THE WELCH COMPANY

440 Davis Court #1602

San Francisco, CA  94111-2496

415 781 5700



[Submitted via Internet]

July 23, 1997                                              03 00050 97072301



Mr. R. Max Wideman
2216 West 21st Avenue
Vancouver, BC  V6L 1J5
Canada

Subject:  SDS hardware requirements
                 Communication Metrics

Ref:   a. Wideman letter Jul 23, 1997
          b. Welch letter Jul 22, 1997
          c. Welch letter submit Comm Report, Jul 16, 1997

Dear Max,

> What hardware is typically required [to support SDS] on a 'fair-sized'
>project? (Size, >dedicated, etc.?), per your letter ref a?



Typically you need 200M or so for the SDS data base on a project that might
last several years of heavy communication.  Of course the actual disk will be
several GB because it has all of the other stuff for the opeatring system and
other programs.  My SDS record has 10 years of data.  Each year the record
gets a little bigger than the year before because I get more attuned to
capturing nuance.  My system has 500M for the SDS record and it is a little
over half full, but of course that is influenced partly by the large size File
Allocaiton Unit of 8K.  A record will average about 6K, even though the record
you received was closer to 20.  I estimate that a team of 4 - 10 people
working together on a project and all using SDS could be adequately supported
by a 2 - 3 GB drive.  In any event with the cost of hardware these days,
capacity is really not an issue.  The critical point is the design of the
software so that creating and using this record is fast enough to keep up with
the pace of daily business, so people can use the record instead of their
recall.





>What software data storage do you use?, per your letter ref a.




The data is stored under a record created by my SDS program.  I actually store
formal correspondence and documents separately from the SDS (schedule and







Mr. R. Max Wideman                                  Page 2 of 2
Subject:  SDS hardware requirements
          Communication Metrics



diary) records.  The latter are a continuous stream of "knowledge" that
discusses (analyses) the objects, many of which are "documents" such as a
letter, a budget, a CPM schedule, a plan sheet., etc.  This is discussed a bit
in the "Typical Day" scenario I sent the other day.  I use the diary to
"think" by writing about the correlation between documents and planning that
does not show up in formal documents, e.g., things left out for strategic
reasons.  The result is that everything is managed by the SDS program to
support the Communication Metrics process.



>Your  "Communication Metrics" Report arrived today.  Thanks, I'll read it
>with  interest.  Good bedtime reading!  :-), submitted at ref c.




I look forward to your comments.




Sincerely,




THE WELCH COMPANY






Rod Welch