Quadrics Interconnect
With the increased importance of scalable system-area networks for
clustered computers, web-server farms, and network-attached storage,
the interconnection network and its associated software libraries
and hardware have become critical components in achieving high
performance. Such components will greatly impact the design,
architecture, and use of the aforementioned systems in the future.
Key players in high-speed interconnects include Gigabit Ethernet
(GigE), GigaNet, SCI, Myrinet, and
HiPPI-6400/Gigabyte System
Network. These interconnect solutions differ from one another
with respect to their architecture, programmability, scalability,
performance, and ease of integration into large-scale systems. While
GigE resides at the low end of the performance spectrum, it provides
a low-cost solution. GigaNet, GSN, Myrinet, and SCI add
programmability and performance by providing communication
processors on the network interface cards and implementing different
types of user-level communication protocols.
We are currently engaged in a detailed performance evaluation of the
QsNet ultra high bandwidth, low latency interconnect marketed by
Quadrics Supercomputers World
Ltd.. We have verified QsNet to achieve point-to-point data
throughput of 335 MB/s with a 2 µsecond latency, while
providing for fault detection and retransmission in hardware.
