The ConnectX-2 VPI adapter card includes both a 40Gb/s InfiniBand QSFP port and a 10 Gigabit Ethernet SFP+ port, and enables users with both technologies, in a dense solution, to save server real-estate, reduce power consumption and consolidate their networking infrastructure. Server and storage providers will benefit from this most flexible solution with reduced qualification and certification costs.

"With its low-power consumption and fabric flexibility, ConnectX-2 VPI adapters simplify I/O system design and lower the cost for IT managers to deploy infrastructure that meets the challenges of a dynamic data centre", stated John Monson, vice president of marketing at Mellanox Technologies. "ConnectX-2 VPI combines superior interconnect bandwidth and latency performance with I/O infrastructure agility to provide a robust connectivity solution for data centres and high-performance, high-transactional computing environments."

"This technology allows us to provide greater high-performance computing resources to researchers in our national security programmes by simplifying the design, and lowering the cost and power requirements of our scalable units for scientific simulation clusters", stated Mark Seager, Livermore Computing Asst Dept Head for Advanced Technology, at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. "In addition, these new adapters enable higher Lustre file system performance with greater connection flexibility between the InfiniBand cluster interconnect and our 10 Gigabit Ethernet storage area network."

ConnectX-2 delivers up to 30% less power consumption than its predecessor, helping data centres to lower their power and cooling costs for server and storage I/O. ConnectX-2, with its integrated NIC and PHY, provides additional cost and power saving by minimizing board real-estate. The InfiniBand port delivers the highest bandwidth and lowest latency available to high-performance and transaction-sensitive applications - up to 40Gb/s of bandwidth with latencies as low as 1 microsecond. The Ethernet port delivers 10Gb/s bandwidth with 6 microsecond TCP latency or 3 microsecond RDMA latency and kernel bypass for Low-Latency Ethernet (LLE) environments.

ConnectX-2 VPI adapters are compatible with TCP/IP and OpenFabrics-based RDMA protocols and software, InfiniBand and cluster management software available from OEMs, and major operating system distributions.