Voltaire preps InfiniBand switch for IBM blades
Network switch maker Voltaire has landed a deal with IBM to create a new 40 Gbit/sec InfiniBand quad-data rate (QDR) switch for Big Blue's BladeCenter blade server chassis.
Voltaire, which does a fair amount of clustering in supercomputing and data warehousing with IBM and its blades, is keen on keeping ahead of Ethernet switches. Sources at Voltaire say that prices for InfiniBand switches are expected to be only about 20 per cent higher than what companies have been paying for 20 Gbit/sec DDR InfiniBand connectivity and that even with this premium, QDR InfiniBand is still less expensive than 10 Gigabit Ethernet or 4 Gbit Fibre Channel links for servers and storage, respectively. And those are obviously packing a lot less bandwidth punch.
Voltaire has been shipping QDR InfiniBand switches for a while. Back in December, the company announced a 36-port switch called the Grid Director 4036, and last week, the company launched a much larger 324-port behemoth called that Grid Director 4700. Using double-density fabric boards in the switches, the Grid Director 4700 can handle up to 648 ports. IBM will announce the feeds, speeds, and pricing for the new BladeCenter switch when it launches, which is expected before the middle of the year.
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