Every IT organization is on a continuous search for ways to become more efficient and to lower costs. For more than a decade, large “hyperscale” and Web2.0 companies (think Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon) have set the gold standard for deploying the most efficient datacenters. Until very recently, the key to their success was kept tightly under wraps. However, this all changed in 2011 when Facebook decided to redefine the way we think about hyperscale and IT infrastructure, by introducing an initiative called Open Compute Project (OCP). OCP provides the specifications and blueprints for building energy-efficient and scalable datacenters. Since its inception, Mellanox has been an active contributor to OCP, addressing the demands of the next-gen data centers by delivering end-to-end network fabric with unmatched features for open architecture and proven, reliable performance at 10/25 and 40/50/100Gbps.
Mellanox Connects Industry’s First PCIe Gen 4.0 OCP Server
Mellanox ConnectX®-5 is the industry’s first PCIe Gen-4 based 100Gb/s OCP Ethernet adapter. The exponential growth of data, coupled with applications rapidly moving to cloud has created a pervasive need for a faster network. With PCIe Gen 4.0, ConnectX-5 delivers full 200Gb/s data throughput to servers and storage platforms. In addition, ConnectX-5 supports Multi-Host technology, delivering flexibility and major cost savings for the next generation of Cloud, Web2.0, Big Data and cognitive computing platforms. Multi-Host technology disaggregates the network and enables building new scale-out heterogeneous compute and storage racks with direct connectivity from multiple processors to shared network controller.
Mellanox Connects Clouds and Major Server Architectures
Mellanox network solutions power the industry’s broadest OCP server and storage platforms. Last year at OCP summit, we enabled OCP platforms like Facebook Yosemite, Facebook Leopard and Rackspace Barreleye servers. This year, we continue to innovate and deliver network for the next generation server platforms, namely: Microsoft Olympus server (x86 based), Rackspace Barreleye G2 with Zaius motherboard (OpenPOWER Power9 based) and Qualcomm CentriqTM (ARM based).
Both Microsoft Project Olympus and OpenPOWER based Zaius, the open server platform from Google and Rackspace are designed to usher the new era of open source hardware development for public cloud infrastructure. Project Olympus leverages intelligent networking solutions with Mellanox ConnectX-4 Lx and a tightly coupled programmable FPGA, to accelerate key functionalities including: crypto, Quality of Service (QoS), and storage protocols. OpenPOWER/OCP Barreleye G2 with Zaius motherboard, is the world’s first platform that combines IBM’s Power9 processor, PCIe Gen4 and Mellanox ConnectX-5 network adapters.
Mellanox Connects Open Networking Platforms
Network disaggregation was first envisioned and utilized by the hyper-scale web and cloud service providers, but has rapidly expanded its influence to enterprises in many industries. This has allowed enterprises to take control and easily customize their own network infrastructure. Through close collaboration with the community on open networking initiatives such as Cumulus, Switch Abstraction Interface (SAI), and Microsoft SONiC, Mellanox has helped bring the vision of Open Ethernet to a reality.
In addition, Mellanox has worked with Microsoft to demonstrate the key role that high-performance networking plays in improving total cloud infrastructure efficiency. In a demo led my Microsoft and with participation by Mellanox, faster and highest efficiency data movement leveraging RoCE is shown to significantly enhance storage access and applications such as virtual machine Live Migration. The high throughput, low and consistent latency, and innovative congestion management implementation on Mellanox Spectrum Ethernet switch together with intelligent network on Olympus servers have made it the best choice for supporting highly-efficient RoCE-based deployment.
Visit Mellanox Technologies at the OCP Summit
Visit Mellanox during the OCP Summit at the Santa Clara Convention Center, OCP Summit 2017, March 8 -9, booth no. C-23, to learn more about the OCP family of Connect-X adapters.