108-port Non-blocking FDR 56Gb/s InfiniBand SDN Switch System

SX6506 switch system provides the highest-performing fabric solution in a 6U form factor by delivering 12.1Tb/s of non-blocking bandwidth with sub 1us port latency.

Scaling-Out Data Centres with Fourteen Data Rate (FDR) InfiniBand

Faster servers based on PCIe 3.0, combined with high-performance storage and applications that use increasingly complex computations, are causing data bandwidth requirements to spiral upward. As servers are deployed with next generation processors, High-Performance Computing (HPC) environments and Enterprise Data Centres (EDC) will need every last bit of bandwidth delivered with Mellanox's next generation of FDR InfiniBand high-speed smart switches.

Sustained Network Performance

Built with Mellanox's latest SwitchX InfiniBand switch device, the SX6506 provides up to 108 56Gb/s full bi-directional bandwidth per port.

The SX6506 can scale as the number of nodes per cluster and the number of cores per node increase. This modular chassis switch provides an excellent price-performance ratio for medium to extremely large size clusters, along with the reliability and manageability expected from a director-class switch. The leaf, spine blades and management modules, as well as the power supplies and fan units, are all hot-swappable to help eliminate down time.

Why Software Defined Network (SDN)?

Data centre networks have become exceedingly complex. IT managers cannot optimise the networks for their applications leading to high CAPEX/OPEX, low ROI and IT headaches. Mellanox InfiniBand SDN Switches ensure separation between control and data planes. InfiniBand enables centralised management and view of network. Programmability of the network by external applications and enable cost effective, simple and flat interconnect infrastructure.

The SX6506 enables efficient computing with features such as static routing, adaptive routing, and congestion control. These features ensure the maximum effective fabric bandwidth by eliminating hot spots.

Management

SX6506 comes with an onboard subnet manager, enabling simple, out-of-the-box fabric bring-up for up to 648 nodes. The MLNX-OS software delivers complete chassis management to manage the firmware, power supplies, fans, ports and other interfaces. MLNX-OS provides a license activated embedded diagnostic tool called Fabric Inspector to check node-to-node, node-to-switch connectivity and ensures the fabric health.

The SX6506 can also be coupled with Mellanox's Unified Fabric Manager (UFM) software for managing scale-out InfiniBand computing environments. UFM enables data centre operators to efficiently provision, monitor and operate the modern data centre fabric. UFM boosts application performance and ensures that the fabric is up and running at all times.