Mellanox Technologies SX6710, Hardware User Manual

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Introduction to Mellanox SX67X0 Systems
Mellanox Technologies
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1 Introduction to Mellanox SX67X0 Systems
1.1 Overview
The SX67X0 systems provide the highest performing fabric solution in a 1U form factor by
delivering up to 4Tb/s of non-blocking bandwidth with 200ns port-to-port latency.
These systems are the industry's most cost-effective building blocks for embedded systems and
storage with a need for low port density systems. Whether looking at price-to-performance or
energy-to-performance, these systems offer superior performance, power and space, reducing
capital and operating expenses and providing the best return-on-investment. The systems are an
ideal choice for smaller departmental or back-end clustering uses with high-performance needs,
such as storage, data base and GPGPU clusters.
Powerful servers combined with high-performance storage and applications that use increasingly
complex computations are causing data bandwidth requirements to spiral upward. As servers are
deployed with next generation processors, High-Performance Computing (HPC) environments
and Enterprise Data Centers (EDC) need every last bit of bandwidth delivered with Mellanox’s
FDR InfiniBand systems.
Built with Mellanox’s sixth generation SwitchX®-2 InfiniBand FDR 56Gb/s system device,
these standalone systems are an ideal choice for top-of-rack leaf connectivity or for building
small to extremely large sized clusters.
These systems enable efficient computing with features such as static routing, adaptive routing,
and advanced congestion management. These features ensure the maximum effective fabric
bandwidth by eliminating congestion.
The managed systems comes with an onboard subnet manager, enabling simple, out-of-the-box
fabric bring-up for up to 648 nodes. MLNX-OS® software delivers complete chassis manage-
ment of firmware, power supplies, fans, ports and other interfaces.
Mellanox’s edge systems can also be coupled with Mellanox’s Unified Fabric Manager (UFM®)
software for managing scale-out InfiniBand computing environments. UFM enables data center
operators to efficiently provision, monitor and operate the modern data center fabric. UFM
boosts application performance and ensures that the fabric is up and running at all times.
InfiniBand systems come as internally or externally managed. Internally managed systems come
with a CPU that runs the management software (MLNX-OS®) and management ports which are
used to transfer management traffic into the system. Externally managed systems come without
the CPU and management ports and are managed using firmware tools.
Mellanox's InfiniBand to Ethernet gateway, built with Mellanox's SwitchX®-2 based systems,
provides the most cost-effective, high-performance solution for data center unified connectivity
solutions. Mellanox's gateways enable data centers to operate at up to 56Gb/s network speeds
while seamlessly connecting to 1, 10 and 40GbE networks with low latency (400ns). Existing
LAN infrastructures and management practices can be preserved, easing deployment and provid-
ing significant return-on-investment.
Figure 1: SX67X0 Front Side View