70 -- COMMON DASD SOLUTION FOR HETEROGENEOUS COMPTING PLATFORMS COMMON DASD SOLUTION FOR HETEROGENEOUS COMPUTING PLATFORMS -- PRELIMINARY MARKET SURVEY Category: 70 General-Purpose Information Technology Equipment -- Request for Information. Contact: John Gibson, Project Officer, MD-34, U.S. EPA, Research Triangle Park, NC 27711. Phone: (919) 541-0112. Synopsis: PRELIMINARY MARKET SURVEY FOR DASD TECHNOLOGY THAT WILL ENABLE STORAGE OF DATA FROM HETEROGENEOUS COMPUTING PLATFORMS ON A COMMON DASD SUBSYSTEM. THIS IS A MARKET SURVEY FOR WRITTEN INFORMATION ONLY. THIS IS NOT A SOLICITATION ANNOUNCEMENT FOR PROPOSALS AND NO CONTRACT WILL BE AWARDED PURSUANT TO THIS ANNOUNCEMENT. THERE IS NO BID PACKAGE OR SOLICITATION DOCUMENT ASSOCIATED WITH THIS ANNOUNCEMENT. NO REIMBURSEMENT WILL BE MADE FOR ANY COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH PROVIDING INFORMATION IN RESPONSE TO THIS ANNOUNCEMENT AND TO ANY FOLLOW-UP INFORMATION REQUESTS. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is seeking information from Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) of Direct Access Storage Device (DASD) solutions on the current or anticipated availability of DASD subsystems that support the storage of data from EPA's multiple operating environments (e.g. IBM MVS/ESA, IBM OS/390, IBM RS6000 AIX, HP-UX, Digital Unix, Novell NetWare, and possibly Windows NT) on the same DASD subsystem. EPA intends to use this information, along with the results of other associated market research that it is carrying out, to develop an acquisition strategy for its anticipated long-term data center DASD requirements. Besides technical literature that describes the design and other technical features of such DASD subsystems, EPA is specifically seeking the following information from OEMs: 1. What is your strategic direction toward providing integrated DASD solutions for MVS data centers that increasingly include other operating system platforms such as Unix, NetWare, and Windows NT? 2. Do you currently market a DASD subsystem that supports the storage of data from multiple operating environments? If not, do you expect to market such a subsystem, and when? 3. What operating environments will be able to share storage space on a single DASD subsystem? 4. Will the DASD subsystem support conventional (non-RAID) and RAID DASD? If it will support RAID, what level(s) of RAID? 5. Will the controller on the DASD subsystem support the use of disk drives from other OEMs? If so, which disk drives will the controller support? 6. If currently available, what is the installed base of such DASD -- i.e. number of customers, locations, host operating environments supported, and total storage capacity of installed base? 7. What modes of system connectivity (e.g. FIPS 60 Channel, ESCON, SCSI) will the DASD subsystem support? 8. What is the system management overhead for heterogeneous platform support and how does this impact performance? 9. Will the DASD subsystem include special features for effectively meeting High-Performance Computing (HPC) storage requirements? 10. Will the DASD subsystem include features that support data sharing -- i.e. a single copy of data that is accessible to multiple operating environments? If so, what is the time frame for the anticipated availability of this capability? EPA's current data center DASD environment includes about 1,100 gigabytes (GB) of 3380-compatible triple-density non-RAID DASD and about 1,800 GB of 3380- and 3390-compatible RAID DASD. The environment also includes about 230 GB of RAID DASD and about 55 GB of non-RAID DASD serving Unix platforms. Unix DASD requirements are expected to increase significantly, along with storage requirements for NetWare- and/or Windows NT-based servers in the data center. If you are interested in providing this information, please respond in writing by April 25, 1997, to Mr. John Gibson at the address specified above. WEB: NA, NA. E-MAIL: NA, NA.

Loren Data Corp. http://www.ld.com (SYN# 0423 19970324\SP-0001.MSC)