Minutes of SCSI Marketing Meeting October 16, 1995

Lohmeyer, John JLOHMEYE at cosmpdaero.ftcollinsco.ncr.com
Tue Oct 31 09:48:00 PST 1995


Attached are the minutes from the October 16th meeting on SCSI Marketing. 
 Those people who would prefer the Word file can download it from the SCSI 
BBS (719-574-0424).  It is called smaminr1.doc.

Jim McGrath plans to host a second meeting on this topic December 14th in 
the Milpitas, CA area.  Further details will follow on the SCSI Reflector.

Regards,
John
 --
John Lohmeyer             E-Mail:  john.lohmeyer at symbios.com
Symbios Logic Inc.         Voice:  719-573-3362
1635 Aeroplaza Dr.           Fax:  719-573-3037
Colo Spgs, CO 80916     SCSI BBS:  719-574-0424 300--14400 baud

*****************************************************************************
Minutes of SCSI Marketing Meeting : October 16, 1995

                                                      Doc: SMAMINr1.DOC
                                                     Date: 10/31/95
                                                 Reply to: Lawrence J. 
Lamers
To:      People interested in SCSI Marketing
From:    Lawrence J. Lamers / John Lohmeyer
Subject: Minutes of SCSI Marketing Meeting : October 16, 1995

                                    Agenda
1. Opening Remarks
2. Attendance and Introductions
3. Approval of Agenda
4. Approval of  Minutes
5. Document Distribution
6. Review of Old Action Items
7. Goals
      7.1 Parallel SCSI Marketing [McGrath]
      7.2 SCSI Futures [Hagerman]
      7.3 SCSI Futures [Mason]
      7.4 Postmortem on Fast-20 []
      7.5 Segmentation  []
8. Recommendations
9. Futures
      9.1 Parallel SCSI Marketing Association [McGrath]
10. Action Items
11. Meeting Schedule
12. Adjournment


1.    Opening Remarks

Jim McGrath convened the meeting at 9:30 am.  The meeting was hosted by
Quantum.

The minutes of this meeting will be posted to the SCSI BBS and the SCSI
Reflector.

Jim stated that the focus of this meeting is to provide marketing guidance 
to
the technical community.  There is a separate set of meetings conducted as 
ad-
hoc meetings of X3T10 that are dealing with the technical issues.

2.    Attendance and Introductions

The attendees introduced themselves.

The following people attended the meeting.

Name                   Organization              Electronic Mail Address
 ---------------------- ------------------------- --------------------------
Mr. Mitch Kane         Adaptec                   mkane at corp.adaptec.com
Mr. Marc Lowe          Adaptec                   marc_lowe at corp.adaptec.com
Mr. Jim Schmidt        Adaptec                   jschmidt at corp.adaptec.com
Mr. Douglas Fields     Adaptec, Inc.             dfields at corp.adaptec.com
Mr. Norm Harris        Adaptec, Inc.             nharris at eng.adaptec.com
Mr. Lawrence J. Lamers Adaptec, Inc.             ljlamers at aol.com
Mr. Dennis R. Haynes   Burr-Brown Corp.          haynes_dennis at bbrown.com
Mr. Mike Dreitlein     BusLogic                  miked at buslogic.com
Mr. Dennis Lang        Circuit Assembly Corp.    crctassmbl at aol.com
Mr. Ian Morrell        Circuit Assembly Corp.    crctassmbl at aol.com
Mr. William C. Gintz   Conner Peripherals        bill.gintz at conner.com
Mr. Louis Grantham     Dallas Semiconductor      grantham at dalsemi.com
Mr. Douglas Hagerman   Digital Equipment Corp. 
  hagerman at starch.enet.dec.com
Dr. William Ham        Digital Equipment Corp.   ham at subsys.enet.dec.com
Mr. Paul Massiglia     Digital Equipment Corp. 
  massiglia at genral.enet.dec.com
Mr. Mike Chennery      Fujitsu                   mchenery at fcpa.fujitsu.com
Ms. Nancy Cheng        Hitachi Computer Products n_cheng at hitachi.com
Mr. Theodore Deffenbaugh IBM Corp.               theodore at vnet.ibm.com
Ms. Debbi Gurkowski    Maxtor                    debbie_gurkowski at maxtor.com
Mr. Afif Farhat        National Semiconductor    farhat at rockie.nsc.com
Mr. Skip Jones         QLogic Corp.              sk_jones at qlc.com
Mr. Mark Evans         Quantum Corp.             mevans at qntm.com
Mr. Faisal Haq         Quantum Corp.             fhaq at asic.qntm.com
Mr. James McGrath      Quantum Corp.             JMCGRATH at QNTM.COM
Mr. Brian N. Davis     Seagate Technology 
       brian_davis at notes.seagate.com
Mr. Mike Fitzpatrick   Seagate Technology 
  mike_fitzpatrick at notes.seagate.com
Mr. Michael Robinson   Seagate Technology 
     mike_robinson at notes.seagate.com
Mr. Hank Meyer         Self                      71202.740 at compuserve.com
Mr. Dave Guss          Silicon Systems           dave.guss at tus.ssi1.com
Mr. Kelly Bryant       Symbios Logic Inc.        kelly.bryant at symbios.com
Mr. John Lohmeyer      Symbios Logic Inc.        john.lohmeyer at symbios.com
Mr. Harry Mason        Symbios Logic Inc.        harry.mason at symbios.com
Mr. Pete Tobias        Tandem Computers          tobias_pete at tandem.com
Mr. Brett Philip       Temp-Flex Cable Inc.      Fax: 408-739-1237
Mr. Paul D. Aloisi     Unitrode                  Aloisi at uicc.com
Mr. Peter Dougherty    Western Digital           dougherty_p at a1.wdc.com
36 People Present

3.    Approval of Agenda

The agenda was developed as the meeting progressed.

