Voltaire Introduces New, Higher Performance I/O Virtualization Products for InfiniBand Fabrics

Voltaire Introduces New, Higher Performance I/O Virtualization Products for InfiniBand Fabrics

Next Generation FC and IP Routers for High Performance Storage Connectivity and First Customer Tested Network Boot Solution Bring New Levels of Manageability to Large Clusters and Grids

BEDFORD, Mass. - June 28, 2004 Voltaire, a leading provider of interconnect solutions for high performance grid computing, today introduced its next generation Fibre Channel and IP routers and the industry's first true network boot solution that offer high performance I/O and resource virtualization for large InfiniBand clusters and grids. The products, which feature new enterprise-class security, traffic manipulation, and management capabilities, integrate with Voltaire's InfiniBand switches to deliver even greater performance and manageability to large scale clusters and grids.

Voltaire's I/O virtualization products integrate with Voltaire's ISR 9288 and ISR 6000 switches to enable a variety of storage solutions for large scale HPC clusters and enterprise grids. Using the I/O virtualization routers in combination with Voltaire's InfiniBand switches allow all of a cluster's storage file I/O, block I/O and networking traffic to be carried over high performance InfiniBand links resulting in one high performance, easy-to-manage shared network. The result is that all of the server, storage and networking resources appear as shared pools of resources thereby improving resource utilization: the foundation of grid and on demand computing.

"Scalable storage solutions are critical for building supercomputer-class clusters and enterprise grids," said Arun Jain, vice president of marketing, Voltaire. "Voltaire's new I/O virtualization products address the 'storage gap' that exists in today's HPC clusters and data grids and simplifies the process of virtualizing server, network, and storage resources. Moreover, Voltaire's use of the iSCSI RDMA (iSER) protocol enables us to offer many new high availability, security and resource management capabilities that are critical to enterprise customers."

Voltaire Fibre Channel Router

Voltaire Fibre Channel Routers centralize SAN connectivity for InfiniBand-enabled servers. The servers access the SAN using 10Gb InfiniBand links, which the Voltaire FC Router seamlessly converts to Fibre Channel traffic. This eliminates the need for FC HBA adapters while also providing higher throughput for the connection to existing FC SANs. Two key differentiators for the Voltaire Fibre Channel Router are its use of the iSCSI RDMA (iSER) protocol which enables the router to leverage the capabilities inherent in iSCSI without sacrificing any performance, and its advanced virtualization functionality which extends beyond I/O (port) virtualization to include volume management and snapshots.

The latest version of the Voltaire Fibre Channel Router offers customers new enterprise-class features including:
Management and Security - using iSNS, SLP and CHAP authentication,
High Availability and Load Balancing - through iSCSI MC/S, multipathing and APM support, and
Virtualization and Data Protection - including volume management, snapshots, mirroring and replication capabilities through the integration of StoreAge SVM agents within the router.
Voltaire IP Router

The Voltaire IP Router enables HPC and enterprise-class network applications to maximize the performance and efficiency of InfiniBand server clusters and TCP/IP networks. This connectivity is particularly important for connecting compute clusters and IP-based NAS storage. The latest version of the Voltaire IP router features 4 GbE ports at line rate and is the only true layer 4 InfiniBand-to-IP device in the market today. Other new features include:

Improved performance - the Voltaire IP Router uses new, third-generation pipelined silicon with a 10 GbE layer 4 architecture and improved TCP termination engine for optimal performance,
Extensive virtualization and traffic management capabilities - these enable security, partitioning, server and network virtualization, and deep traffic monitoring in wire speed to provide the level of functionality needed for grid and utility computing, and
Multi router clustering and aggregation enabling greater scalability with easy administration.

Voltaire IBNetBoot: The First Network Boot Solution for Diskless InfiniBand Clusters

Voltaire IBNetBoot is the industry's first network boot solution for diskless InfiniBand clusters. Voltaire IBNetBoot provides a pre-boot execution environment (PXE) that can load an image over the InfiniBand network from a central location using TFTP and IPoIB protocols and execute the content of the image. Unlike solutions that use a disk emulation boot architecture, Voltaire's solution enables users to run diskless stations, perform pre-boot remote diagnostics and conduct maintenance tasks using standard tools such as OSCAR, ROCKS and other commercial applications. Moreover, IBNetBoot offers customers the flexibility to boot off any type of storage: FC SAN, IP NAS or from a server within the InfiniBand cluster. Using Voltaire IBNetBoot, customers can easily move to diskless environments to reduce deployment time and cluster operating expenses.

Since late 2003, the ERC at Mississippi State University (MSU) has been using PXE-based network boot for its 192-node diskless IBM server that uses Voltaire InfiniBand for the cluster interconnect. MSU chose a diskless configuration to achieve the greatest compute power for the least cost, to reduce hard drive failures and reduce heat and power consumption.

"Going diskless has significantly improved server re-provisioning time for our Top500 "Maverick" cluster," said Roger Smith, senior systems administrator, Mississippi State University ERC. "Voltaire's solution for network boot over InfiniBand is compelling because it adds even greater simplicity to diskless InfiniBand clusters by eliminating the need for a parallel boot network. Moreover, the addition of diagnostic capabilities and fast time-to-boot streamlines cluster management."

The Voltaire Fibre Channel Router is available immediately. The Voltaire IP Router and Voltaire IBNetBoot will be available in August.

About Voltaire

Voltaire is a leading provider of high performance InfiniBand solutions for enterprise data centers and HPC environments. Voltaire's InfiniBand solutions deliver significant return on investment to the data center by improving the performance and utilization of clustered databases, shared servers and storage. For HPC customers, Voltaire leads the industry with the largest InfiniBand Trade Association-certified switch to support clusters scaling from hundreds to thousands of nodes. With business headquarters near Boston, Massachusetts, Voltaire is certified by the IBTA's Integrator's List. More information about Voltaire is available at www.voltaire.com or by calling 1-800-865-8247.