Cisco Switch Targets High-End Server-to-Storage
By Greene, Tim
Cisco last week introduced a gateway switch that boosts the performance of applications that rely on interactions between InfiniBandclustered servers and network-attached storage and Fibre Channelbased storage devices. Cisco Server Fabric Switch (SFS) 3504 aggregates server-cluster traffic on 20Gbps InfiniBand links and distributes it to storage devices on Ethernet and Fibre Channel networks. This is an upgrade from the 10Gbps InfiniBand links Cisco’s earlier SFS 3012 supported.
Rather than installing a Fibre Channel host-channel adapter in each of the cluster’s servers so they connect directly to the Fibre Channel storage-area network (SAN), each server now can connect via InfiniBand to the SFS 3504. The SFS 3504 switches this aggregated traffic to the SAN via 4Gbps Fibre Channel ports, an upgrade from the 2Gbps Fibre Channel ports on Cisco’s SFS 3012. The SFS 3504 also takes in Ethernet traffic running over InfiniBand from the same server clusters and switches it to NAS devices via 1Gbps Ethernet ports.
InfiniBand lets machines connect and share data with submicrosecond latency In high-performance computing environments, these servers need to connect with both Fibre Channeland Ethernet- based storage networks. The switches also would fit well in oil and gas company applications to help speed seismic number-crunching data.
These Cisco gateway switches compete against gear from Voltaire, QLogic and Xsigo Systems.
The gateway can be outfitted with four-port, 4Gbps Fibre Channel cards or six-port lGbps Ethernet cards. Next year Cisco plans to release a two-port 10Gbps Ethernet card for the device. Fully loaded,the SFS 3504 costs $75,000.
Cisco also is releasing a free software tool that troubleshoots copper cabling in 20Gbps InfiniBand networks.The tool analyzes the signal integrity of InfiniBand on these connections before running a computing job that involves multiple hosts. If a node is having a significant problem, it can be fixed or another node can be chosen.
Cisco’s SFS 3504 gateway switch doubles the InfiniBand downlink speeds from server clusters.
Copyright Network World Inc. Nov 19, 2007
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