> > Do i need to connect both to the same switch? > > So in short with infiniband you lose 2 ports of the switch to 1 card, > > is that correct? > > You probably want to just connect one port to a switch and leave the other > one unconnected to start with.
Correct. You only need to connect one port. The second port can be used for performance increase or fail over for example. > > CARDS: > > Do all switches work with all cards? > > Can you mix the many different cards that are out there of 4x > > infiniband? > > If not, can you mix from mellanox the different cards theirs? So mix > > from 1 manufacturer cards? > > They will (or at least should) all work to a point but depending on what > combination you are using you may not get some features. If you want an > easy life keep it all from the same manufacturer All cards and switches build according to the spec will work. > > Does infiniband 4x work for x64 machines? > > The 4x bit is the number of links aggregated together. 4x is normal for > connections from a switch to a node, higher numbers are sometimes used > for inter-switch links. You also need to note the data rate (eg SDR, DDR, QDR > etc). 4X means 4 network lanes (same as the PCIe convention - PCIe x4, x8 etc.). It is related to the port speed, not the server architecture. Most of the InfiniBand port out there are 4X > > > DRIVERS: > > Drivers for cards now. Are those all open source, or does it require > > payment? Is the source released of all those cards drivers, and do > > they integrate into linux? > > You should get everything you need from the Linux kernel and / or OFED. You can also find the drivers on the vendors sites. Not sure about the rest, but for the Mellanox case it is open source and free - both for Linux and Windows Gilad _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, [email protected] sponsored by Penguin Computing To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
