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<TITLE>Re: [openfabrics-ewg] Draft IBED Positioning Statement</TITLE>
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<P><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">All,</SPAN><?xml:namespace
prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p></P>
<P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">I've attached a
second draft to the IBED positioning statement.</SPAN><o:p></o:p></P>
<P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">We will discuss
this in tomorrow's EWG conference call.</SPAN><o:p></o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">-----------------------------------------</SPAN><o:p></o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">All,</SPAN><o:p></o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">We are pleased to announce
the creation of the InfiniBand Enterprise Distribution (IBED), under the
direction of the OpenFabrics Enterprise Working Group.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">IBED is a distribution of
InfiniBand software that includes the OpenFabrics 1.0 release, along with other
additional software outside of the scope of the release, such as
MPI.</SPAN><o:p></o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">Frequently Asked
Questions</SPAN><BR><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">--------------------------<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">Q: What is the Enterprise
Working Group?<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">The EWG is a group of
hardware vendors that will sell products based on OpenFabrics. The purpose
of this group is to coordinate how to provide a single commercially supportable
distribution of OpenFabrics software to their customers that guarantees
cross-vendor interoperability.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">Q: Why is IBED
required?</SPAN><o:p></o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">- <?xml:namespace prefix =
u1 /><u1:City u2:st="on"><u1:place u2:st="on"><?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Enterprise</u1:place></u1:City></st1:place></st1:City> customers will
have solution-level requirements that are outside the scope of the 1.0 release,
such as the distribution of MPI stacks, support for pre-2.6.16 kernels,
etc. The goal of IBED is to address this need. Without IBED, each
InfiniBand vendor would create their own distribution of OpenFabrics to
accomplish this goal, and may not be interoperable.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">Q: Does IBED compete with
the OpenFabrics release?</SPAN><o:p></o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">- No, there is only one
OpenFabrics release. IBED is a distribution that includes the OpenFabrics
1.0 release. The OpenFabrics 1.0 release and IBED share the same user-level code
(libraries, management utilities, etc.) The code for both is taken from
the 1.0 branch. <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">Q: Is IBED development
happening in the open?</SPAN><o:p></o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">- Yes, IBED uses the
OpenFabrics bugzilla for bug reporting, and all discussions can be viewed on the
Enterprise Working Group mailing list. All IBED development is done on the 1.0
branch under the ibed directory.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Anyone can access release candidates, test them, observe bugs and
discussions, report bugs, and comment.</SPAN><o:p></o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">Q: How does IBED differ from
the OpenFabrics release?</SPAN><o:p></o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">- The OpenFabrics release
contains only user-level code, while the IBED distribution also adds InfiniBand
kernel modules that are under OpenFabrics development, including modules that
are not part of the kernel (like iSER, RDS, and SDP).</SPAN><o:p></o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">- IBED will include two MPI
packages that are not part of Open Fabrics: OSU MPI and Open
MPI.</SPAN><o:p></o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">- IBED is packaged for
end-user installation.</SPAN><o:p></o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">- IBED supports distribution
with older kernels (e.g. Redhat EL4 up2)</SPAN><o:p></o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">Q: What is the software
release process for IBED and how does it relate to the OpenFabrics
release?<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">The release build
is done using the following method:<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">1.
Any module that is already in the kernel will be taken from the git tree that is
targeted for next kernel release<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">2.
Kernel modules that are not in Linux kernel will be taken from openFabrics SVN
trunk or in extraordinary cases, from SVN contrib. <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">3.
All user space code is taken from the 1.0 branch. IBED group will make sure the
right patches from the trunk are updated to the branch.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">4.
MPI:<BR>Open MPI – Provided by OpenMPI developers.<BR>MVAPICH – Based on OSU
release.</SPAN><BR><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">Both tarballs are placed in
OpenFabrics web site.</SPAN><o:p></o:p></P>
<P><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">5.
IBED build & install scripts: all relevant scripts are placed under a
specific directory for IBED release under the 1.0 branch. <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">6.
Back port patches: patches directory will be also under the IBED directory in
the 1.0 branch. <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">The release
process:</SPAN><o:p></o:p></P>
<P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">The release
coordinator will build the release candidate (IBED-rcX) and publish it on
OpenFabrics (approximately every 2 weeks).<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">Each IBED vendor is
responsible to test the components under his ownership. Bugs are reported
through bugzilla and fixes are provided to the general
list.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">Q: What is the anticipated
release schedule?</SPAN><o:p></o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">Mid-May</SPAN><o:p></o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">Q: What components will be
included in IBED and how is this decided?<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">- Components will
include:<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'"><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>- HCA driver - mthca<BR><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>- HCA driver - ipath<BR><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>- Core<BR><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>- IPoIB<BR><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>- SDP<BR><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>- RDS <BR><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>- SRP initiator<BR><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>- iSER initiator<BR><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>- OSU MPI<BR><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>- Open MPI<BR><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>- uDAPL<BR><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>- OpenSM <BR><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>- Diagnostic tools<BR><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>- Performance tests<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN-TOP: 0in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">The decision to include
components is based on customer demand and level of robustness and stability.
Some of the components will be released as a "technology preview." <FONT
color=#ff0000><<define>></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">Q: When bugs are found, how
will they be fixed?</SPAN><o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal
style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in; tab-stops: list .5in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">-</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 7pt">
</SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">Fixes to
release candidates are coordinated by the IBED release coordinator and
maintainers in a controlled fashion. Each bug found is first fixed on the trunk,
and then merged into the release branch.</SPAN><o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal
style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in; tab-stops: list .5in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">-</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 7pt">
</SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">Patches will be
made available as RC updates, and fed back to OpenFabrics SVN
continuously.</SPAN><o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal
style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in; tab-stops: list .5in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">-</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 7pt">
</SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">Availability of
patches will not be gated by acceptance of patches into OpenFabrics
SVN.</SPAN><o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal
style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.25in; tab-stops: list .5in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">-</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 7pt">
</SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Courier New'">Urgent bug
fixes can be directly delivered to customers by the distros or vendors, but are
rolled into a standard release as quickly as possible.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The goal is to ensure that fixes are
standardized and make it to the next general release.</SPAN></P>
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