This PDF file contains the front matter associated with SPIE Proceedings Volume 10319, including the Title Page, Copyright information, Table of Contents, and Conference Committee listing.

An overview of optical data storage is presented. After a brief introduction, we discuss the applications for optical data storage, major technology components, and availability of products.

Although fiber optic networks have some major differences from copper- based networks, the process of testing and troubleshooting them is actually very similar. The techniques can be easily mastered by technicians with some basic training in fiber optics and network testing. The basic procedures outlined below were originally developed by Fotec personnel in conjunction with the customer engineering groups of suppliers of fiber optic networks. These procedures have, therefore, been thoroughly field proven in thousands of installations.

Our objectives for today are to review the information systems requirements driving the development of Fibre Channel; examine the structure of Fibre Channel; look at the current active industry program; and examine systems architectures and applications. Each section will guide the participant through the rich landscape that is Fibre Channel. We will proceed interactively with questions welcome.

The Fibre Channel Systems Initiative (FCSI), formed in February 1993 by Hewlett Packard, Sun Microsystems and IBM (RISC 6000 Division), is developing Profiles to serve as high level design specifications for the development of interoperable Fibre Channel systems. Using examples from the FCSI IP and SCSI Profiles, this paper describes the structure of Profiles and their comprehensive approach to promoting interoperability, including the selection of physical layer options, signalling layer features (such as Class of Service and error recovery), and Upper Level Protocol features.

Fibre Channel History Fibre Channel had its beginnings in the late 1980s as a follow on interface development for the ANSI X3T9.3 (now X3T11) subcommittee. This same group developed the IPI (Intelligent Peripheral Interface) and HPPI (High Perfor- mance Parallel Interface) standards during the mid 1980s. Even at this time the handwriting was on the wall for the earlier channels in use within the computer industry. Processor technology was improving at a logarithmic rate. Storage densi- ties (and required transfer rates) were following a similar curve. These previous bottlenecks to computer performance no longer existed. The bottleneck had moved to the I/O channel.

A "scheme" which interconnects multiple fibre channel interfaces

In this tutorial we present the current-state-of-the art in multimedia database management systems. We discuss various issues related to semantic modeling and indexing of multimedia information. Various schemes to represent temporal synchronization requirements are explored and the current research challenges facing the multimedia database community are highlighted.

Considerable research in networking technology has been done over the last decade. A variety of networking infrastructures have been developed and advance high speed networks are on the verge of deployment. These include ATM networks, large scale internets and mobile communication systems. However, extensive capabilities need to be implemented in these systems in order to support advanced multimedia services. In this tutorial we discuss the potential use of these systems and discuss technological challenges in supporting multimedia services. Specifically, we discuss technical chal- lenges in network management and resource allocation. We also describe how existing and emerging networking infrastructures can be effectively used to support multimedia services.