RENO, Nev., Nov. 12, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- SC07 -- QLogic Corp. (Nasdaq:QLGC), a leader in networking for storage and high performance computing (HPC), today unveiled an expanded portfolio of products, services, qualifications and an ecosystem program for HPC networking. HPC clusters have rapidly grown to comprise more than 60 percent of servers deployed in HPC environments and IDC is forecasting a compound annual growth rate through 2011 of 40 percent for InfiniBand HCAs and switches. HPC cluster administrators, especially new administrators in financial and industrial environments, are asking for complete cluster networking solutions. In response, QLogic is implementing a strategy to: 1) deliver the highest performance HPC networks, 2) provide complete server and storage HPC networks and, 3) weave QLogic technology tighter into the HPC ecosystem. The result is HPC cluster networks from QLogic deploy easier, run faster and scale higher.
"We see the size of HPC clusters in scientific environments continuing to grow, while new business and industrial HPC clusters are rapidly emerging," said Jeff Benck, president and chief operating officer, QLogic Corp. "QLogic is positioned to provide the HPC networking hardware, software and services to customers looking to partner with a complete solution provider."
The expanded HPC networking portfolio unveiled by QLogic at SC07 includes:
* The World's Fastest InfiniBand HCA - The QLogic 7200 20Gb
DDR HCA is the world's fastest HCA with the lowest scalable
latency, highest bandwidth and fastest messaging rate - the
standards for performance of a cluster interconnect.
* An InfiniBand Switch Designed for Oracle Clusters - The
SilverStorm(tm) 9020 Enterprise Cluster Accelerator is designed
specifically for Oracle Real Application Clusters. The 9020
delivers director-class InfiniBand fabric switch availability,
performance and scalability in a cost-effective and compact
package. The SilverStorm 9020 also includes gateways to Fibre
Channel storage networks and Ethernet data networks.
* Improved Bandwidth and Scalability for IBM GPFS - QLogic is
now delivering a high performance InfiniBand interconnect
solution, optimized specifically for the IBM General Parallel
File System (GPFS). The QLogic(r) InfiniBand solution for
GPFS includes the only optimized Sockets Direct Protocol
(SDP) for GPFS inter-node communication which is certified
by IBM, dramatically improving bandwidth and scalability of
the file system without requiring modifications to GPFS.
* NetApp Storage Qualified with InfiniBand - SilverStorm 9000
20Gb DDR InfiniBand switches are now qualified with the
Network Appliance FAS series of unified storage systems.
* A Program to Enhance the HPC Ecosystem - The QLogic HPCtrack
program is now available to QLogic HPC customers and partners.
HPCtrack is designed to provide faster access to new
InfiniBand technology, to certify the interoperability of
ecosystem products and to provide a basis for closer
collaboration on performance optimization of multi-vendor
solutions.
* Global Services for QLogic InfiniBand Directors -
SilverStorm 9000 20Gb DDR InfiniBand directors and edge
switches are now backed by QLogic Global Service and
Support. QLogic InfiniBand switch customers now have access
to the industry-leading service and support available to
customers of QLogic Fibre Channel and iSCSI products.
QLogic 7200 20Gb DDR HCA - The World's Fastest InfiniBand HCA For HPC architects and administrators that need the highest performance cluster interconnect available, the QLogic 7200 HCA is the new performance leader. The QLogic 7200 is the world's fastest InfiniBand HCA based on:
Bandwidth (the capacity of point-to-point links) - The QLogic
7200 has a demonstrated bandwidth of up to 1,925 megabytes
per second
Scalable Latency (delays in communications among many cores)
- In 32 core testing, the QLogic 7200 HCA demonstrated the
lowest scalable latency of 1.3 microseconds*.
Giga Updates Per Second (how many billion transactions
supported per second) - In 32 core testing, the QLogic 7200
demonstrated industry leading performance of 0.13 billion
transactions per second (GUPS)*.
SilverStorm(tm) 9020 20Gb DDR InfiniBand ECA - Designed for Oracle Clusters The SilverStorm(tm) 9020 Enterprise Cluster Accelerator (ECA) multi-protocol InfiniBand director from QLogic is a cost-effective InfiniBand solution that powers Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC). Available now to end-user customers, the SilverStorm 9020 ECA is designed specifically for high performance Oracle RAC clusters supporting up to 22 DDR hosts. By including the Oracle Certified Reliable Datagram Sockets (RDS) protocol, only available through QLogic, customers have an Oracle certified solution comparable in performance to larger SMP solutions, but at a fraction of the cost. The 9020 ECA is available in a 2U enclosure and can be configured for complete redundancy, yet takes less rack space and power than any competitive InfiniBand director available today. The 9020 is designed to meet the requirements of Oracle's most demanding enterprise customers today, yet can grow when needed to meet the demands of tomorrow.
HPCTrack(tm) - A Program to Enhance the HPC Ecosystem
Because the performance of an HPC cluster can often be defined by the performance of the cluster interconnect, partners and customers are asking QLogic to more tightly weave new InfiniBand technology into the ecosystem - and to do it faster. In response, the HPCtrack program is designed to provide faster access to new InfiniBand technology, to certify the interoperability of ecosystem products and to provide a basis for closer collaboration on performance optimization of multi-vendor solutions. The following twenty ecosystem partners and customers have already joined the program: 3 Leaf Systems, Altair, AutoDesk, CD-adapco, Clustercorp, Corning Cabling Systems, Data Direct Networks, FalconStor, Isilon Systems, Livermore Software Technology Corporation, LSI, Panasas, Quantum, RAID Incorporated, RNA Networks, SCALI, SI-Cortex, SIMULIA, Terascala, Texas Memory Systems and Zarlink. QLogic will be registering new partners and customers on the floor of SC07 in booth #261.
About QLogic
QLogic is a leading supplier of high performance storage networking solutions, which include the controller chips, host adapters and fabric switches that are the backbone of storage networks for most Global 2000 corporations. The company delivers a broad and diverse portfolio of products that includes Fibre Channel HBAs, blade server embedded Fibre Channel switches, Fibre Channel stackable switches, iSCSI HBAs and iSCSI routers. The company is also a leading supplier of InfiniBand switches and InfiniBand host channel adapters for the emerging high performance computing market. QLogic products are delivered to small-to-medium businesses and large enterprises around the world via its channel partner community. QLogic products are also powering solutions from leading companies like Cisco, Dell, EMC, Hitachi Data Systems, HP, IBM, Network Appliance and Sun Microsystems. QLogic is a member of the S&P 500 Index.
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* Bandwidth (uni-directional) was measured using the OSU Bandwidth Test (osu_bw) measured at 4 MB message size between two systems (described below). Scalable Latency was measured using the HPC Challenge Benchmark suite's Randomly Ordered Ring Latency benchmark on 8 nodes with a total of 32 cores. GUPS (Giga Updates Per Second) was measured using the HPC Challenge Benchmark suite's MPI Random Access benchmark on 8 nodes with a total of 32 cores. 8 Systems were used in tests, each with 2 x 2.6 GHz Dual-Core AMD Opteron 2218 CPUs, 8 GB DDR2-667 memory; NVIDIA MCP55 chipset; QLogic QLE7280 DDR HCA in a PCIe x16 slot. The systems were connected using one QLogic SilverStorm 9024 Switch (DDR).