HPCwire: Obsidian Longbow Technology Showcased at Cluster Symposium

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July 28, 2006

Obsidian Longbow Technology Showcased at Cluster Symposium

A breakthrough in performance thanks to new technology brought together by Cisco Systems, Tungsten Graphics and Obsidian has allowed a 7.5 megapixel image to update at 20 frames per second over a 2 km InfiniBand connection.

This unique capability was showcased this week at the Commodity Cluster Symposium 2006 (CCS2006), which addressed challenges associated with the rapidly expanding interest in and acceptance of the use of commodity computer clusters for scientific applications. This year's international symposium focused on clusters operating in heterogeneous production computing environments used to solve very large scientific problems. The symposium was held July 25-27, 2006 at the Wyndham in Baltimore, Maryland.

Typically, high performance visualization applications require a render farm and visualization node locally clustered with InfiniBand. For this live technology demonstration, the visualization node is isolated and located 2 km away from the render nodes, simulating a campus environment. The exhibit features the Tungsten Graphics Render Server, a three node Tungsten Graphics Visualization Cluster using Cisco InfiniBand internal interconnect, and the Obsidian Longbow for the long-haul connection. The client-side viewer on the remote end of a second Obsidian Longbow connects to Tungsten Graphics View via a second Cisco InfiniBand switch.

Attendees to the show were treated to a high fidelity 7.5 megapixel scientific visualization display rendered 2 km distant from the six-panel display head at 20 frames per second. Longbow technology integrates with the Tungsten Graphics and Cisco Systems infrastructure, while InfiniBand's high guaranteed bandwidth and its low deterministic latency yield a compelling real-time remote visualization experience. Campus area InfiniBand allows large-scale InfiniBand clusters to be efficiently and cost-effectively shared throughout an organization even in demanding real-time, high fidelity and interactive workload environments.

Cisco Systems, the leader in InfiniBand clustering technology, was instrumental in bringing the project participants together to help bridge the gap between leading edge technology and commercial products. Cisco SFS 7000 series InfiniBand Server Switches provide high-speed and reliable InfiniBand switching to enable campus-wide solutions for high-end visualization applications.

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