Mellanox Introduces Switch-IB 2 100Gb/s Switch

Mellanox Technologies, Ltd. announced Switch-IB 2, the new generation of its IB switch optimized for HPC, Web 2.0, database and cloud data centers, capable of 100Gb/s per port speeds.

Switch-IB 2 is the first smart network switch that offloads MPI operations from the CPU to the network to deliver 10X performance improvements. It will enables a performance breakthrough in building the next generation scalable and data intensive data centers, enabling users to gain a competitive advantage.

With the exponential growth of data being generated around the world and the increase of applications that can take advantage of real-time massive data processing for high performance, data analytics, business intelligence, national security and IoT applications, the market demands not just the fastest interconnect available, but also smartest, efficient solution to free the CPU to focus on the application rather than the network.

Switch-IB 2 enables application managers to use the power of data. It integrates 144 SerDes which can operate at 1Gb/s to 25Gb/s speeds per lane and delivers 7.02 billion messages-per-second, 90ns switch latency and low power consumption, making Switch-IB 2 the solution for HPC, cloud, Web 2.0, database and storage centers.

Collective operations, commonly used in HPC communication protocols such as MPI and SHMEM, have implications on overall application performance and scale. Switch-IB 2 enables the switch to manage collective communications using embedded hardware. It decreases the amount of data traversing the network, reduce application latency with additional benefit of freeing up CPU resources for computation rather than using them to process communication.

“The needs of applications across HPC, big data, Internet of Things, and hyperscale markets are relentless. The EDR 100Gb/s speed and smart-switch technology in Switch-IB 2 target the trends we see across the industry to improve system efficiency and scale,” said Addison Snell, CEO, Intersect360 Research, Inc. “With its co-design architecture approach, Mellanox is taking the necessary steps in pursuit of the scalability and performance required at the forefront of discovery and innovation, for both research and business.“

“Mellanox smart interconnect solutions will continue to bring not just the widest and fastest interconnect but also more hardware offloads to free the CPU to focus on the application,” said Gilad Shainer, VP, marketing, Mellanox. “Mellanox’s smart interconnect technology is a full generation ahead of the competition in terms of performance and return-on-investment advantages it brings to IT and applications managers.“

“The HPC and web-scale enterprise environment are consistently pushing the boundaries of technology with demands for smart, fast and efficient switching solutions to further increase their application performance,” said Molly Rector, CMO and EVP, product management, DataDirect Networks, Inc. “In a variety of data intensive markets, the combination of Mellanox’s Switch-IB 2 and the DDN SFA14K will enable applications to take advantage of real-time massive data processing for high performance, data analytics, business intelligence, and national security.“

“The demands of today’s high-performance computing, cloud and web applications threaten to outstrip the capabilities of the networks they run on,” said Glenn Keels, executive director, engineered solutions and cloud, Dell, Inc. “Dell’s mission is to provide solutions that solve the challenges of tomorrow, not just today. We work with Mellanox on innovative, forward-thinking products, such as Switch-IB 2, to ensure that our solutions enable our customers to meet their goals of unleashing new discoveries and accelerating innovation, whether that be real-time data analytics, business intelligence, or scientific research.“

“Enterprises large and small are struggling to keep pace with rapidly increasing demands for high-perormance computing resources,” said Scott Misage, VP and GM, HPC, Hewlett Packard Enterprise. “HPE Apollo servers with the Mellanox’s EDR 100Gb/s IB solutions can provide customers with the scalable, highly efficient and performance-based HPC systems needed to solve the world’s most difficult scientific, engineering and data analysis problems.“

“The demand for real-time data today requires a new kind of solution – one that is smarter, faster and more efficient,” said Redfox Qiu, GM, server product domain, Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd . “Mellanox’s Switch-IB 2 ensures that the Huawei E9000 is able to truly leverage real-time data processing and deliver improved performance, data analytics and business intelligence to our customers.“

“As the technology and data landscape continues to shift, IBM, Mellanox and fellow OpenPOWER members recognize the importance of speeding business insight in HPC and high performing data analytics,” said Sumit Gupta, VP, business line executive, HPC and OpenPOWER operations, IBM Corporation. “IBM incorporates Mellanox’s accelerated networking technologies into its Power Systems to help provide clients with additional speed and scalability imperative to the cognitive era of computing.“

“Mellanox’s EDR 100Gb/s IB will make an immediate impact for our customers and for our business with the 100Gb/s interconnect performance,” said Mr. Jun Liu, GM, HPC, Inspur Co. Ltd. “Integrating Mellanox’s EDR 100Gb/s IB solutions into our next generation products will allow us to have the flexibility and scalability we didn’t have before to make our customer’s infrastructure run as efficient and productive as possible.“

“As more clients harvest benefit from HPC, data analytics and business intelligence the demands for lightning fast, intelligent and efficient switching solutions increase,” said Scott Tease, executive director, worldwide Hyperscale and HPC enterprise business, Lenovo Enterprise Solutions, Pte Ltd. “Lenovo server and storage solutions interconnected with the new Mellanox Switch-IB 2 will drive better application performance and allow real-time processing of data delivering immediate results for our client.“

“Today’s data center must handle application workloads of unparalleled magnitudes. In order to meet these exponential demands, they require architectures that are compatible, extremely reliable and feature the highest level of ultra-efficient scalability,” said Ken Claffey, VP and GM, storage systems group, Seagate Technology plc . “Pairing Mellanox’s Switch-IB 2 with the Seagate ClusterStor will guarantee our customers will have the most competitive processing power today in order to lead in the real-time massive data processing of high-performance data analytics. This will power real and substantial benefits in areas such as business intelligence and national security.“

“SGI is committed to delivering outstanding application performance across a wide range of vertical markets to solve the biggest problems facing the world today. Pairing SGI ICE XA with Mellanox’s Switch-IB 2 furthers this vision by dramatically increasing performance and allowing today’s powerful supercomputers to process massive amounts of data in real time,” said Gabriel Broner, VP and GM, HPC, Silicon Graphics International Corp., (SGI). “Together, SGI and Mellanox will provide better insights to our mutual customers more quickly, so they can address the most challenging computational issues of our time.“

“A huge need for today’s HPC compute-intensive applications is being able to scale with the highest performance and efficiency,” said Zhennan Cao, GM, HPC business unit, Sugon. “Mellanox’s EDR 100Gb/s IB solutions provide our customers the power to scale at the speed of 100Gb/s and reduce their application runtime with our Sugon 6000 and Silicon Cube Series HPC solutions.“

“Supermicro’s high-performance computing solutions are optimized to deliver maximum end-to-end performance and with Mellanox latest Switch-IB 2 we offer new options for advanced EDR 100Gb/s networking across our extensive range of server and storage platforms,” said Tau Leng, VP and GM, HPC, Super Micro Computer Inc. “Our close collaboration with Mellanox on integration of their Switch-IB 2 with SHArP technology provides customers a first-to-market advantage with the latest advances in smart, efficient networking to meet the exploding demand for real-time massive data processing.“