[openib-general] basic IB doubt

[Woodruff, Robert J]

Greg wrote,
>On Thu, Aug 24, 2006 at 02:10:38PM -0700, Woodruff, Robert J wrote:

>> The other way to look at it is, the customer goes to the ISV and
asks,
>> what hardware should I buy, and the ISV says I support X version of
MPI
>> and vendor Y's hardware works with X version of MPI. 

>I thought the goal of InfiniBand was to create an ecosystem where you
>didn't have to do this. I guess I missed something somewhere.

The customers still buy the hardware cause it runs an application,
they don't just go out and buy some cool InfinBand hardware and
then go see what they can use it for. 

>>Adding undocumented requirements to a standard isn't the way to entice
>>more people into implementing or using it.

Well, sometimes the applications drive the feature set, even though it
is not part of the actual standard. Unfortunate, but a fact of live. 

>I would challenge you to find a single ISV that would prefer a
>situation where some "infiniband" middleware requires things which
>aren't in the standard.

If the feature gives them a huge advantage in performance (and it does)
and all of the hardware vendors that they deal with already implement
it, then yes,
they will force, by defacto standard that all other newcomers implement
it
or face the fact that no one will buy their hardware. It seems like that
is
what is happening in this case.