Product Watch: IBM Launches Newest Computer Line. New RDRAM-Based NAS Server. Tricord Has “Clustered” Server Appliance.

December 15, 2000

SHORT TAKES

IBM LAUNCHES NEWEST COMPUTER LINE

San Francisco, CALIF. — International Business Machines Corp. begins shipping its newest and most powerful computers with an open operating system and a pricing strategy designed to lure smaller companies with fast growing Internet demands, the company said. The new z900 is the seventh generation of mainframes from IBM, the granddaddy of computing, which dominates the super high end server market for the biggest corporations. But Big Blue, which by some estimates makes as much as half its operating profit from mainframe-related sales, aims to turn the new monster loose on markets now dominated by smaller machines. The z900 will price at several million dollars per machine and will be able to process 90 billion transactions daily, IBM said. The new supercomputer is also faster, running about 2,800 million instructions per second (MIPS), about a 75 percent acceleration from the previous generation.

One of the challenges for IBM, which generally sells the mainframes to companies with big data centers, will be to dip down into layers of customers that have preferred to build computer capacity by linking smaller machines, the company said. IBM’s new strategy, a kind of reverse of the build up scalability, allows customers to buy one of the machines and pay for only the computing and software power that they use. Capacity is added by flicking a switch to access what is already there rather than installing an extra machine. “Customers are now paying, with this new software pricing methodology, for what they use in terms of capacity, not how big a machine is,” Senior Vice-president Linda Sanford told Reuters. “From the number of transactions it can do, that it is self-healing (fixing self-diagnosed problems) and dynamically adjusting in terms of the unpredictable demand that an e-business environment puts on these kinds of systems, it is by far the best server on the marketplace,” she said. The new system also runs on LINUX, a nonproprietary flavor of the UNIX operating system which is favored by Internet companies and which IBM hopes will make mainframes a hit. IBM is number two in the high-end market for UNIX servers after Sun Microsystems, Inc., according to International Data Corporation research. In the third quarter, Sun sold 723 units for $750 million, while IBM sold 80 units for $190 million, IDC said. Sanford said there was an expected backlog of orders to be filled, although she declined to say how much or predict sales growth for the server.

NEW RDRAM-BASED NAS SERVER

Mountain View, CALIF. — Rambus Inc. announced that EMC Corporation is shipping an RDRAM-based system for a high-reliability NAS solution for mission-critical applications. According to EMC, the CLARiiON(R) IP4700 NAS server meets the needs of business-critical applications, like information sharing, Web serving, and new product development, by providing a scalable, easy-to-configure, high-availability architecture with no single point of failure. The multi-processor server incorporates Intel’s 840 chipset and supports 2GB of RDRAM memory per storage processor. EMC has indicated that the RDRAM-based CLARiiON will be critical in its quest to overtake its competition and become the leading supplier in the fast-growing market of standalone network-attached storage devices.

Today, there are over 100 RDRAM-based systems available including desktop PCs, workstations, consumer platforms as well as high performance, single and dual processor motherboards. RDRAM devices, with data rate transfers of up to 800MHz, enable the dual Rambus channel to achieve bandwidth of up to 3.2 gigabytes per second, 1.6 GB/sec per channel. Rambus technology allows architects the flexibility to incorporate multiple channels to scale memory capacity and bandwidth to meet system requirements. Products based on Intel’s 840 chipset and Sony’s PlayStation2 utilize two Rambus channels. Rambus’ architecture easily accommodates future performance enhancements due to its unique scalability. With Rambus technology, system designs can be optimized to meet the needs of a broad range of platforms including value PCs, desktops, workstations and servers, as well as digital televisions, set top boxes, networking products and game consoles. Rambus Inc. is an intellectual property company that designs, develops and licenses high-bandwidth chip-connection technologies which enable semiconductor memory devices to keep pace with faster generations of processors and controllers. For more information, please visit http://www.rambus.com .

