2. What it is
InfiniBand is a switched fabric communications link used in
high-performance computing and enterprise data centers. Its
features include high throughput, low latency,quality of service
and failover, and it is designed to bescalable. The InfiniBand
architecture specification defines a connection between
processor nodes and high performance I/O nodes such as
storage devices.
3. History
InfiniBand originated from the 1999 merger of two competing
designs:
Future I/O, developed by Compaq, IBM, and Hewlett-
Packard
Next Generation I/O (ngio), developed
by Intel, Microsoft, and Sun
Infiniband Trade Association maintains the specification
of both.
4. Basic Features
• High speed, low latency data transport
• Bidirectional serial bus
• Switched fabric topology
• Several devices communicate at once
• Data transferred in packets that together form messages
• Messages are direct memory access, channel
send/receive, or mulitcast
• Host Channnel Adapters (HCAs) are deployed on PCI cards
5. Overview
Layered Protocol
- Physical
- Link, Network
- Transport
- Upper Layers
Packet Based Communication
Quality of Service
Three Link Speeds
- 1X - 2.5 Gb/s, 4 wire
- 4X - 10 Gb/s, 16 wire
- 2X - 30 Gb/s, 48 wire
6. PCB, Copper and Fiber Cable Interconnect
Remote DMA Support
Multicast and Unicast Support
Reliable Transport Methods - Message Queuing
Communication Flow Control - Link Level and End to End
8. Role of InfiBand
InfiBand is ideally suited as the interconnect technology for
Access Layer and Storage components
Application and Back End IPC applications,
for connectivity between Application and Back End layers,
and from Back End to Storage Layers.
