Infinband Router - Mellanox Technologies SB7700 User Manual

1 Introduction to Mellanox SB77X0/SB78X0 Switch Systems and
SB7780 InfinBand Router
1.1 Overview
The SB77X0/SB78X0 switch systems provide the highest performing fabric solution in a 1U
form factor by delivering up to 7Tb/s of non-blocking bandwidth with sub 100ns port-to-port
latency. These systems are the industry's most cost-effective building blocks for embedded sys-
tems and storage with a need for low port density systems. Whether looking at price-to-perfor-
mance or energy-to-performance, these systems offer superior performance, power and space,
reducing capital and operating expenses and providing the best return-on-investment.
Powerful servers combined with high-performance storage and applications that use increasingly
complex computations are causing data bandwidth requirements to spiral upward. As servers are
deployed with next generation processors, High-Performance Computing (HPC) environments
and Enterprise Data Centers (EDC) need every last bit of bandwidth delivered with Mellanox's
EDR InfiniBand systems.
Built with Mellanox's latest SwitchIB™ InfiniBand EDR 100Gb/s switch device, these stand-
alone systems are an ideal choice for top-of-rack leaf connectivity or for building small to
extremely large sized clusters. These systems enable efficient computing with features such as
static routing, adaptive routing, and advanced congestion management. These features ensure the
maximum effective fabric bandwidth by eliminating congestion.
The SB7700/SB7800, dual-core x86 CPU, comes with an onboard subnet manager, enabling
simple, out-of-the-box fabric bring-up for up to 2048 nodes.
SB7700/SB7800 switch runs the same MLNX-OS® software package as Mellanox FDR prod-
ucts to deliver complete chassis management of the firmware, power supplies, fans and ports.
Mellanox's edge systems can also be coupled with Mellanox's Unified Fabric Manager (UFM®)
software for managing scale-out InfiniBand computing environments. UFM enables data center
operators to efficiently provision, monitor and operate the modern data center fabric. UFM
boosts application performance and ensures that the fabric is up and running at all times.
InfiniBand systems come as internally or externally managed. Internally managed systems
include a CPU that runs the management software (MLNX-OS®) and management ports, which
are used to transfer management traffic into the system. Externally managed systems come with-
out the CPU and management ports, and are managed using firmware tools.
The SB7780 InfiniBand router is based on the SwitchIB™ switch ASIC, and offers fully flexible
36 EDR 100Gb/s ports, which can be split among six different subnets. The InfinBand router
brings two major enhancements to the Mellanox switch portfolio:
1. Increases resiliency by segregating the data center's network into several subnets, with each
subnet running its own subnet manager, effectively isolating each subnet from the others'
availability or instability
2. Enables scaling of the fabric up to a virtually unlimited number of nodes.
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