Q. What is the Cisco® High Performance Subnet Manager?
A. The Cisco High Performance Subnet Manager is a standalone software package that centrally manages and controls an InfiniBand subnet. It activates the InfiniBand fabric, configures InfiniBand routes, monitors performance, and alerts administrators when errors and faults are discovered. It also provides high availability when configured in an N+1 configuration.
Q. What makes the Cisco High Performance Subnet Manager unique?
A. The Cisco High Performance Subnet Manager is unique in several important ways:
• It is the industry's first subnet manager to commercially support multi-vendor InfiniBand networks.
• It is the first commercial subnet manager to scale to greater than 4600 nodes in production environments. The Cisco High Performance Subnet Manager is designed to run as a standalone software package that can discover and sweep a large 4600-node cluster in less than sixty seconds. This has the added benefit of freeing up CPU resources on the InfiniBand switches by offloading the subnet manager process to a bespoke system.
• It offers true high availability by adding active database synchronization between primary and secondary subnet managers. Other subnet managers without active database synchronization can cause service outages when one instance fails because the state of the subnet manager database can get out of synch, forcing a rediscovery of the fabric.
Q. What business benefits does the Cisco High Performance Subnet Manager deliver?
A. The Cisco High Performance Subnet Manager provides the following customer benefits:
• Allows the size of clusters to scale far beyond the limits imposed by embedded InfiniBand subnet managers.
• Proven rapid fabric discovery allows clusters as large as 4600 nodes to be discovered in less than a minute.
• Eliminates the most critical single point of failure by offering hitless failover between subnet managers using active database synchronization.
• Provides real-time fabric information to system-wide management tools such as CiscoWorks LAN Management System (LMS) for InfiniBand.
Q. Does the Cisco High Performance Subnet Manager support multiple link capacities on a single fabric?
A. Yes. It supports all variable link capacities included in the InfiniBand 1.2 specification, including 1X, 4X, 8X, and 12X; and single data rate (SDR), double data rate (DDR), and quadruple data rate (QDR). Intelligent routing algorithms can detect link capacities, maximizing the capacity and minimizing latency by reducing the number of changes between any two endpoints in the network.
Q. Does the Cisco High Performance Subnet Manager provide integrated performance management?
A. Yes. Integrated performance management includes user-defined thresholds for generating traps and log messages. These are fully distributed across agent processes, reducing the load on both the InfiniBand network and the subnet manager required for monitoring links for error and utilization thresholds.
Q. Does the Cisco High Performance Subnet Manager support multi-pathing or multi-LID (Local ID) routing?
A. Yes, multi-LID routing is fully supported in the subnet manager. To take advantage of it requires multi-LID support in the
host protocol.
Q. With which InfiniBand upper-layer protocols does the Cisco High Performance Subnet Manager work?
A. The Cisco High Performance Subnet Manager is fully tested with Cisco Linux InfiniBand protocols, Cisco Windows InfiniBand protocols, and the OpenFabrics Enterprise Distribution.
Q. What are the systems requirements for the Cisco High Performance Subnet Manager?
A. Table 1 lists the system requirements for the Cisco High Performance Subnet Manager, and Table 2 lists the supported InfiniBand switches.
The Cisco High Performance Subnet Manager also commercially supports a mixed fabric that includes InfiniBand switches and InfiniBand HCAs from other InfiniBand vendors, using one of the following driver stacks: the OpenFabrics Enterprise Distribution, Cisco Linux drivers for InfiniBand, and Cisco Windows drivers for InfiniBand.
Q. Will Cisco Systems® continue to offer the embedded subnet manager?
A. Yes. Both the Cisco High Performance Subnet Manager and the embedded subnet manager will continue to be supported. The standalone Cisco High Performance Subnet Manager is focused on maximizing performance and scalability, especially in large clusters that can take advantage of the additional power offered by a dedicated subnet management workstation.
Q. How is the Cisco High Performance Subnet Manager positioned compared to OpenSM?
A. The Cisco High Performance Subnet Manager is a commercial subnet manager with enterprise-class scalability and high availability. It is the foundation for managing InfiniBand fabrics and integrating with other Cisco systems-level management tools. It will interoperate with OpenSM, which is a non-commercial, open source offering that lacks many of the enterprise features of the Cisco High Performance Subnet Manager.
SERVICE AND WARRANTY
Q. What types of service and support are available for the Cisco High Performance Subnet Manager?
A. In addition to worldwide, 24-hour Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC) support, a full complement of implementation-based services is available at this time for the Cisco High Performance Subnet Manager.
Technical Support Service
Technical Support Service is available through Cisco SMARTnet® support and Cisco SMARTnet Onsite. Cisco SMARTnet support augments the resources of the operations staff by providing access to expertise, both online and on the telephone, and a range of hardware Advance Replacement options. Cisco SMARTnet Onsite complements the hardware Advance Replacement feature by adding the services of a field engineer-services that can be critical for those locations where staffing is insufficient or unavailable to perform parts replacement activities. For more information about Cisco SMARTnet support, visit: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/svcs/ps3034/ps2827/ps2978/serv_group_home.html
Advanced Services
Total Implementation Solutions (TIS) offers a full range of implementation solutions including project management, project engineering, configuration, staging, and rollout coordination, to help ensure correct installation and deployment. Configuration services now include development and verification of configuration for intelligent services such as Cisco VFrame Server Virtualization Software. For more information about Total Implementation Solutions, visit: http://www.cisco.com/go/services
PRODUCT AND CONTACT INFORMATION
Q. Where can I find technical and product specifications and other additional information about the Cisco High Performance Subnet Manager?
