InfiniBand on the Cloud

Pavan Balaji
Seminar

InfiniBand (IB) network architecture was initially proposed for system area (specifically data-center) networking. Given its rise in popularity over the past decade or so, researchers have started studying its relevance in other environments such as distributed computing systems, virtual machines, and other traditionally-Ethernet-based environments. Based on advances in these
areas, people are now considering IB as a potential networking technology to be used in "cloud systems", which would use a combination of these enhancements. In this talk, I'll describe the status of IB in a number of environments including: (a) wide-area lambda grids, (b) performance and security in virtual machines, and (c) converged Ethernet/IB technologies that allow IB to be used in environments that have traditionally been dominated by Ethernet-only communication. In short, I'll discuss aspects related to the relevance of IB on cloud computing systems.