InfiniBand Backers Take Protocol Stack Open Source

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

This week, all of the major proponents of the InfiniBand interconnection scheme for servers and storage networks launched the OpenIB Alliance, which is seeking to create an open source, industry-standard software stack for implementing the InfiniBand software in Linux and, someday, other operating systems.

InfiniBand enthusiasts--including industry heavyweights like Intel and IBM as well as smaller but key players like TopSpin Communications and Mellanox Technologies--know that now that InfiniBand hardware (host adapters, switches, and such) is available, the real key to driving the adoption of InfiniBand in the high-performance computing and enterprise computing markets will be software. And having a consistent set of software that spans multiple workloads and vendors will be vital.

That is why TopSpin and Mellanox have contributed hundreds of thousands of lines of working code for implementing InfiniBand components to the OpenIB organization. They are hoping that other InfiniBand promoters like themselves--Dell, Engenio Information Technologies (formerly LSI Logic), IBM, InfiniCon, Intel, Lawrence Livermore National Lab, Network Appliance, Sandia National Laboratories, Sun Microsystems, Veritas, and Voltaire--will work together as founding members of the OpenIB alliance and flesh out the InfiniBand software stack for Linux. They want to then get that stack embedded in the Linux distributions so InfiniBand can ride up two separate waves in the IT market: the adoption of Linux clusters for HPC workloads and the adoption of Linux for clustered databases. Both of these waves are taking applications off of expensive, SMP Unix servers and putting them onto cheap, X86 Linux clusters. The use of InfiniBand--which has serious benefits compared to Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, and even 10G Ethernet--will accelerate the use of Linux for these applications.

By letting go of the software, OpenIB members hope to create a positive feedback loop that will break InfiniBand into the mainstream. That was the goal several years ago, when IBM and Intel created the standard and then later backed the InfiniBand Trade Association. IBTA created the standard, but you have to do more than that. All of the major server makers will have rolled out InfiniBand solutions of one sort or another by the end of this quarter, and all the major platform providers are working on getting InfiniBand supported in Linux, Windows, and various Unix flavors. But this is taking too long. It is better to give away the software, solicit the help of open source coders from interested parties, and speed the whole process up.

The OpenIB alliance hopes to have its bylaws and working groups created in the third quarter; it will also roll out its software delivery schedule around that time. OpenIB is being careful about IP models, and will allow companies to license the software stack under either the GPL or BSD licenses. Intel is acting as the secretary for the organization, and Sandia National Labs is hosting the OpenIB software repository.