IBM Intelligent Cluster Portfolio Expands

The clustering solutions have been renamed as the IBM Intelligent Cluster portfolio.

These offerings have also been enhanced with new Ethernet switches.

IBM Intelligent Cluster solutions are holistic solutions  and deliver high-performance with energy and space efficiencies.

These solutions can help simplify and expedite deployment of a Linux or Microsoft Windows HPC cluster. IBM combines all hardware, software, services, and support into a single integrated product offering, providing the benefit of a single point-of-contact for the entire cluster and eliminating the need to deal with multiple vendors for individual components.

The Intelligent Cluster is a choice for any organization that recognizes the economic advantages of a reduced time to deployment of an HPC cluster but has concerns about the time and technical resources required for the end-to-end implementation.

New offerings for Intelligent Cluster portfolio

• Mellanox FDR10 Infiniband Edge Switches SX6036 (0724-016, 0724-017): The Mellanox 36-port Edge Switches (0724-016, 0724-017) are 1RU nonblocking 40 Gbps InfiniBand Switch Systems supporting the new FDR10 standard. These switches are a choice for top-of-rack leaf connectivity or for building small-to-medium-sized clusters. The switches are designed for building efficient switch fabrics through the use of InfiniBand switching technologies such as Adaptive Routing, Congestion Control, and Quality of Service.
• Mellanox FDR10 Infiniband Director Switches SX6536 (0724-018): The Mellanox 648-port nonblocking 40 Gbps FRD10 director switches provide a switching solution scaling from 8.64 Tbps up to 72.52 Tbps of bandwidth in a single enclosure, with low-latency and high per-port speeds of up to 40 Gbps with the new FDR10 standard. Its design makes it easy to build clusters that can scale out to thousands of nodes.
• Mellanox ConnectX-3 VPI Single and Dual Port Adapters (QDR/FDR10) (95Y3451, 95Y3455): ConnectX-3 adapters delivers low latency, high bandwidth, and computing efficiency for performance-driven server and storage clustering applications. These adapters provide one x40 Gbps and two 40 Gbps ports respectively.
• Mellanox ConnectX-3 EN Dual Port QSFP +40GbE Adapter (95Y3459): The Mellanox ConnectX-3 EN 10 and 40 Gigabit Ethernet NIC deliver high-bandwidth Ethernet connectivity forserver and storage applications. ConnectX-3 EN improves network performance by increasing available bandwidth while decreasing the associated transport load on the CPU especially in virtualized server environments.
• DataDirect Networks SFA 10K Storage Platform (0750): Often deployed in HPC environments the Storage Fusion Architecture (SFA) increases performance, efficiency, and data protection. It is designed for multiple classes of data and storage performance requirements, with multi-RAID architecture that combines up to 1,200 SATA, SAS, and SSD disks into a multi-petabyte platform

This offering is configurable in 42U and 45U racks for optimum density and upgradeability. Three basic platforms are supported as 5-enclosure, 10-enclosure, and 20-enclosure bundles. Each enclosure (SS7000) is configurable and can accommodate sixty 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch SSD, SAS, or SATA hard drives.

Key prerequisites

• Device drivers, as required

Planned availability date

• November 15, 2011: All products except DataDirect Networks Portfolio January 24, 2012