Appliance

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As Appliance (. Engl appliance , device ) is an approach to design for a combined system of computer - hardware and optimized specifically to this hardware software called, which essentially serves one or few applications. Additional, highly specialized FPGAs are often added to general CPUs on the hardware side , so that frequently occurring work steps are not implemented by code within a "general purpose" CPU, but rather by the faster hardware of the FPGA.

If there is less coupling of the integrated hardware and software offering, the terms “converged systems” or “converged infrastructure” are also used.

The purpose of an appliance is usually determined by the hardware, e.g. B. Firewall appliances, UTM appliances or PBX appliances. This makes an appliance resemble an embedded system , which is why this term is often incorrectly used synonymously. However, an appliance is not subject to the data storage and processor performance limitations of an embedded system, as these can be expanded as required during manufacture. Only the form factor and the manufacturing costs limit the capacity of the system, since appliances are often used as an assembly in a rack .

Simple installation, easy operation, maximum efficiency, security and fault-free function are the focus of an appliance. In general, the configurations are therefore not made by the users, but by the manufacturer according to uniform standards.

However, this in turn leads to an increased dependency on the manufacturer, which some users use as an argument against appliances.

Examples of appliances are:

history

Essentially, the IT industry is returning to its origins with appliances.

In 1969, raised the US government case against IBM , an unbundling to force the hardware and software. Until then, it was common for hardware manufacturers to sell the software to their customers without additional payment (and usually as source code ). The ISV saw this as a distortion of competition.

Individual evidence

  1. IBM Pure Systems: A first look under sheet metal - Integrated alternative to the blade construction kit on dv-dialog from April 19, 2012
  2. DELL webpage on converged infrastructure  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / content.dell.com  
  3. Burton Grad, A Personal Recollection: IBM's Unbundling of Software and Services, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing , Vol. 24, No. 1 (Jan – Mar 2002), pp. 64-71.
  4. IBM Archives: 1960s . IBM . Retrieved November 12, 2010: " Rather than offer hardware, services and software exclusively in packages, marketers" unbundled "the components and offered them for sale individually. Unbundling gave birth to the multibillion-dollar software and services industries, of which IBM is today a world leader "