TRICORD HAS “CLUSTERED” SERVER APPLIANCE

Minneapolis, MINN. — Tricord Systems, Inc. announced the introduction of its highly anticipated `clustered’ server appliance, Lunar Flare NAS, to be demonstrated during a live webcast at 12:00 P.M. EST today. The first product in a family of server appliances based on revolutionary aggregation software, Lunar Flare NAS offers seamless growth and unprecedented ease of management. Enabled by Tricord’s patented Illumina aggregation software, customers can grow their storage by simply adding individual Lunar Flare NAS appliances to create a cluster, managed as a single resource. Radically easy to grow, manage and use, this unique solution allows administrators to add storage with no downtime, no user interruption and nearly effortless administration. A scalable, reliable general file serving storage device, Lunar Flare NAS is easily deployed on a network and shared by all Windows users. A single node provides 135GB of raw storage. Currently in beta testing, general availability for Lunar Flare NAS is planned for the second half of Q1, 2001.

“We are incredibly excited to introduce Lunar Flare NAS to the market,” says Tricord’s Greg Dahl, vice president of marketing and business development. “Our unique technology raises the bar for easy to deploy, easy to manage network storage solutions. These features will address the single biggest challenge of storage management – growth.” Rick Bauer, CIO of The Hill School adds, “Projects such as digital video of lectures and distance learning initiatives are overwhelming our servers, and we don’t have the funds for server-based storage. Tricord’s Lunar Flare NAS offers us easy, affordable scalability as we grow. It’s also easy to manage, which is so important for an educational institution – our headcount is about half the average corporate IT shop.” With traditional storage solutions, administrators add more storage by adding disk storage to a file server, array, or NAS subsystem. But when that system reaches maximum capacity, they are forced to add another subsystem. That means downtime to configure the new system and re-assign users and data. Tricord’s Lunar Flare NAS appliance eliminates this intensive management and the associated downtime. Using Tricord’s intuitive, browser-based GUI, adding an appliance to a cluster takes only moments and doesn’t interrupt client access to data. For more information, visit http://www.tricord.com .

MATLAB 6: THE NEXT GENERATION

The MathWorks, the leading supplier of technical computing software for engineers and scientists, recently announced the Release 12 of its product family. Release 12 includes major new versions of MATLAB 6 and Simulink 4, The MathWorks flagship products, and upgrades of 60 application-specific companion products. Release 12 introduces the MATLAB desktop, which provides a new visual interface for MATLAB. This new release is the result of more than 250 person-years of design and development for the MATLAB language, control design applications, and DSP and communications design features. Not only is this the largest release, with many new and updated products, but it is a direct response to our customers’ active participation in our product development through their extensive feedback.

Jim Tung, Chief Market Development Officer at The MathWorks will present an overview of the new and updated products in Release 12, and will also cover the following application areas: 1. Technical Computing – The technical desktop that centralizes analysis, visualization and development applications for technical professionals. 2. Test and Measurement – Data Acquisition Toolbox and Instrument Control Toolbox. 3. Control Design – Integrated modeling, analysis, simulation and code generation environment. 4. DSP and Communications – Tools for robust system-level design.

SEAGATE SOFTWARE INTRODUCES SEAGATE INFO 7.5

Scotts Valley, CALIF. — Seagate Software, a leader in enterprise reporting and analysis, unveiled Seagate Info 7.5 – the latest release of one of the most widely used enterprise reporting and information delivery solutions in the market. Available today, Seagate Info 7.5 provides full-featured compatibility with Crystal Reports 8 – released in early 2000 – and delivers substantial speed and performance gains. With more than three million users in nearly 10,000 customer sites worldwide, Seagate Info integrates powerful analytic and reporting technology across a scalable and multi-tier architecture designed to manage the access and delivery of interactive information via Windows and web applications. “With its superior and renowned technologies, Seagate Info has established a loyal and global following,” said Tony Wind, vice president of product management.

“Over the last few years, Seagate Info’s enterprise reporting technology has categorically led the way in meeting the mission-critical needs of Global 2000 organizations,” continued Wind. “The release of Seagate Info 7.5 provides the additional support and functionality that existing customers have been demanding while we continue to develop our next generation web enterprise reporting solution, Crystal Enterprise.” Seagate Info 7.5 provides customers with full, seamless compatibility with Crystal Reports 8, a world standard for high-performance web reporting. The integration of Crystal Reports 8 technology extends Seagate Info’s unprecedented scalability with significant speed and performance gains through multi-threaded report processors. Seagate Info 7.5 also takes advantage of Crystal Reports’ powerful report design capabilities for developing complex, interactive web reports and enables rich web presentation and publishing of reports through DHTML output and PDF support. As a fifth-generation, proven enterprise reporting solution, Seagate Info enables organizations to increase productivity and reduce IT costs by creating a standardized infrastructure to access disparate data systems and distribute secure, real time, interactive reports to an organization’s employees, customers and partners. Visit http://www.seagatesoftware.com for more information.

