semiconductor logo, courtesy Wikipedia]

2004 - Motorola spins-off Microprocessor division as Freescale Semiconductor
2010 - Kinetis microprocessor family released by Freescale, based upon ARM core
2013 - Kinetis microprocessor developed the worlds smallest processor
2015 - Motorola Semiconductor, which became Freescale, is acquired by Dutch NXP

[NXP Semiconductor logo, courtesy Wikipedia]

Conclusion:
The United States was the originator of massive computer industry change over the decades. Motorola was one of the first major computing vendors. Motorola divested their Semiconductor division to Freescale. Freescale largely dis-invested itself from the award-winning Motorola's 68K architectures in favor of British owned ARM RISC architecture. Now, Freescale is gone.

ZFS: A Multi-Year Case Study in Moving From Desktop Mirroring (Part 1)

Abstract:
ZFS was created by Sun Microsystems to innovate the storage subsystem of computing systems by simultaneously expanding capacity & security exponentially while collapsing the formerly striated layers of storage (i.e. volume managers, file systems, RAID, etc.) into a single layer in order to deliver capabilities that would normally be very complex to achieve. One such innovation introduced in ZFS was the ability to provide inexpensive limited life solid state storage (FLASH media) which may offer fast (or at least greater deterministic) random read or write access to the storage hierarchy in a place where it can enhance performance of less deterministic rotating media. This paper discusses the process of upgrading attached external mirrored storage to external network attached ZFS storage.

Case Study:
A particular Media Design House had formerly used multiple external mirrored storage on desktops as well as racks of archived optical media in order to meet their storage requirements. A pair of (formerly high-end) 400 Gigabyte Firewire drives lost a drive. An additional pair of (formerly high-end) 500 Gigabyte Firewire drives experienced a drive loss within one month later. A media wall of CD's and DVD's was getting cumbersome to retain.

The goal was to consolidate the mirrored sets of current data, recent data, and long-term old data onto a single set of mirrored media. The target machine the business was most concerned about was a high-end 64bit dual 2.5GHz PowerMAC G5 deskside server running MacOSX.


The introduction of mirrored external higher capacity media (1.5 TB disks with eSata, Firewire, and USB 2.0 options) proved to be far too problematic. These drives were just released and proved unfortunately buggy. During improper shutdowns or proper shutdowns where the media did not properly flush the final writes from cache in time resulted in horrible delays lasting over a day. Rebuilding the mirrored set upon next startup would take over a day, where access time to that media was tremendously degraded during a rebuild process.

Moving a 1.5TB drives to external USB storage connector on a new top-of-the-line Linksys WRT610N Dual-Band N Router with Gigabit Ethernet and Storage Link proved impossible. The thought is that the business would copy the data manually from the desktop to the network storage nightly, by hand, over the gigabit ethernet. Unfortunately, the embedded Linux file system did not support USB drives of this size. The embedded Linux int he WRT610N system also did not support mirroring or SNMP for remote management.

The decision was to hold-off any final decision until the next release of MacOSX was released, where a real enterprise grade file system would be added to MacOSX - ZFS.


With the withdrawal of ZFS from the next Apple operating system, the decision was made to migrate the all the storage from the Media Design House onto a single deskside ZFS server, which could handle the company's storage requirements. Solaris 10 was the selected, since it offered a stable version of ZFS under a nearly Open Source operating system, without being on the bleeding-edge as OpenSolaris was. If there was ever the decision to change the licensing with Solaris 10, it was understood that OpenSolaris could be leveraged, so long term data storage was safe.

Selected Hardware:
Two Seagate FreeAgent XTreme external drives were selected for storage. A variety of interfaces were supported, including eSATA, Firewire 400, and USB 2.0 At the time, this was the highest capacity external disk which could be purchased with the widest variety of high-capacity storage interfaces off-the-shelf at local computer retailers. 2 Terabyte drives were expected to be released in the next 9 months, so it was important the system would be able to accept them without bios or other file system size limitations. These were considered "green" drives, meaning that they would spin down when not in use, to conserve energy.


