InfiniBand™ is an industry-standard specification that defines an input/output architecture used to interconnect servers, communications infrastructure equipment, storage and embedded systems. InfiniBand is a true fabric architecture that leverages switched, point-to-point channels with data transfers today at up to 120 gigabits per second, both in chassis backplane applications as well as through external copper and optical fiber connections.
InfiniBand™ has a robust roadmap defining increasing speeds through 2011 and 40 Gb/s InfiniBand™ products are shipping today. The roadmap shows projected increased market demand for InfiniBand™ 1x EDR, 4x EDR, 8x EDR and 12x EDR beyond 2011, which translates to bandwidths nearing 1,000 Gb's in the next three years.
InfiniBand is a pervasive, low-latency, high-bandwidth interconnect which requires low processing overhead and is ideal to carry multiple traffic types (clustering, communications, storage, management) over a single connection. As a mature and field-proven technology, InfiniBand is used in thousands of data centers, high-performance compute clusters and embedded applications that scale from two nodes up to a single cluster that interconnect thousands of nodes.