HP Suits Up Proliant Servers With Infiniband

Hewlett-Packard this month rolled out its first HP ProLiant servers with integrated Infiniband I/O technology onboard.

The 10-Gbit, 24-port Infiniband couplings are being OEMed into the ProLiant servers by Topspin Communications, Mountain View, Calif.

Topspin also provides interoperable Infiniband I/O for HP's Integrity and HP 9000 server lines, but the ProLiant arrangement is the first integrated product from the two vendors, said John Gromala, marketing manager for the networking group at HP, Palo Alto, Calif.

"Having a single Infiniband switch that can be used across all three server lines [ProLiant, Integrity and HP 9000] allows more streamlining and efficiency for resellers," said Gromala.

Customers might be more likely to adopt Infiniband if the I/O is integrated into a well-known, name-brand server, instead of riding along as a separate, third-party add-on, said Ron Ringel, president of T2 Technologies, a Saline, Mich., solution provider.With Detroit just down the road, T2 counts among its customers many of the nation's auto manufacturers, companies that run large computing clusters for engineering and structural analysis, said Ringel. The compute-intensive needs of these customers make Infiniband-enabled servers ideal, but these same customers can be wary of lesser-known third-party add-on products, he added.

"Many of our customers are building bigger clusters, and Infiniband helps because without it there can be a bottleneck once you get past eight nodes," Ringel said. "But with some of these customers, you have to be careful introducing third-party products."

The new Infiniband-enabled ProLiant servers are aimed squarely at the market for high-end commercial and database applications, said HP's Gromala.

However, even with Topspin's Infiniband I/O integrated directly in the chassis of the new ProLiant servers, some VARs—such as MTM Technologies, an HP partner based in New York—maintain a policy of protecting customers from the potential risks of early adoption, said Howard Cohen, senior vice president of business development at MTM.

Cohen said that even though MTM is an HP partner, the company doesn't recommend Infiniband to its customers. "We try and make sure that any tech-nology we offer is proven over time," he said.0