BEAVERTON, Ore.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The InfiniBand® Trade Association (IBTA), a global organization dedicated to developing and furthering the adoption of RDMA technologies, today announced that InfiniBand grew 17 percent year-over-year, connecting 197 systems on the June 2022 TOP500 supercomputing list. InfiniBand also connects 62 of the Top100, making it the most used high-speed interconnect of the world’s top supercomputers.

InfiniBand’s prominent presence on the TOP500 is indicative of its ability to provide the speed, low latency and scalability that the world’s top systems require. Leveraging Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) fabrics such as InfiniBand and RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) also offers data centers reliability, efficiency, and a highly interoperable environment for these systems to expand.

“InfiniBand’s increased growth on the TOP500 and leadership on the Top100 is due to InfiniBand’s efficiency, scalability and fastest networking speeds that meet the industry’s demand for enhanced system and application performance,” said Brian Sparks, marketing working group chair for the IBTA. “Products are now becoming available which follow the IBTA’s NDR 400Gb/s InfiniBand specification, and we look forward to seeing them represented in future TOP500 lists.”

Published twice a year and publicly available at www.top500.org, the TOP500 list ranks the world’s most powerful computer systems according to the Linpack benchmark rating system.

Record Turnout for 39th InfiniBand and RoCE Plugfest, Featuring NDR 400Gb/s InfiniBand and 400GbE

This year’s IBTA Plugfest was the first testing instance of NDR 400Gb/s InfiniBand and 400GbE products, paving the way for the roll-out of the fastest interconnected systems in 2022. The event, hosted by University of New Hampshire InterOperability Lab (UNH-IOL) and in partnership with the Ethernet Alliance, provided the opportunity to perform interoperability testing of selected RDMA/RoCE-based Ethernet switch systems, adapter, NICS, and cables among a range of vendors.

Key highlights from the InfiniBand and RoCE Plugfest:

  • RDMA Cable Vendors: Amphenol, CONNPRO, NVIDIA, Panduit, The Siemon Company, TE Connectivity
  • RDMA Device Vendors: Arista, Broadcom, NVIDIA and SANBlaze
  • Test Equipment Vendors: Anritsu, Keysight, Rohde & Schwarz and Wilder Technologies
  • 15 RDMA devices were tested for compliance and interoperability
  • 141 RDMA cables were tested for compliance and interoperability. Copper and optical cable types included SFP, QSFP, QSFP-DD, OSFP and hybrids
  • Keysight deployed a new NDR InfiniBand solution for testing 400Gb/s Active Optical Cables

“The IBTA’s rigorous, independent third-party compliance and interoperability program ensures that each cable and device tested successfully meets end user needs and expectations of InfiniBand and RoCE ecosystems,” said Rupert Dance, chair of the IBTA compliance and interoperability working group. “The ability of IBTA Plugfest participants to interact with engineers from many device and cable vendors and test equipment providers while resolving problems in real time is essential to the success, compliance and interoperability of all InfiniBand and RoCE solutions.”

The IBTA Plugfest is an invaluable benefit to members and creates a clear path to deliver to their customers products that are compliant to the InfiniBand and RoCE specifications and interoperable within the larger ecosystem. Each product that completes compliance and interoperability testing is compiled into the resulting InfiniBand Integrators’ List and RoCE Integrators’ List. The lists are technical resources that provide immense benefits to all end users deploying RDMA-based fabrics. A wide range of customers leverage these results when determining which products to use when designing or upgrading their systems.

About the InfiniBand® Trade Association

The InfiniBand® Trade Association was founded in 1999 and is chartered with maintaining and furthering the InfiniBand and the RoCE specifications. The IBTA is led by a distinguished steering committee that includes HPE, IBM, Intel Corporation and NVIDIA. Other members of the IBTA represent leading enterprise IT vendors who are actively contributing to the advancement of the InfiniBand and RoCE specifications. The IBTA markets and promotes InfiniBand and RoCE from an industry perspective through online, marketing and public relations engagements, and unites the industry through IBTA-sponsored technical events and resources. For more information on the IBTA, visit www.infinibandta.org.

InfiniBand (TM/SM) and RoCE are trademark and service marks of the IBTA. Other names and brands are the property of their respective owners.

Contacts

Denise Jarrett-Weeks

IBTA Administrator

InfiniBand Trade Association

Phone: 503.619.0565

administration@infinibandta.org