Multimedia interfaces increase the need for large image databases, capable of storing and reading streams of data with strict synchronicity and isochronicity requirements. In order to fulfil these requirements, we use a parallel image server architecture which relies on arrays of intelligent disk nodes, each disk node being composed of one processor and one or more disks. This contribution analyzes through simulation the real-time behavior of two multiprocessor multi-disk architectures: GigaView and the Unix workstation cluster. GigaView incorporates point-to-point communication between processing units and the workstation cluster supports communication through a shared bus-and-memory architecture. For a standard multimedia server architecture consisting of 8 disks and 4 disk-node processors, we evaluate stream frame access times under various parameters such as load factors, frame size, stream throughput and synchronicity requirements. We compare the behavior of GigaView and the workstation cluster in terms of delay and delay jitter.
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