Since ancient times there have been no beginning to the end of the kind of wonderful, I call it a martyr.
InfiniBand is one of them, and although it has a falling trend, I still have to applaud it.
If Ethernet is designed to connect the host, then InfiniBand's original intention is to dismember it, the genetic difference, destined for them to launch a war, of course, this is something.
Server is powerful, but the PCI bus is too slow, and its parallelization design is not suitable for high-speed environment, the correct way is to serialize, and improve the clock frequency, because parallelization simply can not withstand the increase in clock frequency, will crash. The InfiniBand is designed to pull the bus outside the chassis, providing a high-speed serial transmission path, and it succeeds because it separates the end-to-end complexity from the bus itself, which is right, just as Ethernet from csma/ The evolution of the CD's broadcast network to switched Ethernet is the same.
The control logic migrates from the link itself to both ends of the link. So the hub came out, for the hub without the controller, as its Chinese name says, it is a hub, and then the concept of the bridge then lead to the Ethernet bridge later became a switch, so far, InfiniBand is also in a consistent route, It may realize that parallel transmission and high-frequency clock can not be combined, so the use of high-frequency clock and serial mode, and like switched Ethernet, the bus topology changed to a point-to-point topology, the use of message routing, which is really like an Ethernet frame. If InfiniBand toward this road continue to go, not only to replace the pci,pci-x, but also very likely and Ethernet a showdown, Ethernet since the birth has not been defeated, are relying on the cost Ko opponent, although this aspect InfiniBand nearly, but it has enough time to improve. At first Ethernet did not also walk through the expensive coaxial era?
InfiniBand and Ethernet architectures are really similar, but there is a difference, that is, InfiniBand is flat, and Ethernet is a part of the network protocol stack, it can interface with the IP, which is their job. And InfiniBand is loyal to his own job, it just wants to pull the peripherals outside the chassis, to form a high-speed arbitrary expansion of the server bus new architecture. If you want to increase the bus bandwidth or add a new device, it's easy to add a cable! This is the InfiniBand's killer. Because it can be outside the chassis, this physical separation makes the InfiniBand switch a standalone device that is no longer part of the motherboard as a PCI controller. In short, everything is perfect.
It's a bit sad to go down here and say it ...
Cost issues, coupled with the collapse of the internet bubble caused by the decline in investment, infiniband its own problems so that many of its supporters and even the sponsors have left, parents and lovers have left, InfiniBand appear to be a single force thin ... However, this is not its end, at this time pci-express, that is, PCIe appeared, almost the infiniband of the replica, its main force point is still inside the chassis, of course, can also be extended to the outside of the box transmission media standards. This made InfiniBand a martyr. Just as Christ is to Christianity.
Until now, InfiniBand's ideas have been absorbed by a number of new technologies, such as the use of TCP/IP for remote memory access, RDMA, and of course its protocol stack is solidified on dedicated hardware. Now, the separate server chassis has become very crowded, the other side of the hyper-server virtualization is a multi-server when a use, and InfiniBand thought in that era, too precocious ...
Shed Tears for InfiniBand. But wait, it's not completely gone, maybe it's time for it to sublimate its metamorphosis, and it's worth looking forward to.
Copyright NOTICE: This article for Bo Master original article, without Bo Master permission not reproduced.
Crying for InfiniBand
