[SunRescue] Re: NetBSD v. Linux v. Solaris 2.51

[Michael Thompson]

> What are they calling the new bus that's supposed to be replacing PCI?
> InfiniBand or something?  From the datasheets that I've seen, it looks
> pretty slick, but I'm not sure how much of what I've heard is still
> under NDA.  Probably not much, as there are actual designs based on the
> spec already...  InfiniBand certainly looks to be a good replacement for
> PCI on the bandwidth side. <snip>

Infiniband is a bidirectional 2.5 Gb/s serial connection. The links can be
paralleled (striped) up to 12 links. The link is intended to connect onto
the processor's bus, not way down stream on a slow I/O bus. A switched
fabric connects Infiniband nodes. A RAID or a router could be a node.

Lucent and others have announced SERDES parts that run at 2.5 Gb/s. Expect
to see prototype hardware in the first quarter of 2001.

Sun is a steering committee member.

See http://www.infinibandta.org for more info.
Michael Thompson
m_thompson at ids.net