🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Nov17.191249.21391@den.mmc.com>, geger@phantom.den.mmc.com (George Eger (303) 971-6974) writes:
|>Is there a particular reason why SAS rings of more than 2 stations are not
|>allowed by SMT?  Is this just a ploy to sell more hardware?  Seems to me
|>there are good system configurations that could warrant SAS rings (like a
|>bunch of equipment all in one rack/room that doesn't need the complication
|>of DAS or concentrators).
|>
|>Comments?
|>
|>GWE
|>
|>||==========================================================================
|>||George Eger                  ||   Voice - (303) - 971 - 6974            ||
|>...

Simple... PCM (the initialization protocol SMT runs between two ports) is
a two-party protocol.  It would have to be DRASTICALLY different to be
an N-party protocol, which is what you need to initialize the sort of
topology you mentioned.  Actually, it's not clear that such a protocol
could even be designed.

People have experimented with these topologies, typically by not running
any startup protocol at all but simply putting everything into active
state right away.  With some luck that may work often enough to be 
useful in experiments...

	paul