GOVERNMENT

IBM and Topspin Communications announced a multi-year agreement to integrate advanced Topspin InfiniBand switch technology on IBM systems, and resell Topspin InfiniBand switches to customers worldwide. The five-year agreement gives IBM access to current and future versions of Topspin's industry-leading server switches and software for use across the IBM eServer and TotalStorage product line. InfiniBand is a server interconnect and I/O technology designed to address the needs of computing platforms for increased performance, higher scalability, and improved manageability. As an open industry standard, InfiniBand is capable of remaking mainstream business computing by unleashing these capabilities and delivering on the promise of a single, unifying I/O fabric for the data center. "With this announcement, IBM has placed a major stake in the ground in its commitment to InfiniBand," said Mark Shearer, vice president of marketing and strategy, IBM Systems Group. "As the only industry-standard interconnect today with scalability up to 30Gbps, and remote direct memory access (RDMA), we are convinced that this technology will dramatically improve and simplify the way servers communicate. Working with Topspin, our plan is to make InfiniBand a base technology for all IBM eServer systems and storage, and the underlying fabric for future initiatives around on-demand computing." A number of joint IBM and Topspin customers are already benefiting from the relationship, including MCNC Grid Computing & Networking Services - a private, non-profit corporation established in 1980 to advance technology-led economic development and job creation throughout North Carolina. MCNC Grid Computing & Networking Services delivers advanced communications resources through a statewide network for research and education. "MCNC is very pleased to be working with Topspin and IBM in building out our 64-node cluster. Our initial performance data indicates significant improvement using Topspin's Server Switch, much faster than Gig-E and most proprietary interconnects. Especially key is the low latency and high bandwidth that the solution delivers. We look forward to working with Topspin and IBM on future deployments at MCNC," said Steve Woods, principal systems analyst with MCNC Grid Computing & Networking services. Under terms of the agreement, IBM has the right to resell Topspin's current and future generation 4X (10Gbps) and 12X (30Gbps) Server Switch portfolio for the high-performance computing and database clustering markets for use with IBM eServer pSeries, zSeries, iSeries, and xSeries systems. Topspin products are currently completing IBM Server Proven certification and have already been IBM TotalStorage Proven and validated for sale with IBM DB2 Universal Database on xSeries servers. Combined IBM and Topspin solutions will be on display in both the IBM booth (#523) and Topspin booth (#639) at LinuxWorld, New York City, January 21-23. "Our customers are seeing immediate and compelling benefits from our server switch products today," said Krish Ramakrishnan, CEO, Topspin. "By establishing this relationship with IBM, an even wider range of enterprises will be able to profit from our solutions in their scale-out, blade server, and on-de mand computing initiatives."