INDUSTRY

With the Pluggable Interfaces annex, innovative and cost-effective cabling solutions can be easily introduced into the InfiniBand ecosystem: The InfiniBand Trade Association (IBTA) today released a new annex to Volume 2 Release 1.2.1 of the InfiniBand Architecture specifications, called Annex A5: Pluggable Interfaces: CATx, Copper and Optical. This new annex, known as Pluggable Interfaces, provides a flexible way to incorporate different and innovative cabling, higher bandwidth links and active cabling technologies (including copper and optical) into the InfiniBand specification. The Pluggable Interfaces annex was developed by the IBTA in order to provide a standard electro-mechanical method for attaching cabling to InfiniBand products. Only the pluggable connectors are standard; therefore the InfiniBand industry is positioned to bring new and innovative cabling solutions rapidly to market. Benefits include: * Ability to mix copper cabling and optical cabling * Increased connector density vs. what is provided with standard copper connectors * Definitions for more modern pluggable devices * More types of pluggable devices than were included in previous releases “As one of the larger high performance computing systems in the world, it is important to us to have the flexibility to adopt new cabling technologies as they become available,” said Paul Calleja, HPC center director, University of Cambridge. “The new Pluggable Interfaces annex enables us to more easily enhance our InfiniBand systems with the latest technologies – whether it’s twisted pair, copper or fiber.” For customers, the Pluggable Interfaces annex makes it easier and cheaper to enhance their InfiniBand systems, by enabling a mix of cabling alternatives appropriate to the length and bandwidth requirements of each link. For solution providers, the Pluggable Interfaces annex provides greater flexibility in delivering results to their end user customers. Solution providers can plug new modules and cables to new units, or replace modules and cables when required to cover greater distances. The Pluggable Interfaces annex will affect cable suppliers, switch providers and endpoint providers as better, innovative and more cost-effective cabling solutions can be more easily introduced into the InfiniBand ecosystem. “In developing this annex, the IBTA was looking to provide a way for InfiniBand and other technologies to take advantage of different types of industry-standard cables by providing a standard form factor into which they can be plugged,” said Paul Grun, principal engineer at Intel. “The Pluggable Interfaces annex accomplishes this and is part of the IBTA’s overall goal of expanding the InfiniBand ecosystem. We are already seeing a lot of industry interest in this specification.” The Pluggable Interfaces annex is immediately available via the IBTA Web site at its Web site.