Top Of The News - Networking:

InfiniBand Solutions From JNI Corp And Mellanox Technologies

Network Appliance Inc recently became the first major vendor to deliver enterprise data center solutions using the InfiniBand Architecture. Network Appliance is now shipping the InfiniBand-based solution from JNI Corporation and Mellanox Technologies with its new FAS900 series enterprise storage systems to provide the core interconnect technology for NetApp Clustered Failover high availability solutions.

The InfiniBand architecture provides superior performance compared with alternative technologies for cluster applications. Using an InfiniBand host channel adapter (HCA), Network Appliance is able to significantly improve throughput and reduce latency between the clustered nodes. In addition to 1X bi-directional data link speeds of 2.5Gb/second, the InfiniBand solution provides a cost-effective, open standards-based platform for enhanced cluster services and high availability failover capabilities.

"InfiniBand features low latency, low CPU overhead, and high data throughput, making it the ideal technology for cluster interconnect," said Mark Santora, senior vice president of marketing at Network Appliance. "Just as important, it uses an open standard that promises to play an important role in the data center of the future. Greater than 40 percent of Network Appliance's high-end enterprise storage solutions employ clustering. By working closely with JNI and Mellanox, Network Appliance can benefit from future developments made by the entire industry supporting InfiniBand."

"Incorporation of InfiniBand Architecture into storage appliances represents an important step in validating the technology and establishing its market presence," said James Opfer, chief analyst, Gartner Dataquest. "Gartner expects InfiniBand to emerge successfully to play a significant role in enterprise storage deployment."

The Network Appliance FAS900 series uses InfiniBand's built-in support for RDMA technology to eliminate the CPU overhead of communications between clustered nodes, and uses the dual 2.5Gb/second (1X) links of the JNI InfiniStar IBP-1x02 HCA Module for reliable connections of more than 400 MB/second sustained throughput between nodes. The combination of InfiniBand-enabled RDMA and high-speed data transfer provides fast and reliable failover. At the heart of the IBP-1x02 is Mellanox Technologies InfiniBridge MT21108 HCA device.

"JNI, Mellanox and Network Appliance have worked extensively together to prepare for the deployment of InfiniBand technology into mission-critical environments," said Shaun Walsh, vice president and General Manager, IO Solutions, JNI Corporation. "Network Appliance is the first OEM for JNI's family of InfiniBand Host Channel Adapters and is a critical step in the development of this market."

"The FAS900 series, with InfiniBridge, demonstrates our ability to meet the demands of industry leaders such as Network Appliance, as well as the success of our OEM relationship with JNI, which we announced last year," said Eyal Waldman, CEO of Mellanox Technologies. "Meeting the stringent performance and quality demands of Network Appliance and JNI proved a demanding challenge, requiring close collaboration among our engineering teams. We are pleased we've been able to meet this challenge and deliver a production worthy InfiniBand clustering solution, marking a significant milestone for Mellanox and the InfiniBand market."

About Mellanox

Mellanox is the leading supplier of InfiniBand semiconductors, providing switches, Host Channel Adapters, and Target Channel Adapters to the server, communications and data storage markets. In January 2001, Mellanox Technologies delivered InfiniBridge, the first 1X/4X InfiniBand device to market, and is now shipping second-generation InfiniScale and InfiniHost silicon. The company has raised more than $89 million to date and has strong corporate and venture backing from Bessemer Venture Partners, Dell Computer, Intel Capital, Raza Venture Management, Sequoia Capital, Sun Microsystems, US Venture Partners, Vitesse and others. In 2001 and 2002 Mellanox has been recognized with awards by Computerworld, Network Computing, Red Herring, and Upside magazines as a key emerging technology company. The company's business operations, sales, marketing and customer support are headquartered in Santa Clara, CA; with the design, engineering, software, system validation, and quality and reliability operations based in Israel.

About Network Appliance

Network Appliance is a world leader in open network storage solutions for today's data-intensive enterprise. Since its inception in 1992, Network Appliance has pioneered technology, product, and partner firsts that continue to drive the evolution of storage.

About JNI Corporation

JNI Corporation is one of the leading manufacturers of connectivity products for the enterprise data center. The company offers a broad line of products from its Fibre Channel, IO ASICs and IO Solutions business units, including Fibre Channel HBAs and ASICs, high availability storage networking software, as well as InfiniBand HCA Modules and related products for clustered server environments. JNI products run on a variety of operating systems, including Solaris, Windows 2000, Windows NT, Linux, HP-UX, AIX, Novell, and Mac OS systems. JNI customers, distributors and strategic partners include Acal FCS, Bell Microproducts, Brocade, Chaparral, Cisco Systems, Consan, EMC, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi Data Systems, IBM, InfiniSwitch, Info X, LSI Logic, McDATA, Mellanox Technologies, Nishan Systems, StorageTek, Sun Microsystems, TidalWire and Veritas. Company headquarters is in San Diego, with offices throughout the world.

Contact: Michael Heumann, JNI Corporation, 858-523-7354, mheumann@jni.com.