OIL & GAS

Topspin Communications today announced that Fitch Ratings, a leading global rating agency committed to providing the world's credit markets with accurate, timely and prospective credit opinions, has deployed Topspin's server switching solution as a key component of its high-performance Oracle 10G database grid. Fitch Ratings deployed Topspin 90 InfiniBand-based Server Switches last fall to seamlessly interconnect its database servers into the high-performance, mission-critical grid. Topspin's unique combination of high performance server clustering, and I/O virtualization provides Fitch Ratings with better performance and much lower costs for its Oracle 10G database. Each Topspin 90 server switch offers twelve 10Gbps InfiniBand ports plus an I/O slot for Topspin's InfiniBand-to-Fibre Channel or InfiniBand-to-Ethernet gateway. The Topspin 90 solution allows Fitch to leverage a single 10Gbps InfiniBand "fat pipe" to each server for server-to-server, server-to-storage, and server-to-client traffic. This provides a tremendous performance boost within the database cluster and allows for substantial cost savings by eliminating the need for parallel network adapters and connections for each server. "We were looking for an intelligent, standard-based fabric to accelerate our database server speed to significantly reduce system response times," said Coert Oosterom, director database systems, Fitch Ratings. "We chose Topspin because they have a complete, high-performance, scalable InfiniBand solution that enables us to realize the full potential of our existing distributed database -- and, as an added bonus, we are now able to reduce costs and simplify our topology with Topspin's I/O virtualization technology." "We're pleased to be selected by a financial industry leader like Fitch Ratings," said Stu Aaron, vice president of marketing and product management at Topspin. "Topspin provides a server switching solution that enables customers to blend superior performance with significant cost reductions -- characteristics that are of utmost importance for all of our financial services customers."