Imaging World, January 1st, 1997 A look ahead: Impact of CD-R CDs become a dominate force By E.J. (Jerry) McFaul As exciting as the possibilities of the World Wide Web are, current telecommunications technology imposes definite limitations. Accessing the large files associated with high-resolution graphics and video clips is still very tedious, if not downright impractical. Innovative companies such as Dataware Technologies, Teleshuttle and even Microsoft have been creating "connected" CD products in parallel with the growth of the Web. The user of a connected CD can explore all sorts of spectacular multimedia content and then simply click on a button to connect to the Web and complete the transaction or get that late-breaking update (See "Hybrid, Web & Connected CDs," IW, December 16th). An even newer development is emerging in which the connected CD becomes a Web site on a disc. The capability now exists to capture huge chunks of Web content, including all of the hyper-linked pages, and place them along with a powerful search engine on a CD-R or CD-ROM. The user can then explore an entire Web site off line, with instant response times and the added luxury (some say necessity) of having everything organized and word searchable. Such discs can still be linked with the Internet at the click of a mouse. Companies such as Folio and Marketscape are providing the tools and services for this very exciting "marriage" of the Web and CD technology. Data management CDs The idea of using optical storage in mainframe computing environments has had success (e.g. COLD), but the traditional storage media of 9-track tape and magnetic DASDs still dominate. This situation is about to change. CD recorders and their associated media are now very affordable (recorders under $400, media under $5) and easy to use. Another development is the explosion of CD jukeboxes. No longer temperamental, expensive machines painstakingly tooled by hand, the world's largest electronic conglomerates such as Sony, Panasonic and JVC now market a wide variety of jukebox products. These new products will encourage the migration of major databases in the gigabyte and terabyte range from DASD farms to networked CD jukeboxes, resulting in lower costs and higher accessibility. Yet another development on the horizon may have an even greater impact on today's typical computing center: the replacement of 9-track magnetic tape. As companies such as Data/Ware Development continue to integrate the creation of CD-R discs with mainframe processing and as the performance of CD-ROM drives continues to increase (16X drives are about to ship), one begins to question the logic of a medium that costs more, holds less than a CD-R disc and allows only sequential access. Once the data is stored on the disc, subsequent read times are significantly improved because of the random-access architecture of discs. Also, there is a vast difference in the life cycle of the media. Tapes must be conscientiously maintained to get a decade of life out of them, whereas CD-R discs, with virtually no maintenance, should last 100 years or more. Document management CDs Document management systems based on CD-R technology are extremely scalable. An entry-level system, complete with scanner, recorder and all the necessary software for creating fully indexed CD-R discs, is available today for under $8,000. Larger systems are very cost effective because they are based on inherently low-cost components. Compared to 12-in. WORM, CD-R-based systems appear very attractive for several reasons. First, because scanned document files tend to be relatively small (typically 50 KB-300 KB each), a 12-in. platter offers no particular advantage over a fast jukebox other than grouping more of these small image files on the same piece of media. Actually, some consider this grouping a liability because it puts too many "digital eggs" in one basket. A second consideration, the access and transfer speeds of the data from the disc, at first glance appears to favor WORM with its faster CAV technology. But, as the trend to access enterprise documents using intranet and Internet protocols continues to gather momentum, today's high-speed CD drives seem to be quite well matched. * E.J. (Jerry) McFaul president of the Special Interest Group for CD Technologies and Applications (SIGCAT) Foundation, 703-435-5200.
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