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Traditional Ethernet-based interconnects do not offer the low latency and high bandwidth required by many HPC and Database cluster application customers. As a result, these customers must seek
innovative interconnect solutions that are flexible, provide superior price/performance, scalability and high availability. HP recognizes these needs and is committed to offering an array of quality
engineered interconnect solutions.
HP's newest era of high-performance network fabric interconnects is based on 4x InfiniBand™ technology. InfiniBand is an industry standard I/O interconnect architecture. HP's 4x Fabric solutions
provide high speed, low latency, point-to-point or switched fabric solutions optimized for server clusters. HP 4x Fabric products provide a leading edge interconnect for both HPC customers who want
to deploy high performance computing clusters for scientific and engineering applications, and for commercial customers who want to deploy highly available and scalable database clusters.
Clustered Applications will benefit from:
- Standards based InfiniBand Architecture Specification release 1.1 ensures consistency across the ecosystem
- High Performance, switched 10 Gbps & 20 Gbps interconnect with growth path up to 30Gbps
- Bidirectional bandwidth that delivers approximately 800MB/second
- Less than 5 microsecond latency
- Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) and OS bypass technologies that greatly reduce the memory copy overheads and associated CPU utilization
- Internet Protocol over InfiniBand (IPoIB) support, that allows IP applications to operate seamlessly over an InfiniBand network
- Interconnect Transport API (IT-API) support which provides a standard API to reduce porting efforts and costs associated with Middleware applications
- Message Passing Interface (MPI) - HP MPI provides developers of technical applications a standard API to support parallel message-passing applications that are efficient, portable and scalable.
Other features include
- Intelligent switch with embedded subnet management helps simplify network administrative and management tasks
- 24-port non-blocking 4x Fabric switch product, provides substantial aggregate bandwidth, in a 1U stackable package for maximum floor space efficiency
HP's High Availability & Database Cluster Fabric
Currently this solution offers the above standard features and benefits, as well as value-added enhancements to optimize database performance.
Support of Oracle today is IPoIB
- Cluster Interconnect HA enables transparent failover of reliable connections from one card to another which increases high availability by removing single points of failure
- Support for ServiceGuard for the greatest level of availability
Server Support
The HP 4x Fabric solutions discussed herein are currently supported on a variety of Integrity platforms running HP-UX 11i v2.
For Linux support, see the HPC Cluster Platform 6000 at http://www.hp.com/go/hptc
HP 4x Fabric Solutions Product Ordering
HP 4x Fabric products, based on InfinBand™ technology, consist of a 24-port switch, varying length cables and 2 Host Channel Adapters (HCA), including driver sw.
- The HP 4x Fabric adapter products (AD313A, AB286C & 410533-B21) are targeted at the cluster marketplace & at the market for high performance interconnected servers. These products provides
exceptional sustained performance for compute intensive tasks & for application that require low latency between servers.
- The following products comprise the HP 4x Fabric solutions for HP-UX environments:
| Product number |
Description |
| AB286C |
PCI-X 2-port 4X Fabric Adapter |
| AD313A |
PCIe 2-port 4x Fabric Adapter (requires PCIe slot) |
| 410533-B21 |
PCIe 1-port 4x Fabric Adapter (mezzanine form factor) |
| 376227-B21 |
HP 24-port 4x Fabric Copper Switch |
| 376232-B21 |
HP 1m 4x Fabric Copper Cable |
| 376232-B23 |
HP 5m 4x Fabric Copper Cable |
| AB353A |
HP 7m 4x Fabric Copper Cable |
| AB347A |
HP 10m 4x Fabric Copper Cable |
HP Certified Third Party Referenced Switches
As HPC applications often require a large number of nodes in a cluster, higher port-count InfiniBand™ technology based switches may be sought to ensure sufficient processing capacity.
HP has established a referenced relationship with Topspin1 & Voltaire1. HP customers can purchase the following switches and support directly from Topspin & Voltaire
respectively:
- 24 port SFS7000P Cisco reference SDR2 switch TS270 from Topspin Communicationns (now Cisco). This is configurable up to a 96 port SDR Infiniband Server Switch
- Voltaire Grid Director ISR 9288. This is configurable up to a 288 port SDR2 Infiniband Switch
Note:
1For more info see HP certified third-party hardware products at:
» http://h21007.www2.hp.com/dspp/tech/tech_TechSoftwareDetailPage_IDX/1,,991,00.html
2DDR reference switch coming in the near future.
For More Information
Please contact your local HP Sales Representative for more information, or visit our website at http://www.hp.com.
InfiniBand and InfiniBand design marks are the trademarks and/or servicemarks of the InfiniBand Trade Association.
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