DICE: Data Intensive Computing Environment

Real Testing * Real Data * Real Results

Sandbox setupThe DICE Program Releases SCinet Report Featuring Research Sandbox Results

SPRINGFIELD, OHIO (May 10, 2011) – Today, Avetec’s Data Intensive Computing Environment (DICE) program, along with their partners including NASA Goddard and Obsidian Strategics, Inc., is releasing the results of the DICE-SCinet Research Sandbox (System Area Network Demonstration) conducted at the Supercomputing 2010 (SC10) conference. 

At the SC10 conference that took place in November 2010, the DICE program partnered with over 15 government, academic and HPC vendors to demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of applications and file systems using Obsidian Strategics’ LongbowTM InfiniBand range-extension.  This technology enables high performance network connectivity across wide-area networks (WAN).

“The Research Sandbox project provided tremendous insight and surprising results from tests for encrypted and unencrypted encapsulated InfiniBand traffic over the wide area,” said Al Stutz, Avetec CIO and co-leader of the DICE program. 

The Research Sandbox demonstration connected from SCinet at SC10 in New Orleans to Avetec’s Springfield, Ohio facility; NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California. Tests were conducted of the IP over IB and RDMA versions on the InfiniBand network and compared to standard TCP/IP versions. 

The project team conducted an aggressive series of tests to evaluate the performance and capabilities.  The team discovered that Brocade’s 100 GbE technology, DataDirect Network’s (DDN) SFA10K with QDR InfiniBand and SGI’s Infinite Storage with DDR InfiniBand all worked as advertised and allowed for interoperability.  

“Clearly, the vendors had a commitment to meeting IB standards and were successful,” said Stutz.  “The project team’s use of the Obsidian Longbow product as the ‘anchor’ technology proved to be a wise choice. In all the tests we ran, the Longbow product met or exceeded our expectations. The unit showed the same performance whether their encryption capabilities were turned on or off.”

For more information, access the SCinet report at www.diceprogram.org/reports/.

DICE independently evaluates hardware and software solutions for enterprise and government with the goal of helping organizations save critical resources and time. DICE helps organizations in high performance computing and IT focus their resources on technology investments for critical challenges; optimize quality, performance and functionality; correct issues before deployment, reduce risk and cost, test alternatives prior to launch; enhance product and technology validity and marketability; and accelerate product release.

Media Contact:
Latice Spann, 937.322.5000
Email: lspann@avetec.org

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