InfiniBand is a switched fabric computer network communications link used in high-performance computing and enterprise data centers. This tag should be used for questions about IB related hardware and software.
InfiniBand(IB) is a switched fabric computer network communications link used in high-performance computing and enterprise data centers.
Its features include high throughput, low latency, quality of service and failover, and it is designed to be scalable. The InfiniBand architecture specification defines a connection between processor nodes and high performance I/O nodes such as storage devices. InfiniBand host bus adapters and network switches are manufactured by Mellanox and Intel.
In addition to hardware manufactured by Mellanox and Intel there are a variety of software stacks available for the configuration and management of IB fabrics. Most major Linux distributions have some built-in support for Infiniband technologies, and the Open Fabrics Alliance(OFA) maintains the Open Fabrics Enterprise Distribution(OFED) which provides many software and firmware packages for the management, maintenance and setup of IB networks. In addition to the 'official' OFED maintained by the OFA, Mellanox and Intel both produce software stacks for their products that typically include their own customized versions of OFED.