4.    Approval of  Minutes

None.

5.    Document Distribution

Parallel SCSI Marketing - Jim McGrath, Quantum

SCSI Futures - Doug Hagerman, DEC.

6.    Review of Old Action Items

None.

7.    Goals
7.1   Parallel SCSI Marketing [McGrath]

Jim McGrath made a brief presentation introducing the topics.

Jim McGrath presented the following list of issues/topics that he felt 
should
be prioritized for technical work:

      Transfer Rates
      Signaling Technology
      Hybrid
      Cable Length vs. Device Count [Mason]
      CD-ROM Problem [McGrath]
      Connectors
      Greater than 16 devices
      Bus extenders/bridges
      50-ohm backplane problem
      Fairness
      Isochronous []
      Wider buses

Doug Hagerman agreed with the above list and added:

      SCSI Overhead

Paul Aloisi noted that the work on Enhanced Parallel Interface that plans to
issue a technical report already is addressing some of these items.

7.2   SCSI Futures [Hagerman]

Doug made a presentation on parallel SCSI.  Parallel SCSI is the installed
base; the customer (i.e., end-user) uses parallel SCSI and plans to continue
to do so;  there is a lot of hype around the serial interfaces; serial needs
maturity for consideration in enterprise systems.

There is a need for a vision for the future of parallel SCSI.  A name is
needed to get folks to cheer for; Doug proposed SCSI-2000.  Naming the group
will be an agenda item for the next meeting.

7.3   SCSI Futures [Mason]

There is a need for some organization to promote parallel SCSI; aid 
customers
and end-users in understanding features and capabilities given the
proliferation.

The next version needs strong positioning that is consistent.

7.4   Postmortem on Fast-20 []

Norm Harris requested a postmortem on the plusses and minuses of the Fast-20
effort.  Jim McGrath noted that the naming was an issue that caused 
confusion;
the result was engineering driven to a set of performance goals and did not
consider all the market needs.

It was suggested that this group adopt some labels to clean up the
wide/narrow/Ultra/Fast-20 issues that are confusing users.

7.5   Segmentation  []

Theodore Deffenbaugh felt that the marketing group should focus more on
marketing issues;  in particular, identifying market segments as opposed to
dealing with technical and sales issues.  Jim McGrath suggested that the
market segments should be: Server and PC/Work Station

Jim McGrath's opinion on market segment:

      Assume server market, OEM sales, new systems
      Competition is SSA and FC-AL.
      Incumbent is SCSI-SE and SCSI-DIFF.
      EIDE is not the competition in the server market.

The needs of the workstation market has be to factored into the decisions.
The workstation market does need an effective solution to the non-disk drive
attachments.

Mike Dreitlien suggested that what is needed is a performance roadmap for
parallel SCSI that preserves as much of the current investment as possible.

8.    Recommendations

The consensus of this group was to address the restrictions incumbent with
Fast-20 regarding number of devices and cable length.  These issues arise
mainly in the server environment.

Regarding documents the recommendation was to do LVDS + SE at Fast-20 and 
LVDS
at Fast-40 immediately.

The second tier issues that should be considered are backplane/cable 
impedance
mismatch, CD-ROM problem, autotermination, fairness, and isochronous are
intermediate.  All others are long term.

9.    Futures
9.1   Parallel SCSI Marketing Association [McGrath]

Jim McGrath took a straw poll on forming an association for marketing 
parallel
SCSI.  All folks present were in favor of a marketing group; and all 
indicated
that their company would be willing to join such an association.

DEC, IBM, Symbios, Seagate, Quantum, Unitrode, Dallas Semiconductor, QLogic,
and Adaptec volunteered to work on forming an organization.

Mike Fitzpatrick stated that a Marketing Association could benefit parallel
SCSI.  The group supported this.  A mission statement is needed.  ENDL is a
possible facilitator.

SCSI Mission Statement

To evangelize the benefits of SCSI as a flexible, powerful peripheral
interconnect for server and desktop computing and to influence the direction
of future SCSI developments to maintain it's superiority through the year
2000.

Objectives

      Promote increased usage of parallel SCSI
      Educate customers on when to use SCSI
      Reduce confusion concerning SCSI
      Provide focal point for press, industry, and customer communications
      regarding SCSI
      Advance and promote product  interoperability
      Advance and promote storage as a focal point for system 
differentiation
      Shape the evolution of SCSI technology
      Evangelize SCSI as a flexible and powerful connectivity solution for
      many applications
      Orchestrate a convergence on a common interconnect

Specific tasks

      Joint marketing/ industry marketing programs
      Generate a press release on the SCSI Marketing Association
      Establish a naming convention for speed/bus width
      Communicate SCSI futures roadmap to press/public
      Set up a Reflector
      Set up an 800 number
      Set up a web site
      Set up a ftp site
      Set up a faxback service
      Trade show
      Publications
      Training
      Provide guidance to technical committees

10.   Action Items
1)    John Lohmeyer to talk to Dal Allan regarding setting up an association
2)    Paul Massiglia and Jim McGrath to set up next meeting 12/14/95
3)    Mike Fitzpatrick to distribute FCLC bylaws.
4)    Larry Lamers and Marc Lowe to develop mission statement and charter.
5)    Name for group; technology naming system; commitment to pay; finalize
mission statement; agree to by-laws; if so what and when list.

11.   Meeting Schedule

The next meeting is planned for December 14, 1995 in San Jose, CA to be 
hosted
by Quantum.  Details to follow on the SCSI reflector.

12.   Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 3:00 p.m. on Monday, October 16, 1995.




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