The I2O Intelligent Interface Organization Special Interest Group set up to establish standards for high performance input/output systems (CI No 2,944) has won a new recruit in Octopus Technologies Inc, Yardley, Pennsylvania. Octopus, the purveyor of real-time data protection and fault-tolerance for Windows NT and Windows 95 which was bought by San Mateo, California-based Qualix Group Inc back in October (CI No 3,013), expects to release its first I2O-ready systems by the middle of next year. The I2O input-output specification is designed to offload input/output tasks from the computer’s Central Processing Unit onto an input/output subsystem based on an Intel Corp 80960 RP RISC processor, thus eliminating input/output bottlenecks. The open software interface of the I2O architecture enables input/output boards to communicate data directly across the input/output bus on a peer to peer basis. By doing this, it frees the main system bus, enabling the host to continue processing applications while data traffic continues to flow. Octopus’ software mirrors updates to source files as they are written to disk across local and wide area networks, to user specified target systems. The target system therefore has up to the minute information, regardless of the status of the source system. Octopus’ Super Automatic Switch Over feature enables the target system to take over from the failed source system with no interruption to service. Octopus vice president of technology Alan Rabinovich, said the I2O specification should provide improved system performance, more robust and flexible systems and increased fault tolerance. Octopus expects the I20 initiative to provide a major benefit to the entire computer industry he added. The I20 Special Interest Group was founded in January this year and currently has more than 70 members, including hardware, software and networking vendors. Members include Compaq Computer Corp, IBM Corp, Hewlett- Packard Co, Digital Equipment Corp, Novell Inc, and Santa Cruz Operation.
