BEAVERTON, Ore., Feb. 21, 2018 — The InfiniBand Trade Association (IBTA), a global organization dedicated to maintaining and furthering the InfiniBand and RoCE specifications, today announced the availability of its latest InfiniBand Combined Cable and Device Integrators’ List and RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) Interoperability List. Held October 2017 at the University of New Hampshire Interoperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL), IBTA Plugfest 32 featured new member vendors, cables, devices and testing capabilities, making it the most extensive and successful compliance and interoperability event to date. The rigorous, independent third-party compliance and interoperability program ensures that each cable and device tested successfully meets end user needs and expectations of InfiniBand and RoCE technology.

Customers ranging from data centers and research facilities to universities and government labs leverage these results when determining which products to use when designing or upgrading their systems. Fabric design is an important and costly business decision, making the InfiniBand Integrators’ List and the RoCE Interoperability List crucial elements when building systems and ensuring that all equipment will operate seamlessly. The independent validation provided by the IBTA Compliance and Interoperability program is critical to the advancement of RDMA technology and the industry as a whole.

Key highlights from Plugfest 32:

·   Records for RoCE interoperability testing

  o   Four major device vendors and seven of the most prominent cable vendors are now participating in the RoCE interoperability testing program

  o   21 Ethernet devices and over 60 Ethernet cables registered for the event, which were run through 30 different scenarios at speeds of 10, 25, 40, 50 and 100 GbE speeds

·   Cutting-Edge Testing Equipment and Capabilities

  o   Work on new SFI Transport tester at Plugfest 32 will allow 25 additional tests for Plugfest 33 in April 2018

  o   New test equipment and application software enabled testing of InfiniBand HDR 200 Gb/s copper cables and the development of new HDR 200 Gb/s testing suites for implementation at Plugfest 33

“The IBTA Plugfest is widely acknowledged as the most demanding and effective compliance and interoperability program in the industry, which creates a robust and reliable ecosystem of InfiniBand and RoCE solutions that end users can depend on,” said Rupert Dance, Chair of the IBTA Compliance and Interoperability Working Group (CIWG). “Moreover, each IBTA Plugfest provides our members – both cable and device vendors – with a neutral venue that is also attended by leading RDMA test equipment vendors who supply cutting edge equipment for advanced compliance and interoperability testing. This results in a unique opportunity only offered by the IBTA for its members to test the latest InfiniBand and Ethernet-based products in many different scenarios, debug in real-time and resolve any issues uncovered in the process.”

The IBTA Plugfest is essential to members and creates a clear path to develop products that are compliant to the InfiniBand and RoCE specifications and also interoperable within the larger ecosystem. Each product that completes compliance and interoperability testing is compiled into the resulting InfiniBand Integrators’ List and RoCE Interoperability List. These lists are technical resources that provide immense benefits to all end users deploying RDMA-based fabrics.

Vendors that contributed test equipment to IBTA Plugfest 32 include Ace Unitech, Anritsu, Keysight Technologies, Molex, Software Forge, TE Connectivity, Tektronix and Wilder Technologies.

The following sources provide additional information about the IBTA Integrators’ List Program:

·         Methods of Implementation (MOI)

·         Integrators’ List Policy and Testing Procedures

·         Archives of past InfiniBand Integrators’ Lists and RoCE Interoperability Lists

IBTA Plugfest 33 will be held April 9-20, 2018 at UNH-IOL. Registration information is available on the Plugfest page.

To learn more about the benefits of becoming an IBTA member, visit the Membership Information page.

About the InfiniBand Trade Association

The InfiniBand Trade Association was founded in 1999 and is chartered with maintaining and furthering the InfiniBand and the RoCE specifications. The IBTA is led by a distinguished steering committee that includes Broadcom, Cray, HPE, IBM, Intel, Mellanox Technologies, Microsoft, Oracle and QLogic. Other members of the IBTA represent leading enterprise IT vendors who are actively contributing to the advancement of the InfiniBand and RoCE specifications. The IBTA markets and promotes InfiniBand and RoCE from an industry perspective through online, marketing and public relations engagements, and unites the industry through IBTA-sponsored technical events and resources. For more information on the IBTA, visit www.infinibandta.org.

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Source: InfiniBand Trade Association