Ted H. Kim's Weblog

Friday June 27, 2008

HCA Line-up

To state the obvious, I have not blogged in a while. But here is an article I have wanted to do for some time. Occasionally, people wonder which HCAs are offered by Sun. So here is a summary. Yes there are numerous IHV cards out there. But these HCAs are the ones you can get off the Sun price list.

Sun Option	Form Factor	Chip	IO Bus	IB Ports (per HCA)	Card Memory	Solaris Driver
X1333A-4	Card	MT23108 InfiniHost	PCI-X 133	Dual x4 SDR	256 MB	tavor
X1236A-Z	Card	MT25208 InfiniHost III Ex	PCIe x8	Dual x4 SDR	256 MB	tavor
X1288A-Z	Express Module
X1289A-Z	SunBlade 8000 NEM (10 HCAs)	MT25204 InfiniHost III Lx	PCIe x8	One x4 DDR	Memfree	arbel
X4217A-Z	Card	ConnectX-IB	PCIe x8	Dual x4 DDR	Memfree	hermon
X4216A-Z	Express Module
X5196A-Z	SunBlade 6048 NEM (12 HCAs + 2 switches)

Now all the notes and explanation: The Express Module is the PCIe hot-plug form factor used by Sun blade servers. NEM is our Network Express Module form factor which plugs into all the blades in a shelf. And because the NEMs have multiple HCAs in them, you have to note that the IB Ports column is listing the ports per HCA. The term Memfree means it uses host memory instead of using memory on the card. The arbel driver is currently available through our IB Updates 1. The hermon driver is NOT out yet, but it's coming; and before you ask I can't say any more than that. The X5196A-Z has the final stage of the switch setup for a Sun Constellation system built into the NEM.

If you are trying to use third party cards, the thing that might confuse you is that two different drivers are used with InfiniHost III Ex cards. If there is card memory, the Solaris tavor driver is used. On the other hand, Memfree cards use the Solaris arbel driver.

And of course, if there is any contradiction, I am sure the official stuff takes precedence over anything I say.

Technorati Tags: InfiniBand

(2008-06-27 15:31:58.0) Permalink