More Than a Dozen Companies Building UNH-IOL Test Bed to Advance Interoperability of RDMA-over-Ethernet.

DURHAM, N.H. -- Newly formed iWARP Consortium is dedicated to fostering an open, interoperable RDMA marketplace

The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) has created a focal point for companies interested in enhancing the interoperability of products using the emerging remote direct memory access (RDMA) technology known as RDMA-over-Ethernet, or iWARP.

The UNH-IOL is inviting companies interested in addressing interoperability and standards-conformance issues associated with the technology to join the newly formed iWARP Consortium. The group will build a test bed made up of the latest products in this technology space that will act as a crucible for identifying and solving interoperability issues between different manufacturers' products. The group is also targeting wire-level interoperability between two similar versions of the iWARP standard, that of the RDMA Consortium and that of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Membership in the consortium brings access to detailed test suites comprising an industry-wide metric for evaluating and improving industry-standards conformance and ability to operate in worst-case scenarios.

RDMA was developed in response to the growing demand for increased memory and CPU bandwidth needed to support high-performance parallel, clustering and grid computing. iWARP enables RDMA to run over Ethernet networks via TCP/IP, the common transport protocol underlying today's networks and the Internet. In addition, iWARP promises benefits to traditional TCP/IP-based applications and networked storage. iWARP reduces latency and CPU cycles when applications running on separate machines share data directly into their peers' memories over a network.

The UNH-IOL iWARP Consortium is intended to smooth the adoption curve associated with emerging technologies. The consortium's founding members are: Ammasso Inc.; Broadcom Corp.; Chelsio Communications Inc.; EMC Corp.; Hewlett-Packard Corp.; Intel Corp.; Lamprey Networks Inc.; Microsoft; NetEffect Inc.; Network Appliance, Inc.; S2io Inc.; Siliquent Technologies; Sun Microsystems.

Annual membership dues for full iWARP Consortium membership are $40,000, which covers the costs of developing and performing tests during scheduled laboratory time as well as participation in group test events and consortium meetings. A basic membership fee of $20,000 allows the same features as full members without the ability to schedule independent laboratory time. All consortium members must agree to contribute to the test bed by keeping equipment at the UNH-IOL for a minimum of 18 months after they join.

"The time for RDMA development and testing is here, and applications in the data storage and communications space are forcing the timeline even shorter," said Bob Noseworthy, manager of the research effort and UNH-IOL laboratory technical director. "Identifying pitfalls in implementations and interoperability now - and addressing those problems at the root - will benefit all of the companies involved. Working collectively, the consortium can help technology development move forward more smoothly than it would with each company working in isolation."

For more information about the consortium, visit the consortium Web page at http://www.iol.unh.edu/consortiums/iwarp/.

About the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory

Established in 1988, the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) is a non-profit organization that offers comprehensive interoperability and conformance-based testing through 19 technology-based groups, called consortiums. Test solutions created at the UNH-IOL offer a set of methods to increase interoperability through protocol operations, signaling, point-to-point and multi-system scenarios. For more information, visit the UNH-IOL website at: www.iol.unh.edu.