RLX Technologies Inc. is partnering with Topspin Communications Inc. to make high-end RLX blade servers InfiniBand-ready by building the capabilities into the chassis.
Topspin, of Mountain View, Calif., will adapt its InfiniBand hardware and software to work with RLXs blade server architecture. Included in the package will be InfiniBand host channel adapters and software, switches, and gateways from Topspin, thus enabling InfiniBand-to-Ethernet and InfiniBand-to-Fibre Channel connectivity. This way, RLX will be able to connect its blade servers to legacy LANs and storage area networks.
RLX, of The Woodlands, Texas, will be able to offer InfiniBand connectivity in its dual-Xeon ServerBlade 2800i system, introduced in February, and its 3000i server, rolled out in June, officials said. Both systems are 10.5 inches high and offer 10 servers per chassis.
Monty McGraw, chief architect for RLX, said the company has been hearing demands from high-performance computing customers for InfiniBand connectivity. The keys for these users—which are primarily research and government institutions—are the low latency, high speed and low cost offered by InfiniBand, McGraw said.
However, at the same time, enterprises are beginning to demand the same performance and cost gains in their data centers, McGraw said.
InfiniBand is a channel-based, switched-fabric architecture used to connect servers with one another or with other networks.
The serial interconnect has reached data transfer speeds of 10G bps, and the specification for 30G bps has been rolled out.