Don't you mean the RVA, not the RAMAC2? The RVA was IBM's name for the Iceberg.
It was win-win for STK and IBM, partly because EMC was cleaning IBM's clock on disk. The symmetrix was taking lots of business from IBM and their classic (read "old") 3990/3390 configurations and IBM didn't have anything ready to market that could compete with the EMC's. The story as I heard it was that STK was having problems with the microcode - mainly for snapshot - and when IBM and STK joined forces, IBM engineering helped get the microcode bugs worked out and the RVA was born. Eventually IBM came out with their own 3390 replacements, the 9345 and then the RAMAC2, neither of which bore any resemblance to the RVA/SVA/Iceberg. The 9345 was a single chassis including controllers and up to 16 drawers. Each drawer had 2 monolithic disk drives in it (can't remember the geometry but I seem to recall they were 5 inch disk drives, just a bit smaller than a 3390-3 in capacity. The RAMAC2 was based on the same concept as the 9345, but each drawer had 4 3-inch disk drives set in a RAID-5 configuration. Each drawer mapped out as a small number (3-4 I think, again it's been a long time since I used them) of 3390 devices to the host. BTW, we're still using our RVA X82 box, going to be phasing it out over the next couple months. Rex -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ed Finnell Sent: Tuesday, June 20, 2006 5:24 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Fwd: IBM/Gerogia Tech unveil fast chip In a message dated 6/20/2006 5:14:31 P.M. Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: While the ICEBERG had problems, initially, it became a work-horse. And, that is why (IMO) IBM started selling them. >> Well, is was sort of a win-win, STK was short of cash and IBM's internal politics didn't want to admit to superior concept. So the head of IBM's disk division became CEO of STK and they kinda of melded the strengths of IBM's Engineering and STK's design into a single entity it became the RAMAC-II or whatever and I think it profitted both companies in that it got STK over the hump and helped IBM realize there was a better way. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
