ACADEMIA

QLogic InfiniPath InfiniBand Adapters To Support OpenFabrics Enterprise Distribution 1.0 -- Support of the Open Fabrics Software Stack Helps Enterprises Leverage the Benefits of InfiniBand -- QLogic, the leader in Fibre Channel host bus adapters (HBAs), stackable switches and blade server switches, today announced that its InfiniPath InfiniBand Interconnect will support the newly released OpenFabrics Enterprise Distribution (OFED) 1.0 for Linux-based data center fabrics. OFED 1.0 is the first enterprise version of the open source software stack, providing users with a standardized, fully tested and robust tool to develop RDMA-capable datacenter fabrics. By ensuring OFED compliance of its InfiniPath InfiniBand Interconnect, QLogic enables enterprises to leverage the industry’s highest performing cluster interconnect for the most challenging computational tasks in their corporate data centers–without risk to their software investments. QLogic also announced the immediate availability of version 1.3 of the InfiniPath software stack, providing up to 33 percent higher performance on most MPI applications. “Users of high performance cluster computers in science and engineering organizations are already taking advantage of the cost and performance benefits of the InfiniPath InfiniBand interconnect,” said Scott Metcalf, general manager, Systems Interconnect Group at QLogic. “As an OpenFabrics Alliance member and OFED contributor, we fully support OFED 1.0 as a single, multi-vendor supported software stack, which will now help enterprises realize the same benefits.” Key to the tremendous performance advantage of the QLogic InfiniPath InfiniBand Interconnect is its unique HyperMessaging Architecture, which delivers the highest message rate and highest effective bandwidth of any cluster interconnect available. It allows InfiniPath to support more than 10 million messages per second, which is dramatically higher than the message rate of any other cluster interconnect. The InfiniPath InfiniBand interconnect supports both PCI–Express and HyperTransport HTX interfaces for connecting into an AMD or Intel-based server platform. The OpenFabrics Alliance provides tools, communications and resources for vendors and developers to create and share software stacks for RDMA-capable datacenter fabrics. Current members of the industry consortium include more than 25 suppliers of networking equipment, server and storage silicon, and research institutions. All members support the development, distribution and maintenance of robust software stacks for enterprise datacenter fabrics and high-performance computer clusters that leverage InfiniBand’s and iWARP’s RDMA and hardware transport architecture. The 1.3 version of the InfiniPath InfiniBand software stack and drivers is now available for download directly from the QLogic web site. This newest release delivers up to 33 percent higher effective bandwidth on typical MPI applications. It is available for free to all existing InfiniPath InfiniBand customers and partners.