Intel, Dell And QLogic Showcase InfiniBand Fabric For Enterprise Applications

INFINIBAND TRADE ASSOCIATION DEVELOPERS' CONFERENCE, ORLANDO, Fla., June 19, 2001 - Intel Corporation, Dell, IBM and QLogic today unveiled the industry's first InfiniBand* fabric-based demonstration of an enterprise-class application, database and infrastructure running on Intel® architecture-based Dell PowerEdge servers. This technology demonstration is a proof-of-concept for the planning and deployment of InfiniBand fabrics within the data center.

The technology demonstration consists of InfiniBand architecture-enabled hardware and software: Dell PowerEdge servers, QLogic switches, Intel InfiniBand components and software, IBM DB2 Universal Database V7.2 and publicly available Linux distributions running Linux kernel 2.4.

Using pre-release products, Intel led the industry team by showcasing key benefits that will drive InfiniBand fabrics as a widely adopted architecture for enterprise data centers with minimum disruption to existing systems. "By providing Intel components and software for both the servers and the switches, the team is able to show visible progress towards delivery of production class InfiniBand fabrics into the data center," said Philip G. Brace, director of platform marketing for Intel's Fabric Component Division. "Together we demonstrated significant progress toward our goal of providing InfiniBand solutions that provide value in a real world application environment."

This first InfiniBand architecture-enabled solution stack is based on five Dell PowerEdge servers powered by two Intel® Pentium® III processors. The Linux-based IBM DB2 clustered database supports a leading ERP application.

"As we continue our leadership in driving industry standard technology into the data center, Dell is looking to new technologies, including InfiniBand architecture, to offer even greater levels of performance," said Subo Guha, director of product marketing for Dell's Enterprise Systems Group. "We expect the InfiniBand architecture to continue to improve on the already high levels of scalability and availability found in Dell's PowerEdge server line."

QLogic's InfiniBand switches enable this fabric to provide high-bandwidth, low-latency communication between servers in this distributed database environment. "QLogic has contributed a great deal to the development of InfiniBand switches to support data center connectivity solutions," said Rob Davis, vice president of Advanced Technology, QLogic Corporation. "Today's demonstration is an important step toward moving InfiniBand technology from prototype to deployable solutions."

The technology demonstration will be shown at the InfiniBand Developers' Conference in Orlando, Fla., Intel Booth # 26.

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