Myrinet Components and Software

Myricom supplies:

• Myrinet interfaces, such as Myrinet/PCI interfaces.
• Myrinet switches, up to 16-port crossbar switches, and Myrinet "Network in a Box" components that can interconnect up to 128 hosts with a single, full-bisection, network component, and up to tens of thousands of hosts by combining these components.
• Myrinet-link fiber or cables.
• Myrinet software support for most common hosts and operating systems. The software is supplied "open source," and other Myrinet software is available from third parties.

You or an integrator install the interfaces and software in the hosts, and connect the network with cables and switches. The software maps the network, and uses whatever communication paths are available from host to host. No switch programming or routing-table configuration is necessary.

 

 

Software Interfaces and End-to-End Performance

Myrinet packets may be of any length, and thus can encapsulate other types of packets, including IP packets, without an adaptation layer. Each packet is identified by type, so that a Myrinet, like an Ethernet, may carry packets of many types or protocols concurrently. Thus, Myrinet supports several software interfaces.

Specialized software packages developed by Myrinet customers for cluster-computing applications achieve short-message latencies between UNIX user processes less than 5µs, and sustained, one-way, data rates approaching 2 Gbits/s.

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