Video: Mellanox Takes HPC Interconnects to the Next Level at SC17

In this video, Gilad Shainer from Mellanox describes the company’s advanced interconnect technologies that were on display at SC17 in Denver.

“Mellanox is leading industry innovation by providing the highest throughput and lowest latency HDR 200Gb/s InfiniBand and Ethernet solutions available today, with a clear roadmap for tomorrow.”

At SC17, announced the world-leading and most scalable switch platform family based on HDR 200G InfiniBand Quantum switch technology. The new family includes:

  • Quantum QM8700 – Top-Of-Rack 40-port 200Gb/s or 80-port 100Gb/s switch platform,
  • Quantum CS8510 – modular 200-port 200Gb/s or 400-port 100Gb/s switch platform
  • Quantum CS8500 – modular 800-port 200Gb/s or 1600-port 100Gb/s switch platform.

The higher switch density of the new platforms will enable Mellanox customers and users to optimize their use of space and power, reducing data center expenses by 4X or more while increasing their performance by 2X. For departmental-scale implementations, a single Quantum QM8700 switch connects 80 servers reflecting 1.7 times higher than competitive products. For enterprise-scale, a 2-layer Quantum switch topology connects 3200 servers which is 2.8 times higher than competitive products. For hyperscale, a 3-layer Quantum switch topology connects 128,000 servers, or 4.6 times higher than competitive products.

The HDR 200G Quantum switch platforms will enable the highest scalability, all the while dramatically reducing the data center capital and operational expenses,” said Gilad Shainer, vice president of marketing at Mellanox Technologies. “Quantum will enable the next generation of high-performance computing, deep learning, Big Data, cloud and storage platforms to deliver the highest performance and setting a clear path to Exascale computing.”

Mellanox also announced that InfiniBand solutions accelerate 77 percent of the new high-performance computing systems on the TOP500 list deployed since the previous list (June 2017 to November 2017), 6 time more systems than proprietary interconnects and 15 times more versus Ethernet. InfiniBand accelerates 60 percent of the total HPC systems on the list and two of the top five supercomputers, including the fastest supercomputer in the world and the fastest supercomputer in Japan. This demonstrates the industry’s strong adoption of InfiniBand and its leading market share in high-performance computing and artificial intelligence.

The TOP500 List has evolved to include hyperscale, cloud, Web 2.0 and enterprise platforms, in addition to the high-performance computing and machine learning systems. 25 Gigabit Ethernet systems are making their first appearance on the TOP500 list, representing multiple data center deployments by Chinese hyperscale companies. Mellanox Ethernet solutions connect all of the 25 Gigabit, 40 Gigabit and 100 Gigabit Ethernet systems, enabling highest performance and efficiency for Hyperscale, cloud and enterprise data centers.

Due to its smart acceleration and offload advantages, InfiniBand connects the vast majority of the new TOP500 high-performance computing and deep learning systems deployed in the last 6 months. Furthermore, InfiniBand accelerates the fastest supercomputer in the world and in China, the fastest supercomputer in Japan, and has been selected to connect the fastest supercomputers in Canada, and in the US. By delivering highest applications performance, scalability and robustness, InfiniBand enables users to maximize their data center return on investment and improve their total cost of ownership by 50 percent,” said Eyal Waldman, president and CEO of Mellanox Technologies. “We are also happy to see our 25 Gigabit and above Ethernet solutions on the TOP500 list, representing the adoption of our Ethernet NICs, switches and cables in hyperscale and cloud companies, as they deliver highest efficiency to these platforms. Finally, we are excited to showcase our HDR 200Gb/s switch systems portfolio at the Supercomputing’17 conference, as we plan to release our HDR InfiniBand solutions in the first half of next year, further increasing the technology advantage of Mellanox in high-performance computing, cloud, Web2.0, database, deep learning and compute and storage platforms.”

Published twice a year, the TOP500 list ranks the world’s most powerful computer systems according to the Linpack benchmark rating system. Key takeaways from the November ’17 list include:

  • Mellanox accelerates the fastest supercomputer on the list
  • InfiniBand connects 2 of top 5 systems – #1 (China) and #4 (Japan)
  • InfiniBand connects 6 times more new HPC systems versus proprietary interconnects (June’17 – Nov’17)
  • InfiniBand connects 15 times more new HPC systems versus Ethernet (June’17 – Nov’17)
  • InfiniBand connects 77% of new HPC systems (June’17 – Nov’17)
  • Mellanox connects 39 percent of overall TOP500 systems (192 systems, InfiniBand and Ethernet)
  • InfiniBand connects 33 percent of the total TOP500 systems (164 systems)
  • InfiniBand connects 60 percent of the HPC TOP500 systems
  • 25G Ethernet first appearance on the Nov’17 TOP500 list (China Hyperscale companies) – 19 systems
  • Mellanox connects all of 25G, 40G and 100G Ethernet systems on the Nov’17 TOP500 list
  • InfiniBand is the most used high-speed Interconnect on the TOP500
  • InfiniBand is the preferred interconnect for Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning systems
  • Mellanox enables highest ROI for Machine Learning, High-Performance, Cloud, Storage, Big Data and more applications

See our complete coverage of SC17

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