A dual 450MHz deskside Sun Ultra60 Creator 3D with 2 Gigabytes of RAM was chosen for the solution. They were well build machines with a current low price-point which could run current releases of Solaris 10 with modern ZFS filesystem. Dual 5 port USB PCI cards were selected (as the last choice, after eSATA and Firewire cards proved incompatible with the Seagate external drives... more on this choice, later.) Solaris offered security with stability, since few viruses and worms target this enterprise and managed services grade platform, and a superior file system to any other platform on the market at the time (as well as today): ZFS. SPARC offered long term equipment supportability since 64 bit was supported for a decade, while consumer grade Intel and AMD CPU's were still struggling to get off of 32 bit.

The Apple laptops and Deskside Server all supported Gigabit Ethernet and 802.11N. Older Apple systems supported 100 megabit Ethernet and 802.11G. A 1 Gigabit Ethernet card for the Sun Ultra60 was purchased, in addition to several Gigabit Ethernet Switches for the office. A newly released Linksys dual-band Wireless N router with 4xGigabit Ethernet ports was also purchased, the first of a new generation of wireless router in the consumer market. This new wireless router would offer simultaneous access to network resources over full-speed 2.4GHz 802.11G and 5GHz 802.11 N wireless systems. The Gigabit ethernet switches were also considered "green" switches, where power was greatly conserved when ports were not in use.


CyberPower UPS's were chosen for the solution for all aspects of the solution, from disk to Sun server, to switches, to wireless access point. These UPS's were considered "green" UPS's, where their power consumption was far less than competing UPS's, plus the displays clearly showed information regarding load, battery capacity, input voltage, output voltage, and component run time.

Speed Bumps:
The 64 bit PCI bus in the Apple Deskside Server and the Sun Deskside Workstation proved notoriously difficult to acquire eSATA cards, which would work reliably. The drives worked independently under FireWire, but two drives would not work reliably on the same machine with FireWire. A pair of FireWire cards was also purchased, in order to move the drives to independent controllers, but this did not work under either MacOSX or Solaris platforms with these external Seagate drives. The movement to USB 2.0 was a last ditch effort. Under MacOSX, rebuild times ran more than 24 hours, which drove the decision to move to Solaris with ZFS. Two 5 port USB 2.0 cards were selected, one for each drive, with enough extra ports to add more storage for the next 4 years. The USB 2.0 cards had a firmware bug, which required a patch to Solaris 10, in order to make the cards operate at full USB 2.0 speed.

Implementation:
A mirror of the two 1.5 Terabyte drives was created and the storage was shared from ZFS with a couple of simple commands.

The configuration is as shown below.

Ultra60/user# zpool status
pool: zpool2
state: ONLINE
config:
   NAME          STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
   zpool2        ONLINE       0     0     0
     mirror      ONLINE       0     0     0
       c4t0d0s0  ONLINE       0     0     0
       c5t0d0s0  ONLINE       0     0     0
errors: No known data errors

Ultra60/user# zfs get sharenfs zpool2
NAME    PROPERTY  VALUE     SOURCE
zpool2  sharenfs  on        local

Implementation Results:
Various tests were conducted, such as:

• Pulling the power out of a USB disk during read and write operations
• Pulling the USB cord out of a USB disk during read and write operations
• Pulling the power out of the SPARC Workstation during read and write operations

Under all cases, the system recovered within seconds to minutes with complete data availability and quick access to the data (instead of days of sluggishness, due to completing a rebuild, with the former desktop mirrored solution.)

Even though the SPARC CPU system was vastly slower, in raw CPU clock speed, from the POWER CPU in the Apple deskside unit, the overall performance of the storage area network was vastly superior to the former desktop mirroring attempt using the high-capacity storage.

Copying the data across the ethernet network experienced some short delays, during the time the disks needed to spin up from sleep mode. With future versions of ZFS projecting to support both Level 2 ARC for reads and Intent Logging for writes, the performance was considered more than acceptable until Solaris 10 received sufficient upgrades in the future.

The system was implemented and accepted within the Media Design House. The process of moving old desktop mirrors and racks of CD and DVD media to Solaris ZFS storage began.

Itanium: The Death of Red Hat Linux Support

Itanium: The Death of Red Hat Linux Support

Announcement

As reported on The Register, Red Hat quietly announced RHEL 5 as the "end of the line" for Intel Itanium.

The History
The processor market as basically split between two comodity CISC (Completed Instruction Set Computing) chip makers, Intel (x86) and Motorola (68K) where high-end workstation & server vendors consolidated in Motorola (68K) with PC makers leveraging Intel (x86).

