The Leading Information Technology News Summary - Now In Its 45-Year

Sep 29, 2026

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A May 3, 2004 technology news roundup covering Xilinx and Unisys announcements plus multiple industry briefs. Xilinx releases a free CPCS reference design for multi-mode PCS blocks on Virtex-II Pro FPGAs, supporting Fibre Channel, Gigabit Ethernet, and ESCON/SBCON with dynamic protocol selection and improved time-to-market. Unisys unveils the ES7000 540 server platform with Intel Xeon MP, Sentinel management enhancements, and study results indicating near five-nines availability in Windows Server datacenter environments.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages9

Reading Time23 min

AccessFree to download

Xilinx announces free configurable PCS reference design

Supported PCS layers and target applications

Unisys enhances ES7000

Availability study results and Sentinel management enhancements

Additional network and software industry briefs

# The Leading Information Technology News Summary--Now In Its 45Year May 3,2004 # XILINXANNOUNCES FREECONFIGURABLE PCS REFERENCEDESIGNFOR USE WITHVIRTEX-II PROPLATFORM FPGAS Xilinx,Inc.(Nasdaq:XLNX)hasannounced the availability of a free fullyfunctional Configurable Physical CodingSublayer(CPCS)reference design for a multi-mode PCS block implemented in Xilinx Virtex-I Pro FPGAs.The CPCS can be dynamicallyconfigured to support three types of PCS layersincluding Fibre Channel(1.0625 and 2.125Gbps),Gigabit Ethernet(1000BASE-X),andESCON/SBCON(200 Mbps).The CPCSreference design is ideal for applicationsincluding Ethernet/Fibre Channel switches,Multi-Service Provisioning Platforms(MSPP),SONET/SDHterminals,Add-DropMultiplexers(ADM),cross connects,CWDM/DWDMtransport equipment,and IP routers. "Designers using the CPCS referencedesign can dramatically reduce costs whileimproving time-to-market,"said Amit Dhir,senior manager of Strategic Solutions,WiredNetworks and Telecom,at Xilinx."Thereferencedesign enables the sharing of optics and ICs andintegrates the RocketIO MGT and PowerPCfeatures of our Virtex-II Pro FPGAs.Thisprovides increased density at each port,with theability to be re-configured on the fly." Vol.45 No.18 Page 1 UNISYS ENHANCES ES7000 Unisys Corporation(NYSE:UIS)hasunveiled the new ES7000540 server featuringthe Intel Xeon processor MP based platformand Sentinel management enhancements.Additionally,the companyreleased data provingthat Unisys ES7000 servers running theDatacenter Edition of Microsoft WindowsServer,on an Intel Xeon processor MP basedplatform,have matched the availability andsurpassed theperformance capabilities ofUNIX/RISC systems in the datacenter.The two-year,(Continued on Page 2) F5 NETWORKS’FIREPASSCONTROLLER ACHIEVESINDEPENDENT CERTIFICATIONFROM ICSA LABS…… ……4 INOVIS LAUNCHES NEWSERVICES NETWORK……… … 5 ALOPA NETWORKS DEPLOYSSECOND-GENERATION ALOPAMETASURE SERVICE ASSURANCE AND MANAGEMENTPLATFORM… ……6 OSISOFT INTROSPROCESSPOINT 4.0… …6 WAVELINK AND FUNK SOFTWARE PARTNER TO PROVIDEENHANCED MANAGEMENT FORWIRELESS SECURITY.… ………7 XILINX(Continued from Page 1) Dynamic protocol selection is fullyintegrated into the control plane running on theVirtex-II Pro embedded PowerPC 405processor.Thetight coupling ofthe configurableembedded RocketIOMGTsprovide the requiredserial data rates ranging from 200 Mbps to 2.125 Gbps.This would not be feasible with anexternal SERDES solution. UNISYS(Continued from Page 1) multi-customer research shows that more thanthree-quarters of in-production systems studiedexceeded the industry hallmark five-ninesavailability.Improved Sentinel managementfeatures on the ES7000540 enable up to a 40percent reduction in administrative staff versusscale-out systems. In the first-ever substantial availabilitystudy of non-specialized servers runningWindows Server in real business environments,Unisys found that 78 percent of the systemsdelivered 100 percent non-stop availability.Overall,the combination of the Unisys ES7000running Windows 2000 Datacenter Server orWindows Server 2003 Datacenter Editionachieved an average of 99.996 percentavailability.The two-year study examined datafed automatically from live productionenvironments at customer sites across NorthAmerica.Results are for non-clustered systemsand do not include planned downtime for suchthings as routine maintenance.Unisys was ableto achieve these results without an expensive May 3,2004 fault-tolerant implementation or the complexity of high-availability clustering. “The Unisys ES7000 gives us theperformance we require in an environment thatishighly flexible,manageable andscalable whileensuring minimal unplanned downtime,"saidGary Clark,director of corporate IT services ofLa-Z-Boy.“Throughextensivetesting,we foundthe ES7000 running at almost five-nines ofavailability.Although we initially implementedan ES7000 for a server and database

FAQs

What is the main Xilinx announcement in this issue?

Xilinx announces a free, fully functional configurable physical coding sublayer (CPCS) reference design for multi-mode PCS blocks on Virtex-II Pro FPGAs.

Which PCS layers does the CPCS reference design support?

It supports Fibre Channel (1.0625 and 2.125Gbps), Gigabit Ethernet (1000BASE-X), and ESCON/SBCON (200 Mbps).

What availability results does Unisys report for the ES7000 platform?

Unisys reports that 78% of systems delivered 100% non-stop availability and that the average availability reached 99.996%, based on a two-year study in real business environments.

Sep 29, 2026

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