InfiniBand Port Counters Reset: Market Reconfigured

Cluster administrators know that cluster performance software and human troubleshooters monitor InfiniBand port counters for information about traffic on different ports and links.  Occasionally the port counters are reset when a network is reconfigured and a fresh view is needed. Similarly, market research vendors monitor manufacturer quarterly earnings announcements to measure the performance of the overall InfiniBand market as well as the switch, HCA and controller segments.

In 2009 the market research counters are being reset for every category of IT infrastructure as the global economy is reconfigured and a fresh view is needed. The Q1CY09 InfiniBand Market Share Report from IT Brand Pulse was just published and provides the latest view of revenue generated and ports shipped by the InfiniBand market. The report is a counter for the InfiniBand industry's first post-bailout quarter and represents a new baseline to measure against as the reconfigured market moves forward. According to the IT Brand Pulse report, manufacturers generated combined revenues of over $40M US and shipped over 180,000 ports in Q1CY09.

The reconfigured market still consists of Mellanox supplying the vast majority of merchant silicon and host channel adapters. But QLogic is now producing high quality QDR switch ASICs for their own switches and I expect that some time in 2009 the company will begin shipping QDR host channel adapters with their own silicon.  This is great news for the industry. Continued investment in ASIC development by two major chip vendors reflects an expectation of strong customer demand for InfiniBand technology in the future.

In the switch segment, the reconfigured InfiniBand market will move forward without Cisco.  However, the exclusive 2-horse race between the market leader Voltaire and Cisco has expanded into a 4-horse contest between Voltaire, QLogic, Mellanox and Sun Microsystems (soon to be Oracle and manufacturing switches for its blade servers).

I expect competition in the all important Director Switch arena to really heat up in the second half of 2009 as vendors attempt to capitalize on the QDR inflection point to grab market share and fill the void left by Cisco. I expect the new 864-port QLogic 12000, 648-port IS5000 from Mellanox and the 324-port Grid Director 4700 from Voltaire to begin shipping to end-users in the second half of 2009. Unveiled last November at SC08, the QLogic 12000 stands out in this new class of huge InfiniBand Directors. The QLogic 12000 offers modular scalability to over 800 ports; wizard based installation for incredibly easy installation for such a large switch; and a slew of advanced intelligent networking capabilities to improve performance and simplify troubleshooting of large clusters.

Looking forward, IT Brand Pulse forecasts InfiniBand revenue and ports to hold steady through CY09 with growth resuming by Q1CY10.  Visit www.itbrandpulse.com to view a table that shows Q1CY09 total InfiniBand revenue and port market share broken down by vendor.