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InfiniBand* Architecture

Intel has played a leading role in the development of InfiniBand* architecture from inception. From helping to guide the standards bodies that enable InfiniBand architecture, to working with the industry on software stack development, Intel has committed to ensure successful, industry-wide adoption of InfiniBand architecture.

Offering InfiniBand connectivity for the data center and high performance computing (HPC) markets in both Intel® Xeon® processor- and Intel® Itanium® processor-based platforms, Intel continues its collaboration with the industry to ensure that InfiniBand architecture capabilities are optimized to perform best with Intel inside.

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Gaining momentum as an HPC solution

InfiniBand architecture has been gaining acceptance within the HPC community, especially in the fast growing cluster server market as it delivers new communications semantics and programming paradigms, including:

  • Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA)
  • Channel-based communications

Adding to its features, InfiniBand architecture also provides lower latency and higher bandwidths than traditional networking solutions required to build large computer clusters.

Driving the industry with collaboration

The software stacks that Intel helped develop within the OpenFabrics Alliance (OFA) have become industry standard software on Microsoft Windows* and are now included in the Linux* kernel and all major Linux distributions. The OpenFabrics stack is also a key ingredient to the Intel® Cluster Ready Program, simplifying the building of HPC clusters.

The OFA develops, distributes, and promotes a unified, transport-independent, open-source software stack for RDMA-capable fabrics and networks, including Ethernet and InfiniBand architecture. Upper-level protocols in the stack support IP, NAS, SAN, sockets, clustered file systems, and database application environments.

Managing interoperability testing of the software stack across many vendor platforms and product types, OFA software is used worldwide in a broad range of environments, including:

  • Corporate data centers
  • HPC facilities
  • Research institutes

OFA also serves industries as diverse as bioinformatics, electronic design, engineering, entertainment and media, financial services, and oil and gas.

Another driving industry initiative is the InfiniBand* Trade Association, developing a new common I/O specification to deliver a channel-based, switched fabric technology that the entire industry can adopt. Representing a new approach to I/O technology, InfiniBand architecture is based on collective research, knowledge, and experience of industry leaders.