Mellanox
Technologies is to collaborate with Novell to build an integrated
system that delivers Xen 3.0.2 virtualisation in conjunction with
Mellanox's 20gbps InfiniBand fabric solutions on top of Novell's
SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 platform.
The two companies
feel that datacentre designers that cannot compromise on latency
delays in their applications, and want to consolidate I/O will find
the proposition very compelling. They add that the system will
offer better control over the network fabric and a strong
foundation to deploy Xen virtualisation for large, multi-node
clusters.
Also, in order to
improve server utilisation and create a flexible and responsive
datacentre, the companies will be using InfiniBand software from
OpenFabrics.org to add support for InfiniBand-based I/O
virtualisation.
The Xen hypervisor
offers the ability to ensure service levels by guaranteeing guests
committed fractions of the total CPU processing power. I/O channel
capabilities supported in Mellanox InfiniBand adapters extend the
same service level guarantees to the I/O pipe.
The Xen hypervisor
can also migrate live workloads from one physical server to
another. The two companies say that by using high-performance RDMA
technologies, such workloads can be migrated much faster, reducing
CPU utilisation and service downtimes significantly.
Thad Omura,
vice-president of product marketing at Mellanox, says "Novell's
initiatives to optimise Xen hypervisor technologies over
InfiniBand, and then bring those technologies to market, will
deliver a robust platform for applications in areas such as
financial datacentres that demand maximum price-performance
benefits."