Chapter 1 Overview - Dell M4001F User Manual

InfiniBand Blade Switch I/O Module for PowerEdge M-Series
1 Overview
The SwitchX® InfiniBand blade switch I/O module for the PowerEdge M-Series chassis provides
a high bandwidth, low latency fabric for Enterprise Data Centers (EDC), High-Performance Com-
puting (HPC), and Embedded environments. Based on the 5
Generation SwitchX). This I/O module (IOM) delivers up to 56Gb/s at FDR speed and 
st
(1
40 Gb/s at FDR10 and QDR speed full bisectional bandwidth per port. When used in conjunction
with ConnectX®-3 InfiniBand dual port Mezzanine I/O cards, clustered data bases, parallelized
applications and transactional services applications these switches will achieve significant perfor-
mance improvements resulting in reduced completion time and lower cost per operation.
The I/O module comes pre-installed with all necessary firmware, and configured for standard
operation within an InfiniBand fabric, and only requires an InfiniBand compliant Subnet Manager
running from one of the hosts. All that is required for normal operation is to follow the usual pre-
cautions for installation and connection from the switch to the HCAs or other switches. Once con-
nected, the Subnet Management software automatically configures the switch and begins utilizing
the switch.
It is recommended that Mellanox OpenFabrics software package be installed on all nodes con-
nected to the M4001[F, T, Q]. The software package provides a subnet manager and network man-
agement tools as well as connectivity software for servers and storage, and is available on the
Mellanox web site. See Chapter 3 for more information.
Basic installation, hot-swapping components and hardware maintenance is covered in "Installation
and Basic Operation" on page 11.
The M4001F, M4001T, and M4001Q switches have a Hot Swap controller and a PSOC Manage-
ment IC.
th
generation InfiniBand switch device
Mellanox Technologies
Rev 1.2
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