D A T A S H E E T
SilverStorm
™
9000 Fabric
Directors
10 Gb/s (SDR) and 20
Gb/s (DDR) Switching
With Integrated Virtual I/O
Controllers (VIC)
Benefits
Significantly improve cluster computing application
•
performance
Eliminate the need for separate physical server
•
connections to storage and network resources
Scale servers and I/O independently
•
Pool and share I/O between servers
•
Simplify data center design and reduce operating
•
costs
Requires up to 1/3 less power and space than
•
competitive solutions
Key Features
Up to 11.52 Terabits of switching capacity in a
•
single system
Common set of spine, leaf, and Virtual I/O Controller
•
modules across all chassis sizes
4x SDR/DDR InfiniBand, 1/2/4 Gb/s Fibre Channel
•
and 10Gb/s Ethernet Virtual I/O interface options
Fully redundant power, cooling, and logic
•
components
Up to 288 InfiniBand ports in a single chassis
•
Supports both copper and Fiber Optic InfiniBand
•
cables
Integrated Cluster Computing Interconnect Solution.
The SilverStorm 9000
Multi-Protocol Fabric Directors support High Performance Computing (HPC),
database clustering, and grid utility computing applications; they maximize
cluster and grid computing interconnect performance while simplifying and
reducing data center costs. The 9000 Fabric Director systems leverage
the latest InfiniBand-based technologies to provide industry leading port
densities, throughput performance, and ultra-low latency.
Virtual I/O Integration.
The 9000 family incorporates the innovative Virtual
I/O Controller (VIC) technology. VIC modules installed in a 9000 system
enable hosts on InfiniBand fabrics to transparently access either Fibre
Channel or Ethernet networks or both. VIC modules utilize Virtual HBA
and Virtual NIC technology creating a virtual pool of network and storage
resource connectivity. VIC technology eliminates the cost and complexity
of running multiple server physical connections for storage, network, and
inter-processor communications, and allows each virtual network type to
scale independently over a “single wire” connection.
Fabric Scalability.
The 9000 series Fabric Directors economically support
most any cluster interconnect requirement. The family scales to support
small networks with as few as 12 nodes using a single 2U chassis to multi-
thousand node networks using multiple Fabric Director systems working in
concert as a single high performance virtual fabric.
To maximize fabric scalability, all 9000 systems use the same spine
switching, leaf switching, and VIC option modules. All chassis types are
slot-independent, which enable flexible switching capacity and port density
depending on the number and type of option modules installed.
Advanced Features.
All major components are field replaceable and hot
pluggable. Advanced features are supported, such as non-disruptive
firmware upgrade, port-to-port and module-to-module failover, component
level diagnostics and alarming, and both in-band and out-of-band remote
management. When combined with the QuickSilver suite of fabric software
solutions, the 9000 family of Fabric Directors supports the most demanding
cluster computing interconnect requirements.
