InfiniBand trade group to list interoperable products

The InfiniBand Trade Association Tuesday said it will release a list of products next month that have passed compliance and interoperability tests in a move to help data center managers and other IT staff deploy the technology for linking servers, storage gear and other equipment.

The list is based on test results from the association's latest "plugfest," where products from over 25 vendors were tested, it said in a statement. The results of all tests will be posted on the association's Web site in July.

The InfiniBand architecture allows 10G bit/sec link speeds and low latency data transfer between servers in a data center, IBTA said.

Separately Tuesday, Agilent Technologies announced future plans to offer a handful of InfiniBand products for building what it called "end-to-end" InfiniBand systems, helping data centers scale computing resources and improve data transfer rates between storage and networking equipment.

A second-generation 12x/4x InfiniBand switch chip uses a scaled-up version of the Agilent HDMP-2840 architecture, with the 4x ports running at 10G bit/sec and the 12x ports at 30G bit/sec. It uses Agilent's embedded serializer/deserializer (SerDes) technology, the company said.

An integrated channel adaptor chip provides connections from an InfiniBand network to the high-throughput bus standards that are being developed for next-generation servers and storage products, Agilent said.

As well as increasing throughput, the channel adaptor chip's architecture includes data integrity features for improved data reliability during communication over the network, the company said.

Agilent expects to be able to offer samples of the products in early 2004 and will announce pricing at that time.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.