Intel, Microsoft debut video server technology

Electronic News, May 23, 1994 by Martin LaMonica

SEATTLE, WASH.--Targeting the nascent video server market, Microsoft last week unveiled file server software running on Intel Corp.'s scalable multi-server technology.

At a demonstration here, Microsoft OEM partners Compaq Computer and Intel showed off 16-Pentium processor nodes capable of delivering more than 3,000 simultaneous video streams with full VCR-like controls, such as fast-forward and freeze frame. The demonstration also included 32 hard disks of 2GB each for storing more than 50 feature-length movies.

The multi-server technology was developed by the Intel products Group. It is a derivative of technology developed under the agreement announced between Unisys and intel last year (EN, Aug. 9, 1993). At its core is a high-speed communication fabric developed by Intel.

The Intel scalable multi-server technology will be shown this week at the National Cable Television Association (NCTA) conference in New Orleans, La.

Microsoft said its Tiger file server software will operate over a distributed network of "virtually any number" Intel-based servers running the Windows NT Advanced Server operating system. The software is designed to dynamically manage a large number of distributed processors and storage devices, as well as prevent errors with self-diagnosis and reconfiguration features, Microsoft said.

Microsoft built its demonstration system using Compaq's ProSignia and ProSignia VS network servers. A technology partnership with Intel could allow multimedia operators to link together thousands of PCs through Intel's scalable multiserver software integrated with Tiger. The resulting architecture would manage the interconnection among many servers, Intel said.

Microsoft is touting Tiger as a cost-effective alternative to media servers based on high-ends, massively parellel processing server, namely Oracle Corp.'s Media Server. That product, announced in February, is tuned to run on supercomputers from NCube Corp. and Hewlett-Packard.

Microsoft claims that Tiger will deliver video at $50 per video stream, a figure about a tenth of the project cost for Oracle Media Server. "Some people assume that video-on-demand is a hardware problem for massively parallel machines, but it's really a software issue," said Nathan Myhrvold, senior vice president of advanced Technology at Microsoft.

Competitor Oracle, however, claimed that Microsoft's PC-based Tiger initiative is simply not robust enough for interactive multimedia, pointing to Microsoft's relative inexperience in the large-scale database market. Oracle also attempted to divert some industry interest from Microsoft by announcing its Media Server will be available on HP's video sever hardware.

Digital Equipment Corp., another competitor in the media server market and a Windows NT licensee, does not have immediate plans to release a Tiger-based system, according to a company spokeswoman in the video server division. Instead, Digital is implementing Unix-based software to run on Alpha AXP servers, she said.

Microsoft's PC-based Tiger initiative also forms a contrast to the handful of existing pilot projects in the U.S., in which cable and telephone operators are piping interactive multimedia services to consumers' TVs via a set-top box. Although there is a lack of multimedia services, Window-based systems based on familiar corporate hardware would allow corporations to adopt the technology fairly easily, analysts said.

Trial runs for video-on-demand services will begin at the end of the year with Microsoft employees in Seattle, and then extend to Denver with cable operator TCI. Mr. Miller added: "We expect PC manufacturers to take advantage of Tiger and Pentium processor technology on small- and medium-sized server. The Intel Products Group will utilize the interconnect and packaging technology which it has developed for high-performance technical computing products to meet the needs of large-scale media servers."