General |
| Q1. |
What are the key benefits of InfiniBand option for BladeSystem c-Class? |
| A1. |
InfiniBand option provides a high performance interconnect option for scale-out cluster solutions:
- high bandwidth (up to 40 gigabits per second signaling rate in each direction)
- low latency (as low as 1.2 microseconds MPI ping-pong)
- low power consumption (< 5 Watts per single-port mezzanine HCA) interconnect
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| Q2. |
What options are available for InfiniBand products for BladeSystem c-Class? |
| A2. |
4X QDR and DDR InfiniBand product options are available.
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| Q3. |
How many ports are available on the InfiniBand HCA, and how many ports are on the switch module? |
| A3. |
HP 4X QDR and DDR IB Dual-port Mezzanine HCAs are dual-port cards and the HP 4X DDR IB Mezzanine HCA is a single port HCA.
HP BLc 4X QDR IB switch has 16 downlink ports to connect up to 16 server blades, and 16 QSFP uplink ports for inter-switch links.
HP BLx 4X DDR IB Gen2 switch provides 16 downlink ports to connect up to 16 server blades, and 16 QSFP uplink ports for inter-switch links.
HP 4X DDR IB switch provides 16 downlink ports to connect up to 16 server blades, and 8 CX4 uplink ports for inter-switch links. |
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| Q4. |
What performance is expected using the InfiniBand option on the HP BladeSystem c-Class? |
| A4. |
4X QDR InfiniBand is capable of supporting up to 40Gbps, 4X DDR InfiniBand is capable for supporting up to 20Gbps.
The actual performance will depend on the specific configuration.
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| System support |
| Q1. |
What server blades are supported? |
| A1. |
QDR InfiniBand is supported on G6 blades, and DDR InfiniBand is supported on G1 and G5 blades (see Quickspecs for the list of server blades).
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| Q2. |
What server operating systems are supported by the mezzanine HCA? |
| A2. |
RedHat Enterprise Linux, SuSE Linux and Microsoft Windows HPC server 2008 are supported.
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| Q3. |
How are InfiniBand Subnet Manager services provided? |
| A3. |
The subnet manager functionality can be provided by either a rack-mount InfiniBand switch with an embedded fabric manager (also known as internally managed switch) or host-based subnet manager software on a server.
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