AB291A Fabric Clustering System Support Guide (12-port Switch), April 2004

Chapter 1
11
1 Introduction to Technology
Understanding the HP Fabric Clustering System
HP Fabric Clustering System
The HP Fabric Clustering System provides a high-performance InfiniBand computing environment intended
for use for applications sensitive to latency, bandwidth, and CPU-consumption.
InfiniBand is an RDMA-interconnect. Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) technology allows cooperating
endnodes to expose their local memory buffers for direct data placement by peer endnodes (including loop
back operation) over reliable communication fabrics (fabrics may be internal, such as an endnode backplane,
or external, such as an I/O attached device / fabric). RDMA technology reduces the performance constraints
imposed by memory subsystem bottlenecks on networked computing systems.
Readers are advised also to consult the InfiniBand specifications found at http://www.infinibandta.org for
more information on the technology.