Availability of IBTA Spec Volume 1 Release 1.5 From Infiniband Trade Association

The Infiniband Trade Association (IBTA) announced the availability of the IBTA spec Volume 1 Release 1.5, which adds support for Memory Placement Extensions (MPE) to reduce latency in Persistent Memory (PMEM) applications by 10x. Data persistence is guaranteed using RDMA and the new MPE operations via IB or RoCE interconnects.

This represents a benefit for PMEM deployments in Enterprise Data Centers (EDC) and HPC environments. This spec also features support for higher bandwidth NDR IB and minimum bandwidth setting capabilities via the Enhanced Port Arbiter.

Key features:

• Memory placement extensions – enable hardware OEMs and software developers to implement the MPE operations RDMA Flush and RDMA Atomic Write to enhance PMEM performance and reduce overall latency by 10x.

• IB now supports NDR which allows 400Gb/s speeds on a 4-lane port configuration. It also supports 2x lanes which allows much greater port density while still supporting 200Gb/s on these ports.

• QoS has been enhanced via an updated VL Arbitration mechanism which allows a user to specify minimum bandwidth on physical ports and the ability to control virtualized port arbitration by setting rate liming and bandwidth sharing.

“The IBTA has been diligently developing these exciting new IB and RoCE features as a response to the industry’s ever-growing demand for higher bandwidth and lower latency connectivity,” said Rupert Dance, compliance and interoperability working group chair, and link working group co-chair. “We look forward to seeing the industry take advantage of the new IBTA spec Volume 1 Release 1.5 capabilities, especially the immediate benefits that MPE will have to reduce latency in PMEM applications, which are increasingly prevalent in HPC, enterprise and cloud data centers.”

Resources:
Technical details of IBTA Specification Volume 1 Release 1.5, download complete overview presentation. (PPTX)
Download IBTA Specification Volume 1 Release 1.5
View IBTA Specification Volume 1 Release 1.5 Overview