Seminar 2 - Hardware-Updated

AB1401
Information Technology
IT Infrastructure: Hardware
5.1 © 2009 by Pearson

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
 Define IT infrastructure and describe its
components
 Identify and describe the eras and technology
drivers of IT infrastructure evolution
 Assess contemporary computer hardware
platform trends
2
ADDITIONAL READINGS
 Chip wars go to the Core
 Multicore
 Cloud Computing
3
IT Infrastructure
 Defining IT infrastructure:
 Set of physical devices and software required to operate
enterprise
 Set of firmwide services including:
 Computing platforms providing computing services
 Telecommunications services
 Data management services
 Application software services
 Physical facilities management services
 IT management, standards, education, research and
development services
 “Service platform” perspective more accurate view of value
of investments
4
Eras in IT Infrastructure
Evolution
 5 eras
 General-purpose mainframe and minicomputer era: 1959 to
present
 1958 IBM first mainframes introduced, eventually used to
support thousands of online remote terminals
 1965 less expensive DEC minicomputers introduced, allowing
decentralized computing
 Personal computer era: 1981 to present
 1981 Introduction of IBM PC
 Proliferation in 80s, 90s resulted in growth of personal software
 Client/server era: 1983 to present
 Desktop clients networked to servers, with processing work
split between clients and servers
 Network may be two-tiered or multitiered (N-tiered)
 Various types of servers (network, application, Web)
5
Evolution
Illustrated here are the typical computing configurations characterizing

each of the five eras of IT infrastructure evolution.
Figure 5-2A
6
Evolution
 Enterprise Internet computing era: 1992 to
present
 Move toward integrating disparate networks, applications
using Internet standards and enterprise applications
 Cloud Computing: 2000 to present
 Refers to a model of computing where firms and
individuals obtain computing power and software
applications over the Internet
 Fastest growing form of computing
7
Evolution
Figure 5-2B
8
Evolution
A Multitiered Client/Server Network (N-Tier)
In a multitiered client/server network, client requests for service are handled by different levels of servers.
Figure 5-3
9
Technology drivers of
infrastructure evolution
 Moore’s law and microprocessing power
 Computing power doubles every 18 months
 Nanotechnology: May shrink size of transistors to
width of several atoms
 Contrary factors: Heat dissipation needs, power
consumption concerns
 Law of Mass Digital Storage
 The amount of data being stored each year
doubles
10
Moore’s Law and Microprocessor Performance
Packing more transistors into a tiny microprocessor has exponentially increased processing power.
Source: 2004 Intel Corporation; updated by the authors.
Figure 5-4
11
Falling Cost of Chips
An Intel® processor today

can contain as many as 1
billion transistors, run at 3.2
GHz and higher, deliver over
10,000 MIPS, and can be
manufactured in high
volumes with transistors
that cost less than
1/10,000th of a cent. That’s a
little less than the cost of
one printed character in this
book.
Figure 5-5
12
The Capacity of Hard Drives Grows Exponentially
1980-2007
From 1980 to 1990, hard disk drive capacities for PCs grew at the rate of 25 percent annual compound growth, but after 1990,
growth accelerated to more than 65 percent each year.
Figure 5-7
13
The Cost of Storing Data Declines Exponentially
1950-2010
Since the first magnetic

