ADVA Optical Networking, Obsidian and Voltaire Prove Support for InfiniBand over 50km

  
    
  
  
    
      ADVA Optical Networking, Obsidian Strategics Inc. and Voltaire Ltd. 
      today announced an integrated capability to extend InfiniBand 
      connections to 50km without performance degradation. The solution was 
      successfully tested at the University of Stuttgart’s 
      High Performance Computing Center (HLRS), which provides systems, tools 
      and expertise for public and private supercomputing development projects.
    
    
      Today, InfiniBand is primarily used as a high-performance fabric 
      interconnect for linking a cluster’s compute 
      nodes within a high-performance data center. Until now, use of 
      InfiniBand for wide area networks has been restricted, due to the 
      inability to transport native InfiniBand traffic over large distances. 
      As such, implementation across computing systems that cover several 
      geographically separated data centers has also been restricted.
    
    
      Extending InfiniBand across the metropolitan area network (MAN) will 
      allow enterprises to greatly enhance not only their supercomputing, but 
      also their disaster-recovery and storage-networking applications, using 
      InfiniBand as the underlying unified network architecture.
    
    
      To address all these market requirements, ADVA Optical Networking, 
      Obsidian Strategics and Voltaire have partnered to deliver a complete 
      InfiniBand-over-distance solution for HPC and enterprise applications. 
      The major building blocks of the joint solution are director-class 
      InfiniBand switches (Voltaire) interconnected via InfiniBand range 
      extenders (Obsidian) and bit-transparent, low-latency WDM transport 
      devices (ADVA Optical Networking).
    
    
      The HLRS solution comprised the following elements. More than 500 
      computing nodes of the new Baden-Württemberg 
      Grid Cluster were clustered via two 288-port Voltaire Grid Director™ 
      2012 switches. They were interlinked using Obsidian's short-reach 
      Longbow Campus devices for serializing and range-extending the 4X SDR 
      InfiniBand signal. The ADVA WDM FSP devices (FSP 2000 or FSP 3000) were 
      then used to interconnect the sites using protocol-agnostic, Dense 
      Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) that provided bit-transparent, 
      lowest-latency transport. The whole solution was built using generally 
      available devices.
    
    
      “High performance, low latency and its unified 
      fabric capability have made InfiniBand a steadily more popular 
      connectivity solution for inside the data center. Until now, InfiniBand 
      has been limited as an inside-the-datacenter solution,” 
      said Prof. Dr.-Ing. M. Resch, Director HLRS. “The 
      ability to extend the protocol over distance at full throughput offers 
      totally new HPC scenarios.”
    
    
      “We believe that WDM transport is the natural 
      choice for latency-sensitive, high-throughput protocols such as 
      InfiniBand. Its increasing adoption rate in research networks as well as 
      in the financial industry motivated us to develop a solution that helps 
      to further consolidate data center traffic onto a unified fabric. 
      InfiniBand-over-WDM offers unbridled throughput for enterprises’ 
      most-demanding applications,” said Dr. 
      Christoph Glingener, chief technology officer for ADVA Optical 
      Networking.
    
    
      Asaf Somekh, vice president of strategic alliances, Voltaire Ltd., said, “InfiniBand 
      has established itself as the advanced interconnect standard of choice 
      to power many of the world's biggest and fastest computer systems and 
      enterprise data centers. This deployment at HLRS shows InfiniBand can be 
      easily extended for scalable WAN storage capabilities.”
    
    
      Added Dr. David Southwell, president and chief executive officer with 
      Obsidian Strategics: “In the face of the 
      sustained exponential growth of intra- and inter-data center bandwidth 
      demand, we are pleased to work with ADVA Optical Networking and 
      Voltaire, deploying Longbow solutions that unlock the enormous potential 
      of both WDM and InfiniBand technologies for high-performance data 
      transport.”
    
    
      ABOUT ADVA OPTICAL NETWORKING
    
    
      ADVA Optical Networking (FSE: ADV) is at the forefront of providing 
      Optical+Ethernet solutions that advance next-generation networks for 
      data, storage, voice and video services. Our company’s 
      strength comes from passionate and dedicated employees, all sharing a 
      common vision: a fast, customized response to customers’ 
      ever-changing needs. Our innovative FSP products and strong customer 
      focus provide carriers and enterprises the ability to scale their 
      networks and deliver intelligent, competitive new services. ADVA Optical 
      Networking’s solutions have been deployed at 
      more than 200 carriers and 10,000 enterprises around the world. For 
      further information about ADVA Optical Networking: www.advaoptical.com.
    
    
      ABOUT HLRS
    
    
      The High Performance Computing Center (HLRS) at the University of 
      Stuttgart was founded in 1995 as the first federal high-performance 
      computing centre in Germany. It provides teaching and research 
      institutions as well as external and industrial partners supercomputer 
      computing power for technical and scientific applications. The HLRS’ 
      core competency is the modelling and simulation of complex systems. The 
      HLRS is connected with the industrial research of companies such as 
      Daimler and Porsche through numerous projects in which it acts as a 
      scientific and business partner.
    
    
      ABOUT OBSIDIAN STRATEGICS INC.
    
    
      Obsidian Strategics is the developer of Longbow, a series of InfiniBand 
      products featuring range extension, routing and encryption. Longbow 
      technology allows an InfiniBand fabric, normally a short-range network 
      used in high-performance computing, to be extended via optical fiber 
      over varying distances. Longbow connects across Campus, Metro or Global 
      networks to offer unparalleled high-bandwidth, low-latency access to 
      InfiniBand compute and storage resources. For more information, see www.obsidianstrategics.com.
    
    
      ABOUT VOLTAIRE LTD.
    
    
      Voltaire (NASDAQ: VOLT) designs and develops server and storage 
      switching and software solutions that enable high-performance grid 
      computing within the data center. Voltaire refers to its server and 
      storage switching and software solutions as the Voltaire Grid Backbone™. 
      Voltaire’s products leverage InfiniBand 
      technology and include director-class switches, multi-service switches, 
      fixed-port configuration switches, Ethernet and Fibre Channel routers 
      and standards-based driver and management software. Voltaire’s 
      solutions have been sold to a wide range of end customers including 
      governmental, research and educational organizations, as well as 
      enterprises in the manufacturing, oil and gas, entertainment, life 
      sciences and financial services industries. Founded in 1997, Voltaire 
      Ltd. is headquartered in Herzeliya, Israel, and has its U.S. 
      headquarters in Billerica, Massachusetts.
    
    
      Forward Looking Statements
    
    
      Information provided in this press release may contain statements 
      relating to current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections 
      about future events that are "forward-looking statements" as defined in 
      the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These 
      forward-looking statements generally relate to Voltaire's plans, 
      objectives and expectations for future operations and are based upon 
      management's current estimates and projections of future results or 
      trends. Actual future results may differ materially from those projected 
      as a result of certain risks and uncertainties. These factors include, 
      but are not limited to, those discussed under the heading "Risk Factors" 
      in Voltaire’s annual report on Form 20-F 
      filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on May 5, 2008. These 
      forward-looking statements are made only as of the date hereof, and we 
      undertake no obligation to update or revise the forward-looking 
      statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or 
      otherwise.