Motorola indicated an end to their 68K line was coming, x86 appeared to be running out of steam. A new concept called RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing) was appearing on the scenes. Wholesale migration from Motorola was on, many vendors creating their own very high performance chips based upon this architecture. Various RISC chips were born, created by vendors, adopted by manufacturers, each with their own operating system based upon various open standards.

• SUN/Fujitsu/Ross/(various others) SPARC
• IBM POWER
• HP PA-RISC
• DEC Alpha
• MIPS MIPS (adopted by SGI, Tandem, and various others)
• Motorola 88K (adopted by Data General, Northern Telecom, and various others)
• Motorola/IBM PowerPC (adopted by Apple, IBM, Motorola, and various others)

There was reletively small volume shipments to most vendors of full fledge processors, although the computing prices allowed for continued investment to create increasingly smaller chips to enhance performance. Many of these architectures were cooperative efforts, with cross licensing, to increase volume, and create a viable vendor base. The move to 64 occurred in most of these high-end vendors. As the costs for investment continued to rise, in order to shrink the silicon chip dies, a massive consolidation started to occur, in order to save costs and continue to be profitable.

The desktop market continued to tick away with 32 bit computing at a lower cost, with 2 primary vendors: Intel and AMD.

A massive move to consolidate 64 bit RISC processors from the minority market shareholders from their smaller shares to a common, larger, Intel based 64 bit Itanium VLIW (Very Long Intruction Word) processors. This was a very risky move, since VLIW was a new architecture, and performance was unproven. The consideration by the vendors was Intel had deep enough pockets to fund a new processor. Some of the vendors, who consolidated their architectures into Itanium included:

• HP - PA-RISC
• DEC, purchased by Compaq, Purchased by HP - Alpha
• DEC, purchased by Compaq, Purchased by HP - VAX
• Tandem, purchased by Compaq, Purchased by HP - MIPS
• SGI -> MIPS

Many of the RISC processors did not go away, they just moved to embedded environments, where many of the more complex features of the chips could continue to be dropped, so development would be less costly.
 

[Sun Microsystems UltraSPARC 2]

[Fujitsu SPARC64 VII]

[IBM Power]

Majority RISC architecture market share holds in the desktop & server arena seemed to consolidate during the fist decade of 2000 around RISC architectures of an open consortium driven by specifications called SPARC (predominately SUN and Fujitsu) and proprietary final proprietary single vendor drive POWER (predominately IBM)
 

[AMD Athlon FX 64 Bit]

AMD later released 64 bit extensions to the aging Intel x86 instructions (which all vendors, including Intel, had basically written off as a dead-end architecture) - creating what the market referred to as "x64". Intel was later forced into releasing a similar processor, competing internally with their Itanium. Much market focus started, consolidating servers onto this proprietary x64 based systems, sapping vitality and market share from RISC and VLIW vendors.

Network Management Implications

HP really drove the market to Itanium, after acquiring many companies. There was a large number of operating systems, which needed to be supported internally, so the move to consolidate those operating systems and reduce costs became important.

HP OpenView is one of those key suites of Network Management tools, which people don't get fired for purchasing. HP made announcements of their proprietary operating system HP-UX, Microsoft proprietary Windows, and open source Linux support for Intel Itanium. HP was never able to get OpenView traction with it under Linux under Itanium or Windows under Itanium, although they were able to provide support for their own proprietary HP-UX platform, as well as Linux under x86 architecture.

With Open Source Red Hat Linux going away on Itanium. Itanium as a 64 bit architecture is clearly taking a severe downturn in the viable 3rd party architectures, and Network Management from OpenView will obviously never become a player in a market that will no longer exist.
The IBM POWER architecture, even though it is one of the last two substantial RISC vendors left, has never really been a substantial vendor in Network Managment arena, even with IBM selling Tivoli Network Management suite. Network Management will most likely never be a substantial power under POWER.

"Mom & Pop" shops run various Network Management systems under Windows, but the number of managed nodes is typically vastly inferior to the larger Enterprise and Managed Services markets. The software just does not scale as well.

Sun SPARC Solaris (with massive vertical and horizontal scalibility) and Red Hat Linux x68 (typically limited to horizontal scalibility) are really the only two substantial multi-vendor Network Management platform players for large Managed Services installations left. Red Hat abandoning HP's Itanium Linux only continues to solidify this position.