Mellanox Skyway 200 Gigabit HDR InfiniBand to Ethernet gateway appliance released for high performance and cloud data centers

Mellanox Technologies introduced Mellanox Skyway, a 200 gigabit HDR InfiniBand to Ethernet gateway appliance. Mellanox Skyway enables a scalable and efficient way to connect the high-performance, low-latency InfiniBand data center to external Ethernet infrastructures or connectivity.

Mellanox Skyway is the next generation of the existing 56 gigabit FDR InfiniBand to 40 gigabit Ethernet gateway system, deployed in multiple data centers around the world.

High performance computing, artificial intelligence, data-intensive and cloud infrastructures leverage InfiniBand's high data throughput, extremely low latency, and smart in-network computing acceleration engines to deliver critical application performance and scalability. 

For cases requiring connectivity into external Ethernet-based platforms, Mellanox offers the Skyway appliance, a 1.6 terabit-per-second InfiniBand to Ethernet gateway appliance, supporting eight 100 or 200 gigabit ports on each of the InfiniBand and Ethernet sides. IT managers can scale the number of Skyway appliances over time to meet the demands of their users.

By leveraging the Mellanox Skyway appliance, InfiniBand data centers can maintain their lowest interconnect latency to ensure maximum applications performance. Other non-Ethernet or proprietary network providers offer network-integrated or silicon-integrated gateways to Ethernet, which impose higher interconnect latency within the data center that can reduce the overall data center performance.

Mellanox debuts Quantum LongReach appliance, extends 100G EDR and 200G HDR InfiniBand connectivity to 10 and 40 kilometers

Mellanox Technologies introduced the Mellanox Quantum LongReach series of long-distance InfiniBand switches. Mellanox Quantum LongReach systems provide the ability to seamlessly connect remote InfiniBand data centers together, or to provide high-speed and full RDMA (remote direct memory access) connectivity between remote compute and storage infrastructures.

Based on the 200 gigabit HDR Mellanox Quantum InfiniBand switch, the LongReach solution provides up to two long-reach InfiniBand ports and eight local InfiniBand ports. The long reach ports can deliver up to 100Gb/s data throughput for distances of 10 and 40 kilometers.

With Quantum LongReach users can connect remote InfiniBand based data centers together to create a single virtual data center, effectively combining the compute power of multiple distributed data centers for higher overall performance and scalability. With LongReach, users can leverage the In-Network Computing capabilities such as the Scalable Hierarchical Aggregation and Reduction Protocol (SHARP), congestion control, enhanced telemetry and more between the multiple remote data centers.

Built with Mellanox Quantum InfiniBand switch device, the Mellanox Quantum LongReach solution provides up to 2 EDR InfiniBand long-reach ports and 8 HDR InfiniBand ports, delivering up to 100Gb/s data throughput for distances of 10 and 40 kilometers. 

Using Mellanox Quantum LongReach extends availability of InfiniBand’s high data throughput, native Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) communications and advanced routing and Mellanox Scalable Hierarchical Aggregation and Reduction Protocol (SHARP) to remote InfiniBand platforms, with a distance of 10 and 40 kilometers between them. 

Mellanox MLNX-OS chassis management software stack provides administrative tools to manage firmware, power supplies, fans, ports, and other system interfaces. Mellanox Quantum LongReach software has a GUI-based web management that provides full alarm, event history, activities log and performance monitoring for all optical modules.

Quantum LongReach systems can also be coupled with Mellanox’s Unified Fabric Manager (UFM) software for managing scale-out computing environments. UFM enables data center operators to efficiently provision, monitor and operate the modern data center fabric.

It also seamlessly migrates user applications from one data center to another to support different user demands, to provide load balancing between InfiniBand data centers, or to provide continuous compute services in cases of data-center failures, while enabling fast and efficient connectivity between remote compute and storage infrastructures, enabling fast disaster recovery and more.

“The Mellanox Quantum LongReach appliance enables native InfiniBand connectivity between remote InfiniBand-based data centers, or between data center and remote storage infrastructure, allowing users to enjoy native RDMA, in-network computing acceleration engines, congestion control and other InfiniBand technology advantages globally,” said Gilad Shainer, senior vice president of marketing at Mellanox Technologies. “Our existing and new customers, who wish to expand their clusters seamlessly over local and distributed InfiniBand networks that are kilometers apart, will find Mellanox Quantum LongReach to be the best cost-effective and easily managed solution.”

The Quantum LongReach series comprises two models: MTQ8100, which delivers 100Gb/s throughput up to 10 kilometers; and MTQ8200, which delivers 100Gb/s throughput up to 40 kilometers. The products will be available in the first half of next year.

Cray debuts ClusterStor E1000 storage to power data-driven workloads including AI, analytics, simulation and modeling

Cray, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company unveiled on Wednesday its Cray ClusterStor E1000 system, a new parallel storage platform for the exascale era. ClusterStor E1000 addresses the explosive growth of data from converged workloads and the need to access that data at improved speed, by offering an optimal balance of storage performance, efficiency and scalability, effectively eliminating job pipeline congestion caused by I/O bottlenecks. 

Cray ClusterStor E1000 systems will be available starting in the first quarter of next year. 

The next-generation global file storage system has already been selected by the US Department of Energy (DOE) for use at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where the first three US exascale supercomputers will be housed (respectively Aurora, Frontier and El Capitan).

With the introduction of the ClusterStor E1000 storage system, Cray has completed the re-architecture of its end-to-end infrastructure portfolio, which encompasses Cray Shasta supercomputers, Cray Slingshot interconnect, and the Cray software platform. With Cray’s next-generation end-to-end supercomputing architecture, available for any datacenter environment, customers around the world can unleash the full potential of their data.

Recognizing data access challenges presented by the exascale era, Cray’s ClusterStor E1000 enables organizations to achieve their research missions and business objectives faster. ClusterStor E1000 systems can deliver up to 1.6 terabytes per second and up to 50 million I/O operations per second per rack – more than double compared to other parallel storage systems in the market today.

The new system also deliver purpose-engineered end-to-end PCIe 4.0 storage controllers serve the maximum performance of the underlying storage media to the compute nodes and new intelligent Cray software, ClusterStor Data Services, allows customers to align the data flow with their specific workflow, meaning they can place the application data at the right time on the right storage media (SSD pool or HDD pool) in the file system.

An entry-level system starts at 30 gigabytes per second and at less than 60 terabytes usable capacity. Customers can start at the size dictated by their current needs and scale as those needs grow, with maximum architectural headroom for future growth. 

The ClusterStor E1000 storage system can connect to any HPC compute system that supports high speed networks like 200 Gbps Cray Slingshot, Infiniband EDR/HDR and 100/200 Gbps Ethernet.