ACADEMIA
SilverStorm to Provide InfiniBand for IBM BladeCenter H Platform
SilverStorm Technologies announced today that it will be supplying InfiniBand to Fibre Channel and InfiniBand to Ethernet gateway modules for the recently announced IBM BladeCenter H platform. The combination of IBM's industry-leading blade platform with SilverStorm's InfiniBand virtual I/O gateway technology creates an ideal solution for high performance computing and enterprise grid applications. "IBM continues to collaborate with leading solution providers like SilverStorm to deliver solutions that help our clients innovate and solve real business problems," said Doug Balog, vice president, IBM BladeCenter, Systems & Technology Group. "SilverStorm InfiniBand Virtual I/O gateways allow us to offer clients a robust I/O solution that complements the high bandwidth, low latency capabilities of the InfiniBand switching infrastructure in the BladeCenter." 
SilverStorm is a pioneer of InfiniBand infrastructure solutions and is leveraging the virtual I/O controller technology from its existing 9000 series Multi-Protocol Fabric Director platform, the world's highest capacity single chassis cluster interconnect system available, for the new BladeCenter modules. By utilizing the same technology as the 9000, IBM customers will be able to construct extremely large high performance fabrics of BladeCenter single data rate (SDR) or double data rate (DDR) InfiniBand-enabled compute systems interconnected with SilverStorm 9000 series Fabric Directors, and manage all of the I/O in the fabric as a single pool of shared resources. This architecture eliminates the cost and complexity of using separate, parallel Fibre Channel and Ethernet switching infrastructures and the need to populate blades with HBA and NIC modules. "We are extremely pleased to partner with IBM to help extend the value of the BladeCenter's InfiniBand capabilities," said Russ Hawkins, CEO of SilverStorm Technologies. "The combination of InfiniBand switching and Virtual I/O gateway technology allows businesses in a broad range of industries to achieve new levels of price-performance." Specific price and availability of the new BladeCenter H InfiniBand Virtual I/O Gateway Modules were not announced. The combined solution is expected to be generally available later this year.
SilverStorm is a pioneer of InfiniBand infrastructure solutions and is leveraging the virtual I/O controller technology from its existing 9000 series Multi-Protocol Fabric Director platform, the world's highest capacity single chassis cluster interconnect system available, for the new BladeCenter modules. By utilizing the same technology as the 9000, IBM customers will be able to construct extremely large high performance fabrics of BladeCenter single data rate (SDR) or double data rate (DDR) InfiniBand-enabled compute systems interconnected with SilverStorm 9000 series Fabric Directors, and manage all of the I/O in the fabric as a single pool of shared resources. This architecture eliminates the cost and complexity of using separate, parallel Fibre Channel and Ethernet switching infrastructures and the need to populate blades with HBA and NIC modules. "We are extremely pleased to partner with IBM to help extend the value of the BladeCenter's InfiniBand capabilities," said Russ Hawkins, CEO of SilverStorm Technologies. "The combination of InfiniBand switching and Virtual I/O gateway technology allows businesses in a broad range of industries to achieve new levels of price-performance." Specific price and availability of the new BladeCenter H InfiniBand Virtual I/O Gateway Modules were not announced. The combined solution is expected to be generally available later this year.