100 Gigabit Ethernet and Infiniband from Mellanox - ConnectX4 arrives

[dba]

Mellanox Introduces ConnectX-4 Adapter | StorageReview.com - Storage Reviews

Now we have 100 Gigabit cards and switches to lust after, suddenly making 40 Gigabit Ethernet and 56 Gigabit Infiniband seem slow (he writes on a laptop with a mere 1Gigabit Ethernet card).

 

[Patrick]

Yea that is awesome. No doubts there.

 

[PigLover]

Most awesome part of this announcement - now the Mellanox shops have a reason to replace ConnectX-3 cards - which means inventory for resellers - which means bargins for us...

 

[Patrick]

Most awesome part of this announcement - now the Mellanox shops have a reason to replace ConnectX-3 cards - which means inventory for resellers - which means bargins for us...

And for those needing a bit more background - "Mellanox shops" are often HPC guys that will pay lots of money to replace this kind of gear.

 

[Chuckleb]

I feel that the bulk of HPC would be onboard IB, not cards. Not sure if we would see wholesale replacement, especially since they'd look at switch cost as well.

 

[Patrick]

I feel that the bulk of HPC would be onboard IB, not cards. Not sure if we would see wholesale replacement, especially since they'd look at switch cost as well.

Good point. I guess I was thinking mezzanine cards. Here is a Dell example from when I was at TACC Stampede:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/xeon-phi-larrabee-stampede-hpc,3342-7.html

But then you are locked into those form factors supporting the right mezz cards.

 

[Patrick]

Just a quick bit - these are PCIe x16 cards. I realized while writing the Mellanox ConnectX-4 piece that even with PCIe 3.0 x16 there is not enough bandwidth to push both ports at full speed.