[Beowulf] interconnect and compiler ?

[Dan.Kidger at quadrics.com]

Mark Hahn wrote:

>Quadrics is a bit of an enigma to me - we're still going strong with our
>Elan4 systems, but I don't really understand Quadrics future plans.
>they seem to be morphing into a 10GE vendor, but do they have any unique
>value-add?

Quadrics are not "really morphing into a 10GE vendor". Just adding 10GE to our repertoire.

Elan3 and Elan4 were both completely proprietary protocols.
It was decided that the successor, Elan5 should be backwardly compatible with 10GE.

During the development of Elan5, Quadrics has brought out a range of 10GE switches, notably a 96port followed by a 24port
The 'Elan5' switch (as first shown at ISC08) shares the same metal chassis, PSUs. fans, control cards as newer Quadrics 10GE switches.

Hence Quadrics' route to a standard-compatible interconnect went via 10GE switches first.
Myricom also did something similar, although in their case, they brought out a 10GE compatible NIC ahead of their Myri10G switches

Quadrics' unique value-add for QsNet remains with features like adaptive routing, hardware barrier, offload to NIC, and virtual memory support. Whereas the main selling point of our line of 10GE switches is their low-price, rather than special features.

(sorry if that sounded like marketing speak)

Daniel

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Dr. Daniel Kidger, Quadrics Ltd.   daniel.kidger at quadrics.com
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