Pace 74 PO WEEHNAPPLICATION DEVELOPMENT APPLIED INTELLIGENCE MAY 14, 1990 Faster, Cheaper, Smaller Is Still the Trend in Hardware This is the first in a series of articles on key industry trends affecting computer hard- ware, software, database envi- ronments and. communications environments. A subseguent se- ries of articles will demonstrate are profoundiy affecting the evolution of new comput- er architectures, development method: ologies and tools. Knowledge of the key industry trends and an understanding of their impor- tance are critical to the successful intro- duction and management of high-pro- ductivity tools, technology and method- ologies. The rate of change in the computer industry today is higher than it has been since the IBM 360 was introduced 25 years ago. Major upheavals are oc: curring throughout the industry, and the roles of the traditional mainframes and minicomputers are diminishing. These familiar systems are being replaced by vast; networks of desktop computers and file servers. The future belongs to organizations skilled in providing solu- tions for the desktop-computing environ- ment, the database infrastructure and the network infrastructure. Three general trends continue to char- acterize the development of computing hardware: faster, smaller and cheaper. Throughout the 19805, the computing platforms used shifted from powerful mainframes to minicomputers to person- al computers. That shift will continue as the rate of change in computing archi- tectures accelerates. The figure illustrates the dramatic in- creases in computing power that will be- come available for mainstream comput- ers through the 1990s. As shown, in six years the processing power of a PC will be egual to that of today's mainframe computer. By the end of this decade, each of these jski will experience an in- Crease o; more than an order of magni- tude in processing speed through an ad- evi chip design that uses submicron eatures. As a result of the newer archi- me opa o cene in nea ets without a loss of the last few years alone, the has been transformed from a pol appliance to a portable to a laptop toa no! k and now a slate, - Each transformation delivered essen. tially the same Computing power as its Predecessor but in a substantiali er case. Similar size reductions Peč z OeCurring in powerful workstations, rames and artificial- telligence (AD inference meče — e the power of hardware ues to increase, the relative cost see idly decreasing. The actual unit cost, however, remains relatively constant. For example, an early PC cost about. $4,000 and was eguivalent to approxi- mately 0.3 million instructions per sec- ond (mips). Today, the cost of a 386- based PC or Macintosh is also about $4,000, but they're eguivalent to about 2 or 3 mips. Thus, the relative cost for PCs over the last eight years has de- clined by almost a factor of 10—and the cost will continue to drop. 'The advances in chip technology will lead to the following improvements in desktop machines: € Much higher computing power on the desktop; ' Continuing improvement in ease of use; cessing, data collection, optimal routing, ' database processing, memory organiza- tion, image processing, structural simula- tion and CAD/CAM operations. — Various forms of computers will ex- ploit parallelism. Multiple parallel pro- cessors will be used for transaction pro- cessing, search engines, database ma- chines, knowledge-base machines, inference engines, image processors, vec- tor processors and other parallel imple- mentations. Relative to serial machines, parallel computers provide much greater through- put, faster response time, lower cost and the ability to handle extremely complex problems. To make use of these new tech- Computers' Increasingly Powerful Future TE N » Of Tod j j Soureb: The Jarne$ Martin Repar PCs Expeeted To Wield the Musele Mainframes The computing plat forms used. have shifted. from powerful mainframes to minicomputers to PCs. That will continue as the rate of change in computing architectures accelerates. ? Multifunction PCs, automatic net: working; ? Ultra-high-speed LAN connections; € Multimedia PCs; ' Real-time processing of speech input; ," Megapixel, HDTV color display; ? Cheap, portable PCs with cellular Communications; and % Poweriul, inexpensive knowledge- based processi Mueh of the improvement in process- ing power will be gained through paral- lelism. Many problems now tackled using serial technigues are inherently parallel. "These include information searches, ' Sorting, merging, joining, transaction pro- nigues, we need to exploit the inherent parallelism in many common applications. Major breakthroughs in hardware will enable computers to head in fundamen- tally new directions, such as ultra-paral- lel processing, high-speed inference en- Bines, neural nets, programming, using powerful graphical icons, Al computing and ultra-parallel knowledge bases. One result of the simultaneous in- Crease in processing capability and de- cline in cost is the fading importance of the minicomputer. Minis were originally significant be- Cause they permitted the distribution of computing resources in increments smaller than those possible in main- J frames. With the introduction of PCs in the early 1980s, minis still retained an important role in a multitiered comput- ing architecture. They were commonly used as a departmental computing plat: form, delivering facilities that were not technically feasible on the PC. But now, with the increase in local PC processing and networking capabilities, the need for minis is dissipating. In the future, the current three-tier hardware architecture of mainframes, minis and PCs will be replaced with mainframes and networked PCs tied into file servers. The higher performance and lower costs of hardware will lead to special- ized processors that can handle complex computing environments. LISP-based coprocessors, neurocomputers and paral- lel-processing engines will be used for AI applications. These processors will be linked into the standard organizational computing environment through file servers (again, special processors) and high-speed communications networks (also serviced by specialized' processors). One of the most profound changes in hardware is the gradual demise of the traditional mainframe computer. Large, central computers, such as the IBM Sys- tem/370, have been obsolescent for years. They reguire numerous systems analysts to maintain complex layers of software and their cost for mips is 100 times the cost: of mips on a PC. Organizations are increasingly recog- nizing that they can cut maintenance costs, improve response time and reduce the cost of additional mips of processing power by moving applications from the mainframe to the desktop. PC Bound Applications that are targets for downsizing to networks of PCs include transaction-processing applications and all software-development activities. In a few years, it will be inconceivable to use expensive mainframe mips for software development. All such development will move to the PC. Larger central computers will still be needed for the sharing and distribution of large corporate databases, as well as for the control of extensive networks of PCs and file servers. To support very high-speed access to centralized data, these large central computers will be highly parallel machines, consisting of thousands of parallel processors. The mainframe will resemble a very large file server. Next. week, I will deseribe the major trends in computer software. H The concepts embodied in this arti- cle are described, in the High-Produc- tivity Technology volume in The James Martin Report Series. For more infor- mation. on this volume, call (617) 639- 1958. For information on seminars, contact (in the United States and Can- ada) Technology Transfer Institute, 741 10th St, Santa Monica, Calif. 90402 (213) 394-8305. In Europe, con- tact Savant, 2 New St., Carnforth, Lancs., LA5 9BX United Kingdom (0524) 734 505.