RUSHMORE ESYSTEM PRODUCTS EXTEND REACH

Milpitas, CALIF. — Quantum Corporation’s DLT & Storage Systems Group, a leader in high-performance solid state storage solutions for NT and UNIX servers, announced that the newest versions of the Rushmore eSystem Accelerator (eSA) will come in the form of a new external line. Two tabletop versions, a one-bay and a two-bay, and a rackmount version will be introduced. These three new configurations will allow manufacturers and system integrators to have more flexible mounting of the eBusiness enhancement product.

These new products will allow more eBusinesses to take advantage of the eSA’s capacity to help speed up ordering processes on their Web site. The tabletop models allow customers to leave their existing physical setup alone and only require external SCSI Bus connections, with no need to search for empty storage slots. Customers can easily add the benefits of the eSA to a variety of system configurations. Dual-bay units are also available, which allow for a larger capacity (up to 4.2 GB of storage) than can be offered by using a single unit, at a very small cost of space. The single-bay tabletop weighs less than 10 lbs. and boasts physical specifications of 3 inches by 10 inches by 12 inches, providing a solution for minimal footprint configurations. The new models will also provide a wide range of capacities to fit individual company needs. The five models provide formatted capacities of 536 MB, 1.07 GB, 2.15 GB, and two models at 4.2 GB. “The external line of products will relieve I/O bottlenecks with Web caching and enhanced database capabilities. They can be easily configured into the customer’s existing system because of their size and the tabletop enclosure,” said Mark Taylor, director of marketing for Quantum’s Solid State Business Unit. “With some e-businesses having just enough room in their server configurations for what is there now, these products will allow them to receive the potential benefits without having to reconfigure an existing set-up.” Visit http://www.bellmicro.com for more information.

MAKE SYSTEMS SHIPS NETMAKER MAINSTATION

Cary, N.C. — Make Systems Inc., a provider of leading-edge modeling and design tools for service provider-class networks, announced today that it has begun shipping the latest release of its flagship product suite. NetMaker MainStation Release 3.3 features major automated decision support for MPLS deployment and traffic engineering. It also adds support for the full product line of Juniper routers to the already extensive device library, as well as extended device support for Cisco MPLS and Lucent VNN routing. In addition, MainStation’s configuration file import and ASCII import facilities have been extended for MPLS. And, for the first time, MainStation now includes capabilities to export configuration file fragments, or “configlets,” for MPLS. With a host of other features, a number of new reports, significant usability improvements, new support for Solaris 8 and a major upgrade in the documentation set, MainStation Release 3.3 cements Make Systems’ lead in providing the most capable, accurate, scaleable and operationally correct tools available, said Dr. Ed Sykes, the company’s chief technical officer.

“MainStation Release 3.3 represents our first product specifically targeted at network operational decision support with our entry into the emerging discipline of offline traffic engineering,” Sykes said. “We are the only vendor in the predictive management space committed to providing robust operational decision support tools for network engineers and planners.” “Future NetMaker MainStation releases will extend and enhance this capability, providing more comprehensive device support, better usability to facilitate building detailed, accurate network models and improved integration with other next generation OSS solutions,” Sykes said. Make Systems is a pioneer in the development of decision-support software that addresses the operational and engineering needs of traditional and next- generation network services providers. The company provides predictive tools for automated modeling, planning analysis and design of large-scale, multi- service, multi-technology networks to help service providers deliver quality network services efficiently, reliably and cost-effectively. The company is headquartered in San Mateo, Calif., with principle operations in Cary, N.C. For more information, visit http://www.makesystems.com .

