[openib-general] Newbie Questions Regarding How To Start

[Hal Rosenstock]

Hi Mark,

On Mon, 2006-04-03 at 16:08, Uncle Fester wrote:
> I am interested in getting my hands messy with Infiniband--and perhaps
> in eventually contributing in some small way to its progress.  I have
> done very rudimentary research, but would like to confirm my
> assumptions with the experts here so that I don't spend my money
> unwisely.
> 
> I would like to add infiniband capability to two amd64 systems in my
> lab.  These have PCI-X Tyan S2882 motherboards. I'm running linux on
> these systems.

I have a couple of these same motherboards too that I'm using for IB
development and testing.

> Can infiniband function properly in a physical point to point
> topology?  I would prefer to not invest in switches if it's not
> entirely necessary.  The documentation I've glanced at so far seems to
> indicate that infiniband is logically point-to-point.  But the
> diagrams representing physical topology all seem to have switches. 
> Other than obviously not being able to communicate across a fabric, is
> there functionality missing from a point-to-point topology?  Does it
> even work?

Yes. You can run back to back HCAs. You will need to run an SM on one of
the hosts.

> What's the best HCA card for me?  I'm drawn to Mellanox MT23108-based
> systems because OpenIB seems to support them well
> (https://openib.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=MellanoxHcaFirmware). 
> I'm considering purchasing two HP NC570C cards
> (http://h30094.www3.hp.com/product.asp?sku=2603660&), which are based
> on that Mellanox chip.  Does anybody know if those cards would be
> functional in non-hp gear?  In other words, does HP have their own
> proprietary goodies in the cards that would cause them to break in
> generic systems such as what I have?  Are there better cards for me?

There are a number of Mellanox based cards which would work (for PCI-X).
You can get these from a variety of vendors (Voltaire, Cisco,
SilverStorm) as well as HP.

-- Hal

> Thank you very much for your time and advice.
> 
> Sincerely,
> Mark Travis
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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