Long Beach, CA, January 20, 2003 -- Today a group of technology companies announced the launch of an industry effort to establish the InfiniBand® architecture as the premier interconnect fabric in embedded computing. The co-sponsoring companies, Mellanox Technologies, SBS Technologies® and SKY Computers™, announced they will lead a newly established Embedded InfiniBand Subgroup within the InfiniBand Trade Association (IBTA). The companies also announced that they have developed a special interest group for embedded InfiniBand within the VMEbus International Trade Association (VITA). The announcement was made at the Bus & Board 2003 Conference in Long Beach.
The support provided by both trade associations is a valuable asset for the embedded InfiniBand initiative. The InfiniBand Trade Association has been a strong advocate for the use of InfiniBand in enterprise data center applications. Now with the Embedded InfiniBand Subgroup within the IBTA this scope has been expanded to support programs targeted at embedded computing customers. SBS Technologies and SKY Computers are co-chairs for the subgroup. Mellanox Technologies will have representation on this subgroup and is a member of the IBTA steering committee.
VITA works to unite manufacturers and users through the acceptance and implementation of open technology standards. The special interest group (SIG) within VITA will champion the use of InfiniBand within embedded technology implementations. The SIG will collaborate on the implementation of InfiniBand specifications, such as remote DMA and sockets direct protocol, that are important to the embedded community. The group will also act as a communication channel reporting to appropriate standards organizations, such as the IBTA, on the implementation of InfiniBand Architecture standards within Embedded Computing systems.
"A switched, serial I/O technology such as InfiniBand provides the performance required for networking tomorrow''s avionics platforms together today," said Kent English, research and development engineer, Boeing Phantom Works. "InfiniBand is a powerful and efficient technology leveraging the best of existing technologies while incorporating feature rich capabilities such as Quality of Service (QoS), security, and power management. Collaborating technologies such as VME form factor and InfiniBand communication definitely have a place in the mission critical real-time embedded market."
"InfiniBand makes a great deal of sense for embedded computing, a realm in which expensive proprietary components are being rapidly displaced by standardized, off-the-shelf equivalents," said Illuminata, Inc. principal analyst and IT advisor Jonathan Eunice. "Not only does embedded InfiniBand make economic sense, it''s a technical win given InfiniBand''s baked-in resiliency, scalability, and highly efficient communications."
"InfiniBand should be well suited for embedded computing. The proposed collaboration under the umbrella of the IBTA and VITA is timely as we believe that, in the fairly near future, computing will become dominated by fabrics and high-speed interconnects," said Eric Gulliksen, embedded hardware program director and analyst for Venture Development Corporation. "The shared perspectives and skills embodied in these two groups will be extremely valuable in guiding technological development and driving acceptance in the marketplace."
Enrollment in both the IBTA subgroup and the VITA special interest group is open to additional corporate members. Contact any of the participating companies listed below for membership information.