The bottleneck in the system today, according to McQueen, is the TCP/IP stack in Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) Windows, which runs the system's Microsoft SQL Server databases. "When the servers try to retrieve whole videos, we can only pull 800 streams per server," he says.
To bust through that choke point, UW wants to use InfiniBand. McQueen's group has been investigating the technology for about a year and a half, and it beta-tested the Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC) 1x (2.5 Gbit/s) InfiniBand host channel adapters. Intel has since discontinued its IB silicon products, but the company started an early-adopter InfiniBand program, in which UW is participating (see Intel Plants Wet One on InfiniBand and Intel Bails on InfiniBand).
Now, the university is waiting for 4x InfiniBand gear -- and, more important, Windows software support, which McQueen says third-party vendors have promised by mid-December. UW's streaming group will soon start testing switches from Topspin Communications Inc. and Paceline Systems Corp., he adds.
"With the 4x gear, it will be some time before we get the Windows solution up and running again," McQueen says.
With Topspin's switch, UW will use HCAs based on Mellanox Technologies Ltd. silicon; Paceline's switch will connect via HCAs using IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM) IB chips.
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