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The Topspin 10gbps host channel adapter offers high-performance connectivity to infiniband - based server clusters. As an integral part of the Topspin switched computing system, the Topspin host channel adapter creates a unified fabric for combining ipc, networking, and storage communications.

Overview
The Topspin 10Gbps Host Channel Adapter (HCA) allows servers to participate in high-performance server clusters. Designed for use as part of the Topspin Switched Computing System, the Topspin 10Gbps HCA ensures end-to-end compatibility, performance tuning, and ease of management.

Unified Fabric
By creating one unified fabric for all types of networking traffic, including inter-process communication (IPC), network, and storage, IT managers can build modular systems with virtualized I/O, reducing the number of ports and associated management pain. The 10Gbps HCA creates two 10Gbps connections from the server to the Topspin Switched Computing System. The Topspin Switched Computing System provides a high-bandwidth, low-latency interconnect to the HCA-enabled servers as well as Ethernet and Fibre Channel expansion gateways for interconnecting the servers to existing local area networks (LAN) wide are networks (WAN), and storage area networks (SAN).

Unified Driver Architecture
With the Topspin system architecture, protocols are optimized to run simultaneously on the same host. For example, paralleled databases can communicate between cluster nodes and application nodes at the same time that storage is accessed across virtual interfaces (SCSI remote protocol, or SRP), optimizing total transactions per second. Protocols have been designed from the ground up to complement each other.

Multi-protocol Support
Topspin 10Gbps HCAs support all important InfiniBand protocols necessary to build a server cluster. This includes (IPoIB, SDP, SRP, uDAPL, VI, and MPI protocols). This comprehensive protocol support provides flexibility to build server clusters for a wide range of applications.

Unified Management
As part of the complete Topspin switched computing solution, the 10Gbps HCA simplifies management by integrating with the Topspin management framework. Administrators can leverage existing management frameworks using native SNMP support, reducing management time and total cost of ownership.