PTC ANNOUNCES PRO/ENGINEER DESIGNER

Waltham, MASS. — PTC, the product development company, announced a new routed systems and schematic diagramming solution, Pro/ENGINEER Routed Systems Designer. Building upon its significant expertise in both schematic and mechanical design, PTC has created a common architecture and methodology for driving schematic designs into the 3D world with this new product. Pro/ENGINEER Routed Systems Designer features robust and easy-to-use 2D diagramming tools and symbol data import capabilities that can be used across multiple industries including aerospace, automotive and shipbuilding. Continuing its commitment to establishing and delivering XML-based solutions for enhanced collaboration, PTC’s Pro/ENGINEER Routed Systems Designer provides an open and associative multi-disciplinary approach to the design of system interconnections. “Today’s products are more complex and contain more multi-disciplined engineering than ever before. With this in mind, PTC has long recognized that schematic diagrams are key documents in the design process,” said Jon Stevenson, executive vice president and general manager, MCAD Solutions, PTC. “Knowing that, we arranged a ‘summit’ of industry experts to review schematic system software, to exchange industry knowledge and recommend a way forward. The end result showed that while niche products were well received in their own marketplace, there was no common interface or process stretched across all industries. PTC committed itself to delivering the broadest and most robust schematic design solution for routed systems.”

The Pro/ENGINEER Routed Systems Designer brings a new core 2D engine into Pro/ENGINEER that delivers easy to use 2D manipulative tools. The new routed systems product is available on Windows NT, Windows 2000, Sun Solaris, HPUX, IRIX and Digital Unix. Pro/ENGINEER Routed Systems Designer may be used in conjunction with, or separate from, PTC’s Windchill solution. PTC, founded in 1985 and headquartered in Waltham, Mass., USA (Parametric Technology Corporation), develops, markets, and supports product development solutions for collaborative product commerce (CPC) solutions that help manufacturing companies shape innovation and achieve competitive advantage in the Internet age. Visit http://www.ptc.com for more information.

GADZOOX PREPARES CHANNEL PARTNERS FOR GROWTH

San Jose, CALIF. — Gadzoox Networks, Inc., a supplier of intelligent storage networking products, announced a series of Storage Area Network (SAN) training courses that empower channel partners with the technical understanding and implementation skills to participate in the rapidly growing Windows/NT SAN market. The goal of Gadzoox Networks is to educate the channel partners to be SAN experts through training and certification. The focus of these new training courses range from basic technical knowledge of a SAN to hands-on experience developing a SAN solution with Gadzoox Networks’ infrastructure products, which includes the price/performance-leading Capellix Fibre Channel switch series. Gadzoox Networks recognizes that rapidly growing data and storage use has become a management challenge for most information-technology (IT) managers. The Gadzoox Networks courses are designed to help channel partners free these IT managers from the growing strains of this task by providing the tools to develop a SAN solution.

The Windows/NT SAN market is a new and rapidly growing segment in which price, ease of use, and support are key deciding factors,” said Steve Cisowski, senior director, Customer Marketing, Gadzoox Networks. “Our new training courses and sales tools will help position our channel partners and end-users to capitalize on this new market with up-to-date SAN knowledge and hands-on training with Gadzoox Networks products. We also offer our Capellix series of Fibre Channel switches, which are a perfect fit for this high-volume, high-value market.” Two courses are offered to Gadzoox Networks’ channel partners today: SAN Basics and SAN Implementation. Gadzoox Networks is currently conducting the free-of-charge, one-day SAN Basic course throughout the United States. The SAN Implementation course is held at Gadzoox Networks’ headquarters in San Jose, California, and is open to end-users, as well as Gadzoox Networks channel partners. More information and registration directions are available online at http://www.gadzoox.com/training . “The SAN Basics and SAN Implementation courses were extremely educational,” said Rick Boots, senior account manager, S.A.G. Electronics, a Massachusetts-based Manufacturer of Servers and RAID Storage solutions and Integrator of SAN solutions. “Our customers are looking to us to be experts, both in storage technology and the SAN market, and the certified courses offered by Gadzoox Networks provided a thorough understanding of how to apply SAN technology to resolve the storage management problems our customers are facing today.” Visit http://www.gadzoox.com for more information.

DLTTAPE TECHNOLOGY OFFERED IN COMPAQ SYSTEMS

Milpitas, CALIF. — Quantum Corporation’s DLT and Storage Systems Group announced that Compaq Computer Corporation, a Quantum systems OEM customer, is introducing a new line of StorageWorks library systems incorporating the reliable DLT 8000 technology for business-critical applications. The new library systems include solutions that accommodate up to 16 DLT drives, and centralized backup and restore features for the mid-range enterprise computing market.

