Cluster Computing:

MELLANOX WEAVES MS SERVER SUPPORT INTO INFINIBAND FABRICS

Mellanox Technologies Ltd., a leader in performance business and technical computing interconnects, announced support for Microsoft Windows Server 2003 for InfiniBand I/O, extending server clustering performance, cost and scalability benefits in supercomputing applications. InfiniBand can connect up to thousands of 10Gb/s compute and storage nodes into a single fabric utilized by Windows Server-based parallel processing business and computational applications. Windows Server 2003 takes the Microsoft value proposition of ease of use, ease of deployment and ease of management, and applies it to directly to InfiniBand clusters deployed in data centers and technical computing environments.

"With Windows Server 2003 InfiniBand support, Mellanox and Microsoft are driving performance server clustering into mainstream computing and storage applications," said Eyal Waldman, CEO of Mellanox Technologies. "The Windows Server platform provides a simplified, familiar environment from which parallel computing applications can be deployed and managed. In addition, integrated storage drivers enable Windows Server clusters to directly connect to native InfiniBand storage systems delivering true 10Gb/s storage throughput."

InfiniBand Support for Windows Server 2003, Compute Cluster Edition

In the second half of 2005, Microsoft is scheduled to release Windows Server 2003, Compute Cluster Edition -- designed to include job schedulers and enhanced cluster management support. InfiniBand Windows clusters will take full advantage of the integrated Message Passing Interface (MPI) standard protocol used in High Performance Computing as well as 64-bit processing used in highly efficient parallel applications.

"Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Compute Cluster Edition with InfiniBand support provides scalability and lower total cost of ownership with powerful management tools," said Dennis Oldroyd, director of marketing, Windows Server Division, Microsoft. "InfiniBand is a well-established interconnect technology in the research and academic communities, and it is gaining momentum in the business sectors. We believe InfiniBand support will increase marketplace adoption of our upcoming product."

The "WinIB" Support Package

Mellanox provides a free support package (beta version available in the first quarter of 2005) called "WinIB" that includes all drivers and middleware required to gain the full performance advantage of InfiniBand clusters running Windows Server 2003.