Suppliers Push Unified Fabrics Based on InfiniBand

A growing roster of suppliers aims to reduce data center complexity by converting protocols across data management and storage networks. And some are touting InfiniBand as a key element in the strategy to achieve a "unified fabric."

Voltaire, for instance, today unveiled a device called the SR4G High Performance Storage Router that links SANs and InfiniBand networks. The rackmount unit comes with four 1-, 2-, or 4-Gbit/s autosensing Fibre Channel interfaces. It converts these to run on two InfiniBand ports by adding iSCSI extensions for the RDMA (Remote Direct Memory Access) protocol. Storage traffic then runs to hosts on a 20-Gbit/s InfiniBand network based on Voltaire switches.

Voltaire says the SR4G will ship in January 2008 for a list price of $33,000. Some OEMs are testing it and it's in several user beta sites as well, Voltaire claims.

"We have been in the process of certifying the product with two large storage vendors," says Asaf Somekh, Voltaire's vice president of strategic alliances. No names, but the exec says he's confident that some of Voltaire's server OEMs, which include HP, IBM, and Sun, will deploy the ISR.

Voltaire claims that by replacing multiple HBAs in enterprise servers with a single InfiniBand HCA and the SR4G, IT pros can reduce hardware costs and streamline I/O across server/storage networks.Why InfiniBand? Because it's there, proponents say. Until something better comes along, InfiniBand can provide a high-speed link for servers and storage -- at least locally -- that enables the two networks to share I/O and cut down on multiple iterations of hardware as data needs grow.

"There is a lot of activity in the industry right now around FCoE and converged Ethernet fabrics, but these solutions are still a few years away from being production-ready," says Arun Taneja of the Taneja Group in a prepared statement from Voltaire.

But who really needs this kind of connectivity? Voltaire denies that the need to link storage with higher-speed server networks is a demand only presented by high performance computing (HPC) sites. "Demand is mostly from the enterprise," insists Voltaire spokesperson Christy Lynch in an email to Byte and Switch "The solution is great for customers that need fast access to storage in the financial services, oil and gas, and media and entertainment industries."

QLogic presently offers a blade for its SilverStorm 9000 Multi-protocol Fabric Director that routes InfiniBand to Fibre Channel and Ethernet. Cited by Voltaire as a leading competitor, QLogic views demand for InfiniBand-based unified fabrics as building, but not quite visible yet. "We're seeing HPC users maniacally focused on the performance of compute clusters," says Frank Berry, QLogic VP of marketing. Once these same HPCers start to focus on storage again, he says, they're going to need and demand unified fabrics.

Cisco also is on board with InfiniBand as a unifying fabric. The Cisco SFS 3000 Series Multifabric Server switches combine InfiniBand interconnect for servers with Ethernet and Fibre Channel gateways. According to Cisco, the setup "allows an entire fabric of servers to share virtualized pools of I/O and storage resources connected through Ethernet or Fibre Channel switches such as Cisco Catalyst or Cisco MDS switches."The Cisco SFS 3000 can be used with the Cisco SFS 7000 Series InfiniBand Server Switches, the vendor says.

None of the vendors cited above, except InfiniBand supplier Voltaire, is willing to say that InfiniBand will be the ultimate server/storage fabric. But for now, at least three leading suppliers view it as a means to provide key enterprise and HPC customers with a common network. And that just might lead to a trickle-down effect for smaller customers.

Have a comment on this story? Please click "Discuss" below. If you'd like to contact Byte and Switch's editors directly, send us a message.