Ethernet Alliance working to advance solutions for high-performance computing
The Ethernet Alliance is prioritizing interoperability in an effort to bring Ethernet to high-performance computing environments.
By Donna DonnowitzNovember 16, 2011
Not too long ago, Ethernet was a young networking technology that was just beginning to take hold in most organizations. Now, the Ethernet Alliance is moving from efforts to get companies to embrace Ethernet to emphasizing how the technology can be used to meet data center needs. At the recent SC11 conference, the organization explained Ethernet can be ideal for high-performance computing clusters, HPCWire reported.
John D’Ambrosia, chair of the Ethernet Alliance, told the news source the organization is using the SC11 event as an avenue to showcase Ethernet's potential in high-performance computing environments. He said the protocol's diverse range of infrastructure options and ability to handle growing data throughput rates makes it an ideal option for almost any data center solution, including high-performance environments.
D'Ambrosia told the news source high-performance computing can benefit substantially from a variety of emerging Ethernet technologies, including internet wide area RDMA protocol.
"Internet wide area RDMA protocol is a proven remote direct memory access over Ethernet that has been ratified by the Internet Engineering Task Force. Providing cloud-ready transport with several large clusters scaled to thousands of nodes already in use, it negates the use of esoteric, risky networking and storage technologies requiring a complex amalgamation of routers, gateways, switches, software, and expertise to make HPC clusters excel," D'Ambrosia told HPCWire.
The growing popularity of internet wide area RDMA protocol and other advanced Ethernet systems, such as data center bridging, are making interoperability more important than ever, according to D'Ambrosia. He told the news source encouraging compatibility across the industry is especially important because it prevents businesses from being locked into a single vendor's solutions. Interoperability also makes it easier for organizations to invest in robust Ethernet technologies without having to worry about issues that may arise if their infrastructure needs to be adjusted in the future.
The focus on interoperabilty comes, to a great extent, in response to Ethernet's widespread growth in the enterprise sector. In the release describing the Ethernet Alliance's demo at the SC11 conference, Chris Calandro, SC11 technical lead for the Ethernet Alliance, said Ethernet has quickly emerged as a cost-effective replacement for the many expensive legacy protocols that are otherwise needed to support data center network needs. This has made Ethernet especially popular in the enterprise sector.
Perle’s wide range of 1 to 48 port Perle Console Servers provide data center managers and network administrators with secure remote management of any device with a serial console port. Plus, they are the only truly fault tolerant Console Servers on the market with the advanced security functionality needed to easily perform secure remote data center management and out-of-band management of IT assets from anywhere in the world.
John D’Ambrosia, chair of the Ethernet Alliance, told the news source the organization is using the SC11 event as an avenue to showcase Ethernet's potential in high-performance computing environments. He said the protocol's diverse range of infrastructure options and ability to handle growing data throughput rates makes it an ideal option for almost any data center solution, including high-performance environments.
D'Ambrosia told the news source high-performance computing can benefit substantially from a variety of emerging Ethernet technologies, including internet wide area RDMA protocol.
"Internet wide area RDMA protocol is a proven remote direct memory access over Ethernet that has been ratified by the Internet Engineering Task Force. Providing cloud-ready transport with several large clusters scaled to thousands of nodes already in use, it negates the use of esoteric, risky networking and storage technologies requiring a complex amalgamation of routers, gateways, switches, software, and expertise to make HPC clusters excel," D'Ambrosia told HPCWire.
The growing popularity of internet wide area RDMA protocol and other advanced Ethernet systems, such as data center bridging, are making interoperability more important than ever, according to D'Ambrosia. He told the news source encouraging compatibility across the industry is especially important because it prevents businesses from being locked into a single vendor's solutions. Interoperability also makes it easier for organizations to invest in robust Ethernet technologies without having to worry about issues that may arise if their infrastructure needs to be adjusted in the future.
The focus on interoperabilty comes, to a great extent, in response to Ethernet's widespread growth in the enterprise sector. In the release describing the Ethernet Alliance's demo at the SC11 conference, Chris Calandro, SC11 technical lead for the Ethernet Alliance, said Ethernet has quickly emerged as a cost-effective replacement for the many expensive legacy protocols that are otherwise needed to support data center network needs. This has made Ethernet especially popular in the enterprise sector.
Perle’s wide range of 1 to 48 port Perle Console Servers provide data center managers and network administrators with secure remote management of any device with a serial console port. Plus, they are the only truly fault tolerant Console Servers on the market with the advanced security functionality needed to easily perform secure remote data center management and out-of-band management of IT assets from anywhere in the world.
