Since the inception of specification development, Intel has played a leading role in the InfiniBand industry.
From helping to guide the standards bodies that enable InfiniBand architecture to become a reality, to working with the industry on software stack development, Intel is committed to ensuring successful, industry-wide adoption of InfiniBand architecture. With leading Intel server customers offering both Intel® Xeon™ and Intel® Itanium® processor based platforms featuring InfiniBand connectivity for the HPC and data center market segments, Intel will continue to work with the industry to ensure that InfiniBand architecture performance capability runs best on Intel® architecture platforms.
Initially, InfiniBand Technology will be used to connect servers with remote storage and networking devices, and other servers. It will also be used inside servers for inter-processor communication (IPC) in parallel clusters. Customers requiring dense server deployments, such as ISPs, will also benefit from the small form factors being proposed. Other benefits include greater performance, lower latency, easier and faster sharing of data, built in security and quality of service, improved usability (the new form factor will be far easier to add/remove/upgrade than today's shared-bus I/O cards).
Additionally, InfiniBand Architecture reduces total cost of ownership by focusing on data center reliability and scalability. The technology addresses reliability by creating multiple redundant paths between nodes (reducing hardware that needs to be purchased). It also moves from the load-and-store-based communications methods used by shared local bus I/O to a more reliable message passing approach.
Scalability needs are addressed in two ways. First, the I/O fabric itself is designed to scale without encountering the latencies that some shared bus I/O architectures experience as workload increases. Second, the physical modularity of InfiniBand Technology will avoid the need for customers to buy excess capacity up-front in anticipation of future growth. Instead, they will be able to buy what they need at the outset and "pay as they grow" to add capacity without impacting operations or installed systems.
The InfiniBand* Trade Association is dedicated to developing a new common I/O specification to deliver a channel based, switched fabric technology that the entire industry can adopt. InfiniBand Architecture represents a new approach to I/O technology and is based on the collective research, knowledge, and experience of the industry's leaders.
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