computer science

OpenFabrics Alliance

OpenFabrics Alliance is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand OpenFabrics Alliance rather than just read about it. In short: The OpenFabrics Alliance is a non-profit organization that promotes remote direct memory access (RDMA) switched fabric technologies for server and storage connectivity. These high-speed data-transport technologies are used in high-performance computing facilities, in research and various industries.

Key takeaways

OpenFabrics Alliance belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect OpenFabrics Alliance to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of OpenFabrics Alliance from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The OpenFabrics Alliance is a non-profit organization that promotes remote direct memory access (RDMA) switched fabric technologies for server and storage connectivity. These high-speed data-transport technologies are used in high-performance computing facilities, in research and various industries. The OpenFabrics Alliance aims to develop open-source software that supports the three major RDMA fabric technologies: InfiniBand, RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) and iWARP. The software includes two packages, one that runs on Linux and FreeBSD and one that runs on Microsoft Windows. The alliance worked with two large Linux distributors—SUSE and Red Hat—as well as Microsoft on compatibility with their operating systems.

History Founded in June 2004 as the OpenIB Alliance, the organization originally developed an InfiniBand software stack for Linux. Initial funding for the Alliance was provided by the United States Department of Energy. The alliance released the first version of the OpenFabrics Enterprise Distribution (OFED) in 2005. In 2005 the OpenIB Alliance announced support for Microsoft Windows. In 2006, the organization again expanded its charter to include support for iWARP, which is a transport technology that competes with InfiniBand. At that time the alliance changed its name to the OpenFabrics Alliance. Subsequent releases have added support for iWARP and Windows. In 2011, OFED stack was ported to FreeBSD and included in FreeBSD 9.

OpenFabrics Enterprise Distribution A community of developers from hardware manufacturers, software vendors, system integrators, government agencies and academia continue to work on OFED. The OpenFabrics Alliance provides architectures, software repositories, interoperability tests, bug databases, workshops, and BSD- and GPL-licensed code to facilitate development. The OFED stack includes software drivers, core kernel-code, middleware, and user-level interfaces. It offers a range of standard protocols, including IPoIB (IP over InfiniBand), SDP, SRP, iSER, RDS and DAPL (the Direct Access Programming Library). It also supports many other protocols, including various MPI implementations, and it supports many file systems, including Lustre and NFS over RDMA.

Interoperability testing On June 25, 2007, the OpenFabrics Alliance announced the OFA-UNH-IOL Logo Program in partnership with the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory. The program enables manufacturers of InfiniBand and iWARP products to test and certify that their products support the OpenFabrics software stack, and test their compatibility with other products. The alliance sponsors interoperability events at the University of New Hampshire. The test scenarios are available to the public, as are the test results for all products that earn the logo. During interoperability events, all participating companies have the opportunity to observe all tests run on all products.

Members Corporate members of the OpenFabrics Alliance include Advanced Micro Devices, Appro, Broadcom, Cray Inc., Chelsio Communications, Cisco Systems, DataDirect Networks, Emulex, Flextronics, Hewlett Packard, Huawei, IBM, Intel, LSI Corporation, Mellanox Technologies, NetEffect, Neterion, NetApp, NetXen, Oracle Corporation, QLogic, RapidIO, Red Hat, Silicon Graphics, SuSE and System Fabric Works. Research members include:

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory Sandia National Laboratories Consulting members include the Ethernet Alliance, the InfiniBand Trade Association, Lamprey Networks, Ohio State University, and the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory. In 2007, Credit Suisse became the first financial-services firm to join the alliance.

References

External links Official website

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with OpenFabrics Alliance

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what OpenFabrics Alliance claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to OpenFabrics Alliance before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about OpenFabrics Alliance ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of OpenFabrics Alliance

In research: OpenFabrics Alliance appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses OpenFabrics Alliance in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: OpenFabrics Alliance is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Computer memory, Computer network organizations, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for OpenFabrics Alliance outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study OpenFabrics Alliance in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what OpenFabrics Alliance means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain OpenFabrics Alliance out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is OpenFabrics Alliance in simple terms?

Why does OpenFabrics Alliance matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study OpenFabrics Alliance?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on OpenFabrics Alliance.