[openfabrics-ewg] Draft IBED Positioning Statement

[Tziporet Koren]

See inside in this color (also starting with TK for plain text readers)
Tziporet


-----Original Message-----
From: openfabrics-ewg-bounces at openib.org
[mailto:openfabrics-ewg-bounces at openib.org] On Behalf Of Shawn Hansen
(shahanse)
Sent: Thursday, April 06, 2006 4:19 AM
To: Openfabrics-ewg at openib.org
Subject: [openfabrics-ewg] Draft IBED Positioning Statement

All,

Here is a draft message for submission to openib-general describing IBED
and how it relates to the OpenFabrics release. It is written in a Q&A
format.

Please review, and let's quickly drive to consensus on this. We will
discuss this in detail on the next EWG conference call, which needs to
be held before the next board meeting.

--Shawn

-----------------------------------------
All,

We are pleased to announce the creation of the InfiniBand Enterprise
Distribution (IBED), under the direction of the OpenFabrics Enterprise
Working Group.

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.

Frequently Asked Questions
--------------------------
Q: What is the Enterprise Working Group?
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.

Q: Why is IBED required?
- Enterprise 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 a pre-2.6 kernel releases, 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.
 TK: regarding kernel version need to say - older kernel then the one
release by kernel.org (2.6.16 for today)

Q: Does IBED compete with the OpenFabrics release?
- 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. 

Q: Is IBED development happening in the open?
- Yes, IBED uses the OpenFabrics bugzilla for bug reporting, and all
discussions can be viewed on the Enterprise Working Group mailing list.
 TK: You can add that all IBED development is done now on 1.0 branch
under ibed directory

Q: How does IBED differ from the OpenFabrics release?
- The OpenFabrics release contains only user-level code, while the IBED
distribution also adds kernel modules that are not part of the Linux
kernel (like iSER and RDS).

TK: I think we need to say that IBED included all Infiniband kernel
modules that are under OpenFabrics development, especially modules that
are not part of Linux kernel.
- IBED will include two MPI packages that are not part of Open Fabrics:
OSU MPI and Open MPI.
- IBED is packaged for end-user installation.
- IBED supports distribution with older kernels (e.g. Redhat EL4 up2)

Q: What is the software release process for IBED and how does it relate
to the OpenFabrics release?
- Insert here.
TK: The release build is done in this method:
1.	Any module that is already in the kernel will be taken from the
git tree that is targeted for 2.6.17 
This include the following: mthca, ipath, core modules (except CMA that
is not part of kernel), IPoIB, SRP 
2.	Kernel modules that are not in Linux kernel will be taken from
these directories:
iSER, SDP, CMA - from the trunk
RDS: from SilverStorm contrib directory (till they move it to the trunk)

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.
4.	MPI:
MVAPICH - tarball is provided by Mellanox (Pavel Shamis) based on 0.97
release of OSU.
Open MPI - tarball is provided by Cisco (Jeff Squyres)
Both tarballs are placed in OpenFabrics web site 
5.	IBED build & install scripts: all relevant scripts are placed
under a specific directory for IBED release under the 1.0 branch. 
6.	Back port patches: patches directory will be also under the IBED
directory in the 1.0 branch. 

The release process:
Mellanox build the release candidate (IBED-rcX) and publish it on
OpenFabrics (approximately every 2 weeks)
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.

Q: What is the anticipated release schedule?
TK: - mid May

Q: What components will be included in IBED and how is this decided?
TK: Aviram already sent the full list.
Decision was taken in the EWG based on customers needs.

- Insert here.
_______________________________________________
openfabrics-ewg mailing list
openfabrics-ewg at openib.org
http://openib.org/mailman/listinfo/openfabrics-ewg
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openfabrics.org/pipermail/ewg/attachments/20060406/52606a53/attachment.html>