October 3, 2007 - The InfiniBand Trade Association (IBTA) has announced its 12th Compliance and Interoperability Plugfest, taking place October 1 - 3 at the University of New Hampshire's Interoperability Lab in Durham, New Hampshire. The event provides an opportunity for InfiniBand device and cable vendors to test their products for compliance with the InfiniBand architecture specification, as well as interoperability with other InfiniBand products.
According to the IBTA, the test plan for this year's event has been greatly expanded. Due to a much greater interest in active cable testing, the event will include the ability to test active InfiniBand cables; in addition, the event will include testing of many double data rate (DDR) devices. Successful compliance testing provides a solid basis for succeeding in the OpenFabrics Alliance 4th Interoperability Event which follows the IBTA PlugFest. (This session, to be held October 4 – 12, will focus on interoperability using the software stacks developed from the auspices of the OpenFabrics Alliance. This event requires separate eligibility, cost and registration. For more information, go to: www.iol.unh.edu/services/testing/ofa/.)
Products that pass testing at the Plugfest gain inclusion in the IBTA Integrators' List, which is designed to support data center managers, CIOs, and other IT professionals with their planned deployments of InfiniBand architecture solutions. The Integrators' List, published following each official IBTA Plugfest, began in June 2003 and includes devices from IBTA member companies that were tested and comply with the IBTA Intergrators' List policy. (The policy is posted in PDF format here. The current IBTA Integrators' List is available in PDF format here.)
Participation in the Plugfest is the primary way for IBTA member companies to gain IBTA approval for their InfiniBand-related equipment. To register, IBTA members can click here.
Prior to the aforementioned events, the InfiniBand Trade Association and the OpenFabrics Alliance hosted the second annual InfiniBand Low Latency Technical Forum on September 17 at the Moscone Center West in San Francisco, in co-location with the Fall 2007 Intel Developer Forum. More than 75 industry influencers attended the technical forum to discuss the growing and significant market opportunities for InfiniBand technology. Session presentations were provided by end users, ISVs and vendors.
Presentations for the InfiniBand Low Latency Technical forum are available for download here.