InfiniBand Trade Association Enhances Data Center Performance and Management With New Specs

The InfiniBand Trade Association (IBTA), a global organization dedicated to maintaining and furthering the IB spec, announced the availability of the IB Architecture spec Volume 1 Release 1.4 and Volume 2 Release 1.4.

With these updates in place, the IB ecosystem will continue to grow and address the needs of the next gen of HPC, AI, cloud and enterprise data center compute and storage connectivity needs. The IB Architecture spec Volume 1 Release 1.4 and Volume 2 Release 1.4 are available for download (registration required).

Volume 1 defines the core IB architecture, information required for operation of switches, routers, server or storage adapters, and management. Release 1.4 enhancements improve manageability by enhancing QoS with virtual lane arbitration, accelerating access to switch port state information for advanced telemetry capabilities, and encompassing support of features added to Volume 2 as well as integrating previously released RoCE and Virtualization Annexes. Volume 1 also improved its compliance statements to simplify members efforts to deliver compliant IB products.

Volume 2 specifies the electrical and mechanical configurations, defining the requirements for physical media and signaling rates. Release 1.4 includes support for 100Gb/s per lane signaling speed, PAM-4 signaling, and adjustable forward error correction to enable fast and reliable server and storage connectivity. It also adds support for 2X link width, enabling more options for switch and adapter network configurations and high switch radix product implementations.

“The ever-increasing need for higher performance in the world of supercomputing demands interconnect solutions provide continuously faster speeds, lower latency and advanced telemetry and configuration options. The IBTA continues to meet these industry demands by providing enhancements to IB scalability and optimization,” said Bill Magro, co-chair, technical working group, IBTA. “Our two new IB architecture spec updates provide end users with optimal bandwidth, power and latency while improving overall functionality and implementer access.“