OpenVPX InfiniBand switch for ISR released by GE Intelligent Platforms
NewsMay 10, 2013
HUNTSVILLE, AL. GE Intelligent Platforms has released a rugged 6U OpenVPX InfiniBand switch fabric module, the IBX400. The board-level, Modular Open Systems Architecture (MOSA)-compliant module leverages Mellanox Technologies’ sixth generation SwitchX 2 VPI switch, and is suited for deployment in Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) applications.
The IBX400 provides in-band subnet management for its DDR InfiniBand data plane with 20 fat pipes, a Gigabit Ethernet control plane with 16 ultra-thin pipes and layer 2/3 management of the Ethernet switch fabric, managed and fully-managed layer 2/3, and OpenWare control plane switch management supporting IPv4 and IPv6 switching. This enables high-speed data connectivity to Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA)-enabled Intel Core i7 Single Board Computers (SBCs), PMC and XMC carrier cards, multiprocessors, and NVIDIA CUDA GPUs. It can also be used as a high-performance complement to the GBX460 10 Gigabit Ethernet switch module to lower latency and increase data plane bandwidth.
“The growth in both the number and complexity of deployed sensors – sensors which enable the collection of huge amounts of data that need to be turned rapidly into actionable information – is overwhelming the capability of current military computing platforms,” says Rod Rice, General Manager, Military/Aerospace Products, GE Intelligent Platforms. “The requirement exists to substantially increase the throughput of this data, and the IBX400 provides a solution.”
The IBX400 supports software building blocks from open source High Performance Computing (HPC) community projects, such as OpenMPI Interprocess Communication (IPC) middleware and OpenFabrics Enterprise Distribution (OFED) RDMA. Applications can also be ported to the module from desktops or Linux servers for increased computing performance.
More information on the IBX400 can be found at http://defense.ge-ip.com/products/ibx400/p3711. A video outlining GE's High Performance Embedded Computing (HPEC) strategy for aerospace and defense is viewable at http://mil-embedded.com/videos/ge-computer-hpec-center-excellence/.