“The average enterprise has increased its data capacity more than 70 percent from last year, making it absolutely crucial that we deliver data protection solutions that meet the increase in capacity and performance required by our customers,” said Rusty Smith, director Data Products Group, Compaq Enterprise Storage Group. “We designed the new StorageWorks library systems using the best technologies available today. Our new library solutions combine the highly reliable 40/80 GB DLTtape drive technology with scalable and highly available automation technologies into a storage solution that can be customized to fit the individual needs of our customers.” Compaq, the largest supplier of computing systems in the world, is introducing three DLTtape StorageWorks library models that are scalable in a multi-unit configuration for increased capacity and performance. The ESL9198DLX and ESL9326DX high-availability solutions are designed for the enterprise level and the TL891DLX library extends the TL891 platform for mid-size businesses. “We are pleased that Compaq continues to turn to Quantum’s DLTtape technology to meet its customers capacity and performance needs as they expand,” said William Boles, vice president, marketing, of Quantum’s DLTtape Group. “Not only is DLTtape technology the leading storage platform, its history and future roadmap provides customers with the security of knowing they have invested in a reliable technology that will grow to meet their storage requirements.” Information about Super DLTtape can be found at http://www.dlttape.com/super .

INRANGE HAS FICON TECHNOLOGY FOR ESCON

Mount Laurel, N.J. — INRANGE Technologies, a leader in high-end, scalable storage networking solutions, today announced the ability for fibre channel and FICON storage networks to coexist with legacy ESCON storage through a single storage area network (SAN) director. This unique storage networking capability is provided with the release of the IN-VSN Fibre Channel Port Adapter (FCPA) for CD/9000 ESCON Directors. According to International Data Corporation (IDC), up to 70% of the world’s corporate data exists on legacy mainframe systems, most of which use storage networks based on the IBM ESCON storage protocol. Once the most advanced interconnect available, ESCON is migrating to IBM’s new FICON interconnect, which blends ESCON control with the new technology of fibre channel storage networking. IBM has begun FICON channel shipments that are expected to be the replacement technology for these very large ESCON-based systems. This technology ‘refresh’ means that thousands of customers that have ESCON storage networks are faced with a total replacement of those networks, if unable to upgrade to the new technologies.

“Our commitment has always been to work with our customers to increase adoption rate of new technologies and to recognize faster ROI on technological developments,” said Charles Foley, EVP and CTO of INRANGE Technologies. “Our FCPA development was targeted squarely at this issue – protect the operational investment in the existing databases, while facilitating movement to new FICON and fibre channel technologies.” Using the IN-VSN FCPA feature, up to 128 new FICON and fibre channel ports can be added to existing or new INRANGE CD/9000 256 port capacity ESCON directors, even while ESCON storage and servers are attached. This allows for a coexistence of all three storage network types in a single director footprint, providing a more seamless migration path to these new technologies. No other vendor has announced product or plans for this type of technology.

BITMICRO INTRODUCES LVD SOLID-STATE FLASH DISK

San Diego, CALIF. — BiTMICRO NETWORKS Inc., a pioneer in intelligent storage solutions, today announced the release of its E-Disk SCD35, the world’s first true hot swappable Low Voltage Differential (LVD) solid-state storage solution, at COTScon 2000. Designed to meet Level 4 Hot Swap criteria, the SCD35 can be inserted and removed from a server, RAID system or a JBOD environment without powering down. “This product is ideal for enterprise hot files and mission critical applications,” said Tom Griffin, BiTMICRO’s Vice President of Marketing and Sales, “allowing its users to remove and replace a drive without incurring the cost and inconvenience of idling down the affected bus or shutting down the system.”

The E-Disk SCD35 features an unmatched fast access time of less than 0.049 milliseconds and random sustained and burst read and write transfer rates of more than 34 MB/sec and 40 MB/sec respectively. Lightweight, it offers a non-volatile solid-state flash storage capacity ranging from 256 MB up to unprecedented 37 GB in a 3.5-inch standard form factor with low-power consumption requirements. To minimize system downtime the all-electronic SCD35 incorporates E-Disk’s Preventative, Predictive and Corrective Maintenance features.

