Rorke Data, Mellanox announce InfiniBand initiative

Rorke Data today announced at Storage Networking World that its new Galaxy Aurora IB InfiniBand RAID storage solution will leverage Mellanox Technologies, Ltd.'s ConnectX 20Gb/s InfiniBand Host Channel topology. With an MSRP starting at less than two dollars per gigabyte of storage, the Galaxy Aurora IB uniquely integrates Seagate Enterprise-class SAS drives with Mellanox HCAs to deliver high-performance capability of over 1,700 MB per second. This performance capability makes it the most cost-effective solution available for a diverse range of markets such as HPC, Enterprise Data Centers, Satellite/Seismic Imaging and High-Resolution Content Creation. "Rorke Data is setting a new standard in price and performance for InfiniBand-based storage solutions. Galaxy Aurora IB will enable wider adoption of InfiniBand by introducing a solution in line with SMB and departmental budgets," said Joe Swanson, president of Rorke Data. "Galaxy Aurora IB is our highest performance product and -- with the addition of Mellanox's ConnectX adapter -- it delivers breakthrough low cost of ownership with the industry-leading performance of InfiniBand network topology." Mellanox's ConnectX 20Gb/s and 40Gb/s InfiniBand adapter cards deliver low latency and high bandwidth for performance-driven server and storage clustering applications. Clustered data bases, parallelized applications, transactional services, and high-performance I/O applications will achieve significant performance improvements with InfiniBand I/O technology, resulting in reduced completion time and lower cost per operation. "Rorke Data is a well-known provider of high-performance storage systems, and we are proud that they have chosen the speed, simplicity and cost savings of InfiniBand for their top-of-the-line storage server," said Gilad Shainer, director of technical marketing at Mellanox Technologies. "Mellanox's ConnectX 20Gb/s InfiniBand adapters help the Galaxy Aurora IB provide superior application performance at a SMB price point." A unified InfiniBand cluster for computing and storage achieves significant cost-performance advantages over multi-fabric networks. Standard block and file access protocols leveraging InfiniBand RDMA result in high-performance storage access. Data reliability is improved through the use of T10-compliant Data Integrity Field (DIF). Fibre Channel (FC) over InfiniBand (FCoIB) features enable the use of cost-effective bridges for connecting to FC SANs. InfiniBand's high bandwidth, low latency, dedicated I/O channels, QoS, and RDMA features can lower capital expenses and operating costs -- making it an excellent choice for storage and fabric consolidation. Available with a complete suite of service deliverables including onsite installation and 24 x 7 support, Galaxy's RAID and NAS storage solutions can be purchased at www.rorke.com and also through Bell Microproducts. Please visit its Web site or call 1-800-800-1513 for more information.