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InfiniBand-based product makers, fueled by the rollout of 10G-bps silicon and the support by top OEMs of the high-speed interconnect technology, continue to deliver new products. InfiniCon Systems Inc. last week unveiled an embedded InfiniBand fabric management tool, an entry-level switching system and a dual-port HCA designed to comply with PCI-X.
“Now, anyone with a PCI-X card can bring InfiniBand into their system,” said Charles Foley, CEO of InfiniCon, in King of Prussia, Pa. InfiniCons InfiniView Fabric Manager is a GUI-based application designed to give users a complete view of the InfiniBand fabric, Foley said. It tracks such jobs as device discovery and mapping, path management, and performance monitoring.
The InfinIO 2000 Switching System is a smaller version of the InfinIO 7000 system, introduced in September. While that system offered six to 60 10G-bps ports, the 2000 will offer up to eight ports. The switch is aimed at small and midsize companies running clustered servers, Foley said.
InfiniCons announcement follows vendors moves to bring InfiniBand into the low end. Late last month, Voltaire Inc. unveiled an InfiniBand starter kit for the high-performance computing space, with the hopes of giving users enough of a taste of the low-latency interconnect to entice them to buy into the technology.
Foley said InfiniCons new products feature a simplicity that will be attractive to users. “What you have here is a very plug-and-play fabric,” he said. “You put the card into the host, and you bring up the switch.”
The InfiniServ 7000 HCA (Host Channel Adapter) lets users connect PCI and PCI-X servers to an InfiniBand environment at 10G bps.
InfiniBand got help last year with the rollout of 10G-bps silicon and more support from IBM, Sun Microsystems Inc. and Dell Computer Corp.