Clipper Group：EMC 克服光速问题 — VPLEX 实现新的存储愿景.pdf

EMC Bends the Speed-of-Light Problem - VPLEX Delivers a New Storage Vision THE CLIPPER GROUP TM Navigator SM SM Navigating Information Technology Horizons Published Since 1993 Report #TCG2010023LE May 10, 2010 EMC Bends the Speed-of-Light Problem — VPLEX Delivers a New Storage Vision Analyst: Jim Baker Management Summary It is called the Speed-of-Light Problem and it has been challenging the computer industry from its very beginnings. It is variously described but for this paper, it will be defined as how long it takes signals running down the path to get from point here to point there. The inherent delay may not be that long, but it is nonetheless real, and it is long enough to introduce problems with consistency of data and getting it delivered where needed. We learned about the speed of light in school, when our teachers made the preposterous suggestion that it took some time between the time a beam of light left the Sun and the time the light actually reached us here on Earth at our favorite beach. It was not as instantaneous as most of us thought. Instead, there was a built-in transit time delay. This concept was made even clearer when later considering what happens when a star burns out somewhere in deep space. If the star is far enough away, we could be seeing it (or more precisely the light from it) in the night sky even though the star no longer existed. The light was still inbound and could have been so for millions of years, because of the time the light had spent traveling great distanc