Voltaire Unveils 40 Gb/s InfiniBand Switch Module for IBM BladeCenter

Voltaire, a provider of scale-out data center fabrics, reportedly announced the availability of the it’s 40 Gb/s InfiniBand switch module for IBM BladeCenter.

Voltaire’s latest switch is custom designed for IBM (News - Alert). Officials at Voltaire say that the new connectivity option for BladeCenter can deliver 100 percent faster InfiniBand connectivity, in order to accelerate performance of applications that are running on BladeCenter, in both the high performance computing (HPC) and enterprise data center markets.

For those who are unaware, InfiniBand is a switched fabric communications link used in high-performance computing (HPC).

Based on Voltaire’s field-proven design, the new 40 Gb/s InfiniBand Switch module houses fourteen 40 Gb/s internal ports for server connectivity and sixteen external QSFP ports for fabric connectivity. It is integrated with port to port latency of less than 100 nanoseconds. This feature provides a congestion-free solution. Additionally, the switch is energy-efficient and ideal for data centers, because it consumes only 4 watts of power per port making.

Asaf Somekh, vice president of marketing, Voltaire, said in a press release, “The Voltaire 40 Gb/s InfiniBand Switch Module for IBM BladeCenter delivers new levels of bandwidth and low latency to better support the demanding performance requirements of scale-out applications in both enterprise data centers and HPC.”

Somekh added: “The switch’s high bandwidth, I/O throughput and scalability as well as its energy efficiency will support the IT objectives for customers in industries including financial services, manufacturing, life sciences, government and education.”

Alex Yost, vice president, IBM systems & technology group, said in a press release, “Today our customers are looking to increase utilization and performance from their systems in order to reduce costs and their IT footprint within the company, and getting maximum interconnect fabric performance is critical to meeting these objectives.”

Yost also said that the addition of the Voltaire-designed 40 Gb/s InfiniBand switch module for BladeCenter will enable IBM customers to leverage the resiliency of BladeCenter and the performance of 40 Gb/s InfiniBand in a single package.

According to IBM , its BladeCenter HS22 blade servers improves the economics of data center by facilitating them with - up to 11 times faster performance, 90 percent reduction in energy costs alone, up to 95 percent IT footprint reduction, up to 65% less in connectivity costs and up to 84 percent fewer cables. Additionally, these Blade servers open design is a good alternative to sprawling racks and overheated server rooms.

Voltaire’s products are included in server and blade offerings from Bull, HP, IBM, NEC (News - Alert) and Sun. The company also provides internal server-to-storage connectivity for the HP-Oracle Database Machine.