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Press Releases
San Francisco, CA – June 26,
2004 – The Open Group is pleased to announce
the release of the Interconnect Transport Application Programming
Interface (IT-API) developed by the Interconnect Software
Consortium, a forum of The Open Group. The IT-API provides
an open, industry-standard application programming interface
for RDMA (Remote Direct Memory Access) applications that is
both interconnect-independent and enables "pedal-to-the-metal"
performance. The IT-API enables distributed applications to
take advantage of the performance and horizontal scale-out
benefits delivered by RDMA-based interconnects.
IT-API version 1.0 currently supports both InfiniBand and
the Virtual Interface Architecture (VIA) standards, which
are ready for deployment today. It also provides support for
the RDMA over TCP/IP standard specified by the RDMA Consortium
(iWARP). The IT-API will be extended to complete support for
the iWARP and IETF RDMA over IP (RDDP) specifications through
a specification update currently under development.
This new industry standard API is not only an excellent example
of industry working together in the spirit of true open standards,”
said Allen Brown, the President and CEO of The Open Group.
“But it will also demonstrate the benefits of open standards
by opening new opportunities for the utilization of RDMA applications,
resulting in enhanced performance and reliability, optimized
scalability, and reduced total cost of ownership.”
"It is exciting to see the ICSC community deliver upon
its objective for defining an open, industry standard, high-performance
transport API specification. This is a key building block
for server I/O," commented Audrey Helffrich, IBM Distinguished
Engineer, "and one that will help pave the way for enabling
and accelerating a whole host of application exploitation
opportunities."
"Hewlett-Packard is excited to see the completion of
the IT-API standard and the benefits of providing an open
industry-standard API for multiple RDMA-capable technologies
such as InfiniBand," noted Vish Mulchand, Director, Server
Marketing at Hewlett-Packard. "This industry standard
API will enable a number of applications in the technical
computing and distributed database server markets to exploit
the benefits of RDMA on HP's platforms."
“Network Appliance has long been a supporter of open,
industry standard APIs for high performance RDMA transports,”
said David Ford, Director of Engineering, Network Appliance.
“The release of version 1.0 of the IT API by The Open
Group enables a common API for UNIX® systems that supports
current and future RDMA transports. This API will bring the
benefits of high performance I/O to data center applications
on mission critical UNIX® servers.”
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.
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.
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