The industry's first switch that supports InfiniBand connection
technology, which is aimed at reducing the complexity of server
clustering and increasing I/O throughput speeds, began shipping on
Friday.
InfiniCon Systems' InfinIO 7000 Shared I/O System is a 10Gbit/sec.
switch that allows servers to communicate directly with one
another. The switch is aimed at reducing external connections in
high-availability server clusters by up to half.
"The shared I/O focus is a good way to encourage the market to
start [using InfiniBand]," said Arun Taneja, an analyst at
Enterprise Storage Group. "The question is, are enough pieces in
place?"
Complete InfiniBand architectures would include switches, host bus
adapters (HBA) and software. Vendors working on InfiniBand software
due for release early next year include VIEO and Lane15 Software.
HBA vendors such as JNI and Mellanox Technologies also have
products in the pipeline.
The InfinIO 7000 switch lets servers connect into a single
high-speed InfiniBand link and integrate with existing Fibre
Channel and Ethernet networks. InfiniCon chief executive officer
Chuck Foley said the switch removes the need for Fibre Channel HBAs
and Ethernet network interface cards.
InfinIO consists of dual 10Gbit/sec. InfiniBand 4X switch modules
and up to eight plug-and-play I/O modules supporting Gigabit
Ethernet, 2Gbit Fibre Channel and 10Gbit InfiniBand expansion
cards. Chassis slots can be populated with any mix of the modules
and hot-swapped as needed. List prices for the switch run from
$26,740 (£17,000) to $84,320 (£54,000).
Intel and Microsoft recently announced that they were stopping
development work related to the emerging server I/O technology.
Intel dropped its plans for InfiniBand-related chips in May, while
Microsoft last month said it no longer plans to build InfiniBand
management capabilities into the upcoming Windows .net Server 2003
operating system.
But Taneja said he was till confident that InfiniBand would become
a data centre fixture within the next couple years. Dell, IBM and
Sun Microsystems are still solidly behind InfiniBand, he noted,
adding, "Those are the players who are going to make InfiniBand a
volume technology."