Describing their overall product architecture as enabling a "Grid Backbone," Voltaire's product line combines to enable network administrators to design, deploy, and manage HPC data center clusters based on an InfiniBand infrastructure. The products in the line include HCAs that enable the servers in the cluster to connect to an InfiniBand fabric; core and edge InfiniBand switches that facilitate the InfiniBand interconnections between servers, users, and network/storage resources; and individual routers/modules that enable the interconnection of existing Ethernet or FC resources to the InfiniBand fabric, thereby making those resources available to the clustered servers on the InfiniBand backbone.

At the core of the product line is the vendor's GridVision Enterprise (GE) software; which is embedded within the Grid Director and Grid Switch switches (more below) and provides virtualization, automation, monitoring, and management capabilities for the InfiniBand grid. GE leverages an architecture wherein network elements (computer, network, and storage) and their topologies are represented as logical, object-base building blocks which can be gathered into logical data center environments. Application and deployment requirements can be specified to GE using "simple" high level terms; with the software then dynamically mapping the resources as necessary to fulfill the desired requirements. The software automatically discovers and monitors the servers, storage, and network elements of the grid; placing them all in a resource pool that can then be utilized by the dynamic provisioning engine as required to fulfill the user definitions. Failed resources can additionally be dynamically swapped by the software. GE is accessed via Web-services-based APIs (for integration with external applications), CLI, Web GUI, or SNMP.

Hardware components of the Voltaire product line include:

- HCAs for servers, facilitating server-to-InfiniBand grid connections. The Voltaire HCAs include dual or single port flavors in PCI Express or PCI/PCI-X form factors (with the former boasting a potential 2500 MB/sec throughput over 20Gb DDR 4X InfiniBand fabrics; and the latter listed at 800 MB/sec throughput). They include software drivers for Linux and Windows machines, as well as support multiple communication protocols including MPI, SDP, IPoIB, DAPL and iSER.

- Grid Director/Grid Switch switches: The core InfiniBand switches of the infrastructure. The Grid Director family is offered in three versions: The top of the line Grid Director ISR 2012, with up to 288 ports of 20 Gb/sec bandwidth; the Grid Director ISR 9288 with up to 288 ports of 10 Gb/sec bandwidth; and the Grid Director ISR 9096 with support for up to 96 InfiniBand 4X ports operating at 10 Gb/sec, 32 InfiniBand 12X (30 Gb/sec) ports or 48 Gig Ethernet or FC ports. The Grid Switch ISR 9024 is for edge deployments (or standalone in smaller HPC clusters; it includes the necessary software for stand alone management) and features a throughput of 960 Gb/sec over 24 10 Gb/sec ports in 1U.

- Enhancing or extending the capabilities of the switches is the IP Router module, a four port module that can be loaded into the Grid Director switches and that facilitates Ethernet to InfiniBand connections (its four 1000BASE-SX SFP--copper and optical--ports enable existing Ethernet-based LAN connections to interact with the InfiniBand fabric); and the new SR4G router, which enables interconnectivity between FC SANs and the InfiniBand fabric. The SR4G includes four 4 Gb/sec FC ports and dual 10/20 Gb/sec InfiniBand ports; and includes built-in Java-based management tools enabling, among other capabilities, the ability to deliver virtually managed FC storage resources to the InfiniBand fabric via either iSCSI (FC LUNs can be mapped directly to iSCSI IDs) or iSER (iSCSI Extensions for RDMA). Virtualization features of the router include the ability to aggregate physical devices into logical storage pools; individual physical devices can be split up into multiple virtual devices, or multiple physical devices can be logically joined into a single virtual entity. Up to 1,024 virtual devices can be managed per storage router, with up to 2 TB available per virtual disk.

The Voltaire product line, including the new SR4G router, is available now. Visit the Voltaire Web site for further information.

product submission by EITPlanet Staff

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