Influencing Factors for consideration of Future Generation System Design—Benjamin DeLuca, International Business Machines, Austin, Tx

Customer expectations for future systems continue to increase year to year. One of the key drivers are web based applications. As these applications become ever more pervasive customers expect and require 24 hour a day, 7 days a week availability. Systems engineers are now required to develop systems with this in mind so that competitive products are offered. In many cases our customers business directly depends on having virtually continuous availability. Examples such as airline reservation systems, on-line banking, and on-line catalog shopping are becoming the norm. Customers demand and expect high reliability, ease of use, flexible growth and high value for the dollar.

These customer requirements translate into several important system characteristics. Systems are now designed in a manner to eliminate single points of failure. One aspect of this is to offer redundant elements like cooling fans, power supplies, data storage devices, memory, and in some cases CPU's. In the case of adapters we sometimes need to use multi-ports to provide multiple paths to data storage devices or networks. Given that some system failures are inevitable we need to protect the customer environment to carefully manage the effects of these incidents. This management requires a robust software environment and an effective warning system to identify units that need replacement prior to an unscheduled outage. We can then use concurrent maintenance to replace the failing element without having to take the customers application down. We also can utilize remote service facilities to automatically call the suppliers' service center to dispatch the replacement elements. Many of these actions are dependent on effective system diagnostics and effective failure isolation.

As we design future systems we need to carefully consider the component reliability and failure characteristics such that they support robust system functionality. Given thermal considerations and its effect on reliability one must carefully consider the power of the devices required. Selecting low power components with highly integrated functions eliminate multiple points of failure and keep thermal loads down. System designs need to reduce opportunities for failure, by minimizing cables, connectors and cards required providing necessary function. These considerations must be primary in the design of our systems since the reliability, availability and serviceability are the elements one can use to further differentiate oneself in the marketplace. Our designs need to begin with the end user in mind since our performance will ultimately be limited by the fundamental technology choices we make.