InfiniBand Volume 1, Release 1.3 increases scalability and management for the world’s fastest supercomputers and data centers
Sunnyvale, CA – March 10, 2015 – The InfiniBand® Trade Association (IBTA), a global organization dedicated to maintaining and furthering the InfiniBand™ Architecture, today announced the public availability of Release 1.3 of Volume 1 of the InfiniBand Architecture Specification. The new release defines new capabilities that will enable computer systems to keep up with the requirements for increased scalability and bandwidth, along with high computing efficiency and high availability for both high performance computing and commercial enterprise data centers.
Volume 1 of the InfiniBand specification suite comprises the core of the InfiniBand Architecture, specifying requirements for InfiniBand switches, routers, host channel adapters and target channel adapters for I/O devices. It also specifies a complete architecture for managing an InfiniBand fabric. Its companion, Volume 2, specifies the physical aspects of the architecture.
New capabilities in release 1.3 of the Volume 1 InfiniBand Architecture Specification present several improvements in terms of scalability and management. Deeper visibility into switch hierarchy and improved diagnostic mechanisms for quicker response time and a smaller impact on the network overall will reduce the complexity of installing, optimizing and maintaining very large clusters. The specification also defines the gathering and reporting of cable information and network statistics for improved network management.
“Interconnect technologies must keep pace with the increasing size and complexity of compute clusters,” said Rupert Dance, editor of the specification. “With high performance compute clusters and data centers becoming larger and more powerful, the newest release of Volume 1 presents a standardized platform for networking equipment that will support the industry’s push towards Exascale.”
More than 100 representatives from over 60 technology companies within the IBTA contributed to the new specification. Volume 1 Release 1.3 is available for public download from the IBTA website.
About the InfiniBand® Trade Association
The InfiniBand® Trade Association was founded in 1999 and is chartered with maintaining and furthering the InfiniBand specification. The IBTA is led by a distinguished steering committee that includes Cray, Emulex, HP, IBM, Intel, Mellanox Technologies, Microsoft, Oracle, and QLogic. Other members of the IBTA represent leading enterprise IT vendors who are actively contributing to the advancement of the InfiniBand specification. The IBTA markets and promotes InfiniBand from an industry perspective through online, marketing and public relations engagements, and unites the industry through IBTA-sponsored technical events and resources. For more information on the IBTA, visit www.infinibandta.org.
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