storage device was used in
1955, the cost of storing a
kilobyte of data has fallen
exponentially, doubling the
amount of digital storage
for each dollar expended
every 15 months on
average.
Figure 5-8
14
 Metcalfe’s Law and network economics
 Value or power of a network grows
exponentially as a function of the number
of network members
 As network members increase, more
people want to use it (demand for network
access increases)
15
 Declining communication costs and the
Internet
 An estimated 1.5 billion people worldwide
have Internet access
 As communication costs fall toward a very
small number and approach 0, utilization of
communication and computing facilities
explodes
16
Exponential Declines in
Internet Communication Costs
One reason for the growth in the Internet population is the rapid decline in Internet connection and overall communication costs.
The cost per kilobit of Internet access has fallen exponentially since 1995. Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) and cable modems now
deliver a kilobit of communication for a retail price of less than 2 cents.
Figure 5-9
17
 Standards and network effects
 Technology standards:
 Specifications that establish the compatibility of
products and the ability to communicate in a
network
 Unleash powerful economies of scale and result
in price declines as manufacturers focus on the
products built to a single standard
18
Different types of computers
 PDA, handheld computers, Tablet PC (Palm, HP-
Compaq, O2, Dopod)
 Nettop,Netbook (fit-PC, CherryPal, Koolu, Mac Mini,
ASUS Linutop, Zonbu, gPC and gPC mini by Everex)
 Laptop/Notebook computer (Toshiba, Fujitsu, Lenovo
(formally IBM))
 Desktop computer (Lenovo, HP-Compaq)
 Workstations (Sun, Silicon Graphics)
 Minicomputers/mainframes (IBM, HP-Compaq)
 Supercomputers (Cray, NEC, Fujitsu)
19
Computer hardware platforms
 Computer hardware platforms
 Client machines
 Desktop PCs, mobile computing devices – PDAs, laptops,
Nettops, Netbooks, etc
 Servers
 Blade servers: ultrathin computers stored in racks
 Mainframes:
 IBM mainframe equivalent to thousands of blade servers
 Top chip producers: AMD, Intel, IBM
 Top firms: IBM, HP, Dell, Sun Microsystems
20
 Components of a computer
 Input devices
 Processing unit
 Output devices
 Storage devices
 Communications devices
21
 Input devices
 Different devices may be preferred for
different applications
 More? (video: multi-touch computing)
22
 Processing unit (CPU and memory)
 Most PCs use CPUs made by Intel or AMD
 Common memory format today is DDR SDRAM

 double-data-rate synchronous-dynamic-random-
access-memory (what a mouthful!)
23
 Processing unit (CPU and memory) (cont.)
 The CPU and memory sit in their sockets on the
motherboard
24
 Output devices
 Output devices produce information in
human-accessible modes
25
 Storage devices
 Storage media may be fixed or removable,
magnetic or optical
 More?
26
 Communication devices
 Communication devices may be wired or
wireless
27
28
How a CPU Works?
5.29p. 6.170 Fig. 6.9 © 2009 by Pearson

How a CPU works, cont.
1. Retrieve
4.
4. Store
Store the
the result an
In
In RAM
RAM instruction
from RAM
Machine cycle consists of:
3.
3. Execute
Execute the
the 2.
2. Decode
Decode the
instruction
instruction instruction

 Data are stored in …
1. Level 1 cache memory (on chip)
2. Level 2, Level 3 cache memory (on chip
or motherboard)
3. Random Access Memory (RAM)
4. Hard disk
5. Other storage devices (CD, floppies,
thumbdrive, …)
6. Other computers (over the network)
31
Searching the memory hierarchy
Progressive search
down levels
Found in
NO L1 cache
Found in
L2 cache
NO
Found in
RAM
NO
Found
5.32 onPearson
© 2009 by disk
 Fetching data to the CPU
 Level 1 cache memory (1-10 nanoseconds)
 Level 2, 3 cache memory (10-50 nanoseconds)
 Random Access Memory (50-500 nanoseconds)
 Hard disk (10 milliseconds)
 CD-ROM / floppy (100 millisecond-1 second)
 Network response times (many seconds)
* nanosecond=10-9 second, millisecond=10-3 second
33
 Implications of the model
 L1, L2, L3 caches helps a lot
 Get more RAM
 Disk access is a disaster for performance
 If data resides on media slower than hard
disk (eg. CD / floppy), copy it to hard disk
 Copy network files to hard disk before
opening
34
 Computer performance
 Do you judge a computer by the clock speed (in
GHz) of its CPU?
 This is like judging cars on the basis of their
engine horsepower
 ignores other factors that have an effect on performance
(gears, wheels, weight, tyres, …)
 CPU speed is just one of many factors affecting
computer performance
 RAM (size, speed)
 Bus width (width, speed)
35
Clock Speed
CPU
The CPU executes a series of instructions one at a time
as dictated by a program. The speed of a CPU is
measured by how many instructions it can perform in
one second. Clock rate, measured in gigahertz, and
available cache memory determine how quickly the
CPU can perform instruction cycles of fetch, decode
and execute.

Clock Speed
Each beat or tick of the

clock is called a CPU
cycle/machine cycle CPU speed is quoted in
Megahertz (MHz = 1 million
CPU cycles per second) or
Gigahertz (GHz= 1 billiion
CPU cycles per second).

