Le Roi est mort, vive le Roi! (Observations from ISC ’09)

Whenever there’s an accession of a new monarch, you’re likely to hear the crowd chanting this proclamation. And after spending a few days walking the show floor at the International Supercomputing Conference (ISC’09) in Hamburg, Germany, I have to admit that there were times when I couldn’t get this phrase out of my head specifically as it relates to InfiniBand DDR (Dual Data Rate). Clearly, there’s a new sheriff in town in the form of QDR (Quad Data Rate). Let me explain.

Wherever I looked, I saw QDR equipment. Sun, Voltaire, Mellanox, QLogic and Intel all showed their latest QDR switches and HCAs. Mellanox connected the entire show floor with a QDR switch/HCA demo network utilizing 100 meters of active optical cables (AOC) from Finisar and others. Voltaire and Sun both demonstrated their QDR switches incorporating high speed ports utilizing a new connector, currently standardized in the InfiniBand Trade Association, capable of transmitting data at rates of up to 120Gbps. To support this new CXP connector, Finisar has launched its C.wire™ AOC, demonstrating 150Gbps data transmission over a parallel optical fiber cable. C.wire is a 12×12.5Gb/s (or 150Gb/s) parallel AOC which has attracted lots of attention on the show floor, particularly from those who have dealt with bulky copper cables at DDR data rates. Listening to OEM suppliers, integrators and HPC end-users at the show, it seems that the conversion from DDR to QDR is going to happen quickly, with some saying that they expect the port volume cross-over to occur around Q4 2009.

All in all, ISC ’09 proved to be a great show in an exciting new market for Finisar, as more and more HPC users realize that a fire hydrant cannot be operated without a hose.

auf Wiedersehen, Hamburg – see you next year at ISC ’10.