07/01/2004

The Open Group releasee the Interconnect Transport Application Programming Interface (IT-API) developed by the Interconnect Software Consortium, a forum of The Open Group. The Open Group say, “The IT-API provides an open, industry-standard application programming interface for RDMA (Remote Direct Memory Access) applications that is both interconnect-independent and enables "pedal-to-the-metal" performance. The IT-API enables distributed applications to take advantage of the performance and horizontal scale-out benefits delivered by RDMA-based interconnects.”

The Open Group added the following details:

IT-API version 1.0 currently supports both InfiniBand and the Virtual Interface Architecture (VIA) standards, which are ready for deployment today. It also provides support for the RDMA over TCP/IP standard specified by the RDMA Consortium (iWARP). The IT-API will be extended to complete support for the iWARP and IETF RDMA over IP (RDDP) specifications through a specification update currently under development.

This new industry standard API is not only an excellent example of industry working together in the spirit of true open standards," said Allen Brown, the President and CEO of The Open Group. "But it will also demonstrate the benefits of open standards by opening new opportunities for the utilization of RDMA applications, resulting in enhanced performance and reliability, optimized scalability, and reduced total cost of ownership."

"It is exciting to see the ICSC community deliver upon its objective for defining an open, industry standard, high-performance transport API specification. This is a key building block for server I/O," commented Audrey Helffrich, IBM Distinguished Engineer, "and one that will help pave the way for enabling and accelerating a whole host of application exploitation opportunities."

"Hewlett-Packard is excited to see the completion of the IT-API standard and the benefits of providing an open industry-standard API for multiple RDMA-capable technologies such as InfiniBand," noted Vish Mulchand, Director, Server Marketing at Hewlett-Packard. "This industry standard API will enable a number of applications in the technical computing and distributed database server markets to exploit the benefits of RDMA on HP's platforms."

"Network Appliance has long been a supporter of open, industry standard APIs for high performance RDMA transports," said David Ford, Director of Engineering, Network Appliance. "The release of version 1.0 of the IT API by The Open Group enables a common API for UNIX® systems that supports current and future RDMA transports. This API will bring the benefits of high performance I/O to data center applications on mission critical UNIX® servers."

About the Interconnect Software Consortium The Interconnect Software Consortium develops and publishes software specifications, guidelines and compliance tests that enable the successful deployment of fast interconnects such as those defined by the Infiniband(TM) specification. The Interconnect Software Consortium operates as part of The Open Group and is sponsored by its Founding Members: Fujitsu Limited, Hewlett Packard Company, IBM Corporation, Network Appliance, and Sun Microsystems.

The Open Group is a vendor-neutral and technology-neutral consortium, whose vision of Boundaryless Information Flow(TM) will enable access to integrated information within and between enterprises based on open standards and global interoperability. The Open Group works with customers, suppliers, consortia and other standard bodies. Its role is to capture, understand and address current and emerging requirements, establish policies and share best practices; to facilitate interoperability, develop consensus, and evolve and integrate specifications and open source technologies; to offer a comprehensive set of services to enhance the operational efficiency of consortia; and to operate the industry's premier certification service.