Voltaire Delivers Next Generation Director-Class Switching Platform for High-Performance Grid Computing

New 20 Gbps Multi-Service Solution Provides Industry’s Highest Performance with Enterprise-Class Reliability

BILLERICA, Mass. - June 11, 2007 - Voltaire, a leading provider of grid backbone solutions, today introduced the Grid Director™ ISR 2012, a new director-class switching platform for high-performance grid computing in the data center. With a powerful next generation 20 Gbps design, it is ideal for large, scale-out architectures and addresses many of the critical pain points of today’s data centers including inefficiencies from increasing server I/O bottlenecks, added complexity created by the use of multiple networks for servers, storage and LANs, and rising energy and data center real-estate costs.

The Grid Director ISR 2012 features up to 288 ports of full 20 Gbps InfiniBand connectivity and microsecond latencies to enable high-performance applications to run on distributed server, network and storage resources. The switch provides reliable packet delivery with ultra low error rates that ensure jobs run to completion and eliminates performance-robbing packet drops, retransmissions and fabric downtime. The superior signal quality enables the use of longer cables and the power-efficient design offers lower power and cooling requirements as compared to 10 Gigabit Ethernet offerings.

"Innovative solutions such as the Grid Director ISR 2012 that are based on 20 Gbps InfiniBand
will continue to push 10 GigE to the edge of the data center," said Patrick Guay, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Voltaire. "By providing customers with leading edge cost/performance, low error rates, low power and the ability to scale, Voltaire offers the ideal solution for high performance grid computing environments."

Eliminating the Server I/O Bottleneck and Reducing Complexity
With the trend towards multi-socket, multi-core environments, server I/O has become a major bottleneck. The Grid Director ISR 2012 eliminates this imbalance by providing servers with a 20 Gbps InfiniBand fabric with application latencies as low as 1.2 microseconds. The Grid Director ISR 2012 also reduces complexity by creating a unified fabric for the data center with seamless connectivity between InfiniBand, Ethernet and Fibre Channel. Customers can now use a single switch and no longer need to invest in three separate network technologies with multiple network adapters to operate a data center fabric. In addition, the Grid Director ISR 2012 is integrated with Voltaire GridVision™ software, the industry’s most advanced fabric management software, enabling plug and play deployment and simpler fabric monitoring and provisioning.

Low Error Rates for Performance, Reliability and Ease of Deployment
The Grid Director ISR 2012 is qualified to have a bit error rate (BER) of 1E-16, which is exponentially better than the industry specified BER standard of 1E -12 and far more reliable than competitive offerings. With its excellent signal integrity, the Grid Director ISR 2012 supports copper InfiniBand cables up to 14 meters and optical InfiniBand cables up to 100 meters running at 20 Gbps speed, extending the reach of high-performance computing systems and increasing data center scalability. This becomes increasingly important as grids and clusters scale and require more space in the data center requiring longer cable reaches.

"With the ability to support longer cable lengths, Voltaire's new Grid Director ISR 2012 can provide IT managers additional flexibility to how they setup and connect their 20Gb/s DDR InfiniBand clusters," said Thad Omura, vice president of product marketing at Mellanox Technologies. "We applaud Voltaire’s ‘DDR by design’ approach to architecting this new 288-port switch and we are happy to see this sought-after system come to market."

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories (LLNL) has deployed the Grid Director ISR 2012 as part of a large-scale computing system dedicated to scientific research. LLNL is a US Department of Energy (DOE)/National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) national security laboratory managed by the University of California. Simulations using high performance computing are a cornerstone of NNSA’s program to ensure the safety, security and reliability of the nation’s nuclear deterrent without underground testing as well as critical to DOE research missions in energy, bioscience and climate change.

"A high port count switch with high signal quality and support for longer cables enables us to deploy more powerful Linux clusters than was previously possible. This allows us to meet the fast growing Laboratory’s National Security Mission computing requirements,” said Mark Seager, ICCD ADH for Advanced Technology, LLNL. “High signal quality and reliable packet delivery also makes the deployment of a clean fabric on a large system easier lowering the time it takes to deploy multiple Linux clusters of differing sizes based on our ‘Scalable Unit’ design. This lowers our overall total cost of ownership."

More Energy Efficient Than 10 GigE
The Voltaire Grid Director ISR 2012 provides an energy efficient solution for improving data center efficiency by increasing application performance. Data centers can deliver the same or better results with fewer servers connected to the Grid Director ISR 2012. The switch’s energy efficient design consumes less than one-tenth of the power consumed by alternative 10 GbE-based solutions. By utilizing less power per packet and generating less heat per gigabit, customers can gain more computing power at lower costs for a greener and more efficient data center.

Availability
The Voltaire Grid Director ISR 2012 is available today through select channel partners and integrators.

About Voltaire
Voltaire is a leading provider of server and storage switching and software solutions that enable high-performance grid computing within the data center. Voltaire’s integrated family of switching hardware and network virtualization software delivers the high-performance, intelligent backbone for grid computing. Leveraging the InfiniBand grid computing interconnect architecture, Voltaire solutions offer improved performance, utilization and scalability for its customers’ high-performance grid computing needs. Voltaire solutions are available from major systems vendors and integrators. More information about Voltaire is available at www.voltaire.com or by calling 1-800-865-8247.

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Contact:
Christy Lynch
Voltaire
(978) 439-5407
christyl@voltaire.com