CODEWEAVERS PREVIEWS CODEWEAVERS WINE

St. Paul, MINN. — CodeWeavers, Inc., a leading Windows-to-Linux software developer and consultancy, announced the availability of the Preview Edition of CodeWeavers Wine, the open-source software converter that runs Windows applications on Linux and other Intel-based Unix platforms. Until now, access to revisions of Wine has been confined to a worldwide network of resourceful Windows programmers. CodeWeavers Wine Preview Edition is the first version available for general public use and is a prelude to CodeWeavers Wine 1.0; the commercial-quality release anticipated for the first half of 2001. The tools that CodeWeavers added to Wine make this preview release “the Wine for the rest of us.”

Wine is an intermediate software layer that allows Linux and Intel-based Unix operating systems to run applications written for Microsoft Windows. Wine works by translating calls to the Windows 3.x and Win32 API into Linux and Unix instructions. Many applications already written for the different versions of Windows are currently supported. CodeWeavers Wine Preview Edition includes the new WineMaker wizard that makes it simple and easy to port Windows C/C++ source code to native Linux binary files. WineMaker automates use of the Winelib development toolkit. Also included are the CodeWeavers Wine Configuration Wizard that simplifies installation, and the CodeWeavers Wine Launcher that manages the running of Windows applications. Tight integration with Gnome and KDE desktops means Windows applications can be installed easily and displayed as desktop icons, or in Windows-style directory trees, for point-and-click execution. “We’re very excited to showcase this preview release of CodeWeavers Wine,” said Jeremy White, president of CodeWeavers. “While this is clearly still a pre-release version, we think that the Linux community will welcome the great strides the whole Wine team has made towards the realization of Wine 1.0.” CodeWeavers Wine, Preview Edition, can be downloaded at no charge from http://www.codeweavers.com .

COMMVAULT & BROCADE DELIVER SOLUTIONWARE

San Diego, CALIF. — CommVault Systems Inc., an industry-leading provider of data and storage management software solutions, and Brocade Communications Systems, Inc., a leading provider of Storage Area Networking infrastructure, announced the availability of a Brocade SOLUTIONware configuration for advanced LAN-free backup and data management in Storage Area Network (SAN) environments. Through CommVault’s next-generation Galaxy Enterprise 2000 data and storage management software suite, this verified configuration offers the ability to restore individual messages into Microsoft Outlook mailboxes, online, within SAN environments. The pre-tested configuration for Microsoft Exchange includes CommVault’s Galaxy Enterprise 2000, Brocade SilkWorm Fibre Channel fabric switches, Compaq StorageWorks hardware and conXsan storage routers from Crossroads.

As a result, Microsoft Exchange customers are now equipped with an interoperable, end-to-end data and storage management solution that delivers on the full promise of next-generation storage architectures by melding technologies from premier SAN vendors. Utilizing these product components in a pre-tested and certified configuration enables IT organizations to confidently leverage seamless interoperability and advanced technologies to achieve industry-leading protection and management of their Microsoft Exchange data within SANs. To reduce traffic on their primary communications network, many of today’s data-intensive enterprises are looking to Fibre Channel-based LAN-free backup to streamline data storage functions and increase network throughput. Equally as important as improving backup performance is enabling highly granular restore capabilities to ensure rapid data recovery. Granular, application-specific, item-level recovery using authorized, nonproprietary APIs is an important capability for enterprises seeking complete protection and agile data management. The combination of CommVault software, Brocade Fibre Channel switches, Crossroads routers and Compaq StorageWorks hardware gives users an open, standards-based solution to perform message-level recovery for Microsoft Exchange combined with the backup performance and efficiency of SAN architectures.

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China Is All In on a RISC-V Future

January 8, 2024

The state of RISC-V in China was discussed in a recent report released by the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. The report, entitled "E Read more…

Intel Won’t Have a Xeon Max Chip with New Emerald Rapids CPU

December 14, 2023

As expected, Intel officially announced its 5th generation Xeon server chips codenamed Emerald Rapids at an event in New York City, where the focus was really o Read more…

IBM Quantum Summit: Two New QPUs, Upgraded Qiskit, 10-year Roadmap and More

December 4, 2023

IBM kicks off its annual Quantum Summit today and will announce a broad range of advances including its much-anticipated 1121-qubit Condor QPU, a smaller 133-qu Read more…

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