Chelsio, NetEffect Demo at Plugfest

DURHAM, N.H. -- The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) successfully demonstrated multi-vendor interoperability between iWARP devices, an industry first, at an iWARP interoperability plugfest” held last month, the lab announced today at the Open Fabrics Alliance (OFA) Sonoma Workshop in Sonoma Valley, California.

Engineers at the plugfest, held April 16-20, 2007, successfully achieved interoperability running iWARP between 10-Gigabit Ethernet adapter cards from Chelsio Communications and NetEffect. Additional plugfest participants included network testing systems vendor Anue Systems, testing solutions provider Finisar, cable provider W.L. Gore and partner test company Lamprey Networks, as well as storage and network gear vendors ProCurve Networking by HP and Fulcrum Microsystems.

iWARP is the latest IETF-ratified series of extensions to Ethernet that virtually eliminates CPU overhead in Ethernet networks, empowering Ethernet to deliver higher throughput for networking, faster access for storage, and lower latency for high-performance computing. In addition to supporting the technology’s capacity for interoperability between devices from various manufacturers, the UNH-IOL event also demonstrated the growing capabilities of test tools, such as Finisar’s 10GbE analyzer and Anue Systems’ XGEM 10-Gigabit Ethernet Network Emulator, to measure performance and conformance to the IETF/RDMA Consortium iWarp specification.

“One of the major pitfalls in iWARP’s market acceptance has been the lack of demonstrated interoperability between products,” said Bob Noseworthy, UNH-IOL senior technical manager. “We have successfully built the bridge – now all that has to happen is for the rest of the industry to walk over it.”

Chelsio Communications Inc.UNH-IOL iWarp Testing Consortium

NetEffect Inc.