Bus Speed
Bus
The buses of a computer are the routes in which data is
transmitted in the computer. Local buses connect
hardware components in a computer system, while
external buses connect the computer to external
peripherals. The speed of a bus is related to its
proximity to the CPU and connection to cache memory.
Front-Side Bus
The front-side bus is the computer's central route for
receiving and transmitting data to the hardware of the
computer through the memory controller hub and the
input/output controller hub. The front-side bus is not
directly connected to the cache and thus operates at
only a fraction of the CPU's clock rate.
Bus Speed
Backside Bus
The backside bus refers to the connection between the
CPU and the cache memory. Because the backside bus
resides on the same die as the chip, it can operate at or
near the full clock rate of the CPU.
PCI and AGP Buses

The peripheral component interconnect (PCI) and
accelerated graphics port (AGP) are buses that connect
the computer to peripherals. PCI shares bandwidth--the
limit of how much information can travel along a bus--
with multiple devices, while AGP is dedicated to graphic
cards.

 Multicore processors
 Dual-core, quad-core laptops already in the market
 Future: 8-core, 16-core, …
 Benefits of multi-core processors:
 Cost savings by reducing power requirements and hardware sprawl
 Less costly to maintain as fewer systems need to be monitored
 Performance and productivity benefits beyond the capabilities of today’s
single-core processors
 Able to handle the exponential growth of digital data and the
globalization of the Internet
 Able to meet the demands of sophisticated software applications under
development
 Run applications more efficiently than single-core processors – giving
users the ability to keep working even while running the most
processor intensive task in the background
 Able to increase performance in areas such as data mining,
mathematical analysis, and Web serving
40
Processor, Core, Thread
 A CPU typically has only one Core
 Instead of having multiple CPUs, multiple
Cores are built into one CPU instead
 Such are known as multiprocessor computers
 Only high-end data servers, and supercomputers
would have need for multiple CPUs
 Hyper threading
 A feature of certain Intel chips that makes one
physical CPU / Core appear as two logical CPUs /
Cores
41
42
Running Computer Tasks
 Multitasking, in an operating system, is
allowing a user to perform more than one
computer task at a time.
 When you open your Web browser and
then open Word at the same time, you are

causing the operating system to do
multitasking.
 Multitask on single core CPU
 Multitask on multicore CPU aka
multiprocessing
43
Multitasking in Single Core CPU

Multitasking in Multicore CPU

Running Computer Programs
 Parallel processing is
 the processing of program instructions by dividing
them among multiple processors / cores with the
objective of running a program in less time.
 The simultaneous use of more than one CPU to
execute a program
 Multiprogramming is a form of parallel
processing in which several programs are run
at the same time on a processor / core
 Since there is only one processor, there can be no true
simultaneous execution of different programs. Instead, the
operating system executes part of one program, then part
of another, and so on. To the user it appears that all
programs are executing at the same time.
46
47
Group Discussion
 “Tablets, from the iPad to Kindle to RIM’s
Playbook, are all a by-product of cloud
computing.” Explain if you agree or
disagree with this statement.
(November/December 2011 Exam Question)

Group Discussion
 Why are standards so important in
technology? Give two examples of
technology standards and explain the
significance of any one standard. Also
highlight the consequences if it did not
exist.
(April/May 2013 Exam Question)

Class Discussion
 Does the size of RAM affect the
performance of your computer? How?

 Discussion
 Does a dual-core computer perform at
twice the speed of a single-core computer?
(Hint: Reading - Chip wars go to the core)
 The more core the merrier? (Hint: Reading
– Multicore)
51

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AB1401

5.1 © 2009 by Pearson

Illustrated here are the typical computing configurations characterizing

An Intel® processor today

Since the first magnetic

 Common memory format today is DDR SDRAM

5.29p. 6.170 Fig. 6.9 © 2009 by Pearson

Machine cycle consists of:

5.30 © 2009 by Pearson

5.36 © 2009 by Pearson

Each beat or tick of the

5.37 © 2009 by Pearson

PCI and AGP Buses

5.39 © 2009 by Pearson

then open Word at the same time, you are

 Multitask on multicore CPU aka

5.44 © 2009 by Pearson

5.45 © 2009 by Pearson

(November/December 2011 Exam Question)

5.48 © 2009 by Pearson

5.49 © 2009 by Pearson

5.50 © 2009 by Pearson

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