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San Francisco, CA – January 17, 2006 – The Interconnect
Software Consortium (ICSC) of The Open Group is pleased to
announce Version 2.1 of the Interconnect Transport API (IT-API),
an industry standard API for Remote Direct Memory Access
(RDMA) based technologies for improving network and system
performance. Being transport-neutral and platform-independent,
IT-API implementations enable enterprises to gain performance
and latency advantages while leveraging their existing infrastructure.
Version 2.1 adds new memory management features, and is
the first open, industry-standard API to provide full support
for iWARP (RDMA/TCP/IP/Ethernet) and InfiniBand® 1.2.
IT-API Version 2.1 can be downloaded for free from http://www.opengroup.org/icsc/documents.tpl.
“Version 2.1 of the IT-API specification, which fully
supports the latest RDMA transports, is an important step
in making RDMA technology and its performance advantages
available to applications” said Martin Kirk, Program
Director of the ICSC. “Through RDMA, it paves the way
for high–performance communications using today’s
multi-Gb/s network adapters, reducing or eliminating the
typical data copy overhead of traditional APIs.”
The IT-API provides RDMA services to applications that
need high-performance/ zero-copy communications, explicit
memory management semantics for communications buffers
as well as asynchronous interfaces with work request
/ work completion semantics. The IT-API also features
a variety of connection management interfaces, including
a socket conversion interface for converting a live TCP
connection into an RDMA-enabled endpoint, an interface
that supports applications such as iSCSI Enhancements
for RDMA (iSER) and Sockets Direct Protocol (SDP).
The IT-API should be of interest to application writers
wishing to take advantage of an openly available portable
API that fully supports the latest RDMA transports, taking
advantage of high-performance RDMA-capable adapters such
as iWARP RDMA Network Interface Cards (RNICs) or InfiniBand
Host Channel Adapters (HCAs).
IT-API Version 2.1 adds new features beyond
those of IT-API v2.0 as follows:
Support for privileged consumers including:
- Fast Memory Registration, providing an alternative lightweight
memory registration capability.
- Local and Remote Invalidation of memory regions, allowing
Consumers to revoke access to memory regions in an efficient
manner in datapath operations
- Support for I/O addresses (bus addresses or physical
addresses) and I/O buffer lists, offering Consumers addressing
alternatives that can be chosen as appropriate to the programming
model
- New calls mapping virtual addresses to I/O addresses,
offering Consumers a portable API
- New calls supporting callbacks for event handling
Additional features for all consumers:
- Support for Remote Invalidation of memory windows, allowing
all Consumers the means to revoke privilege
- Support for coalescing work requests, allowing Consumers
to chain work requests together where their programming
model can so benefit
- Support for posting InfiniBand Atomic work requests,
allowing Consumers to benefit from use of the native Atomic
capability of InfiniBand HCAs.
I
IT-API
Version 2.0 added new features to IT-API Version 1.0 as follows:
Support for the iWARP transport for user space consumers
including:
- iWARP connection management including a new API for
converting a connected socket into an RDMA-enabled endpoint
- Choice of Narrow or Wide RMRs (Memory Windows), providing
more flexibility to application writers
- Support for Relative Addressing (a.k.a. zero-based addressing)
in accessing LMRs (Memory Regions) or RMRs (Memory Windows),
in addition to Absolute Addressing (a.k.a. virtual addressing)
from IT-API v1.0
- Shared Receive Queues for optimizing the use of registered
memory in a bandwidth-constrained environment with many
remote consumers
The IT-API v2.0 specification included
- Fully revised reference pages
- A new chapter on connection management
- A revised implementer's guide supporting both InfiniBand
and iWARP
- A new implementer's guide to connection management for
iWARP
- Corrections to errata on IT-API v1.0
The Interconnect Software Consortium develops and
publishes software specifications, guidelines and compliance
tests that enable the successful deployment of fast interconnects
such as those defined by the InfiniBand™ specification.
The Interconnect Software Consortium operates as part of
The Open Group and is sponsored by its Founding Members:
Fujitsu Limited, Hewlett Packard Company, IBM Corporation,
Network Appliance, and Sun Microsystems. More information
can be found at: http://www.opengroup.org/icsc
The Open Group
is a vendor-neutral and technology-neutral consortium, whose
vision of Boundaryless Information Flow™ will
enable access to integrated information within and between
enterprises based on open standards and global interoperability.
The Open Group works with customers, suppliers, consortia
and other standard bodies. Its role is to capture, understand
and address current and emerging requirements, establish
policies and share best practices; to facilitate interoperability,
develop consensus, and evolve and integrate specifications
and open source technologies; to offer a comprehensive set
of services to enhance the operational efficiency of consortia;
and to operate the industry’s premier certification
service. Further information on The Open Group can be found
at http://www.opengroup.org.
Note to editors:
InfiniBand™ is
a trademark of the InfiniBand™ Trade Association.
Boundaryless Information Flow is a trademark of The Open Group. UNIX is a registered
trademark of The Open Group in the U.S. and other countries.
Media contact: |
Eva
Mann
The Open Group
+1 415 374-8280 |
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