Companies cross-certify solutions to enable faster, more efficient storage access for large clusters

AUSTIN, Texas, Nov. 18 -- SC08 -- Voltaire Ltd., a leading provider of grid backbone solutions for datacenters, today announced that it is working with Panasas, the global leader in parallel storage solutions, to deliver high-performance storage solutions based on unified fabrics to customers worldwide. The companies recently completed cross-certification testing of Voltaire Grid Director switches and InfiniBand-to-10-Gigabit-Ethernet gateways with the Panasas ActiveStor 6000 Parallel Storage Cluster. Used together, the products can deliver full-rated throughput using an efficient unified fabric configuration that reduces overall system costs.

The Voltaire-Panasas solution enables very high performance storage access for large, scale-out cluster computing architectures using Voltaire 20 Gb/s InfiniBand switches for the server interconnect and Voltaire InfiniBand-to-10-Gigabit-Ethernet gateways to provide connectivity to the Panasas storage. The solution removes the bottlenecks typically associated with clustered storage and reduces costs because only one InfiniBand adapter is used in each server, eliminating the need to install costly 10 GbE network interface cards on all of the servers or to implement complicated "work-arounds" using servers as I/O gateways.

"Working with Voltaire, we've developed a really elegant storage solution for large-scale clustered environments that we've already begun deploying at customer sites," said Don Grabski, director of product management at Panasas. "During our certification process, we tested the solution on a 32-node cluster and achieved very good performance results that will make a difference for application performance in real-world HPC environments. The four Panasas AS6000 module configuration with the Voltaire Grid Director switches and InfiniBand-to-10-Gigabit-Ethernet gateways are capable of read performance in excess of 2GB/second."

Voltaire Grid Director switches provide high-performance 20 Gb/s InfiniBand connectivity and microsecond latencies to enable high-performance applications fully utilize distributed server, network and storage resources. Combining Voltaire switches with a Voltaire InfiniBand-to-10-Gigabit-Ethernet gateway enables line speed access from the servers to storage resources.

"The Voltaire-Panasas solution delivers compelling advancements for storage access in scale-out environments, in terms of both performance and efficiency," said Asaf Somekh, vice president of strategic alliances at Voltaire. "By using InfiniBand as a unified fabric that delivers server and storage traffic on a single wire, customers are gaining speed and scalability for their applications while avoiding the excessive costs associated with using multiple NICs in the servers."

Availability

High performance storage solutions from Voltaire and Panasas are available today through Voltaire's OEM and reseller partners, and from Panasas and its partners.

About Panasas

Panasas, Inc., the global leader in parallel storage solutions, helps commercial, government and academic organizations accelerate their time to results leading to real world breakthroughs that improve people's lives. Panasas' high-performance storage systems enable customers to maximize the benefits of Linux clusters by eliminating the storage bottleneck created with legacy network storage technologies. Panasas ActiveStor Parallel Storage Clusters, in conjunction with the ActiveScale Operating Environment and PanFS parallel file system, offer the most comprehensive portfolio of storage solutions for high performance computing (HPC) environments. Panasas is headquartered in Fremont, Calif. For more information, visit www.panasas.com.

About Voltaire

Voltaire Ltd. (NASDAQ: VOLT) designs and develops server and storage switching and software solutions that enable high-performance grid computing within the datacenter. Voltaire refers to its server and storage switching and software solutions as the Voltaire Grid Backbone. Voltaire's products leverage InfiniBand technology and include director-class switches, multi-service switches, fixed-port configuration switches, Ethernet and Fibre Channel routers and standards-based driver and management software. Voltaire's solutions have been sold to a wide range of end customers including governmental, research and educational organizations, as well as enterprises in the manufacturing, oil and gas, entertainment, life sciences and financial services industries. Founded in 1997, Voltaire Ltd. is headquartered in Herzliya, Israel, and has its U.S. headquarters in Billerica, Mass. More information about Voltaire is available at www.voltaire.com or by calling 1-800-865-8247.

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Source: Voltaire Ltd.