PLX joins OpenFabrics Alliance

SUNNYVALE, USA : PLX Technology Inc, the global leader in PCIe silicon and software connectivity solutions enabling emerging data center architectures, announced its membership and active participation in the OpenFabrics Alliance (OFA), an organization committed to enabling efficient computing with the highest network bandwidth and lowest end-to-end latencies for Linux distributions and Microsoft Windows Server OSs.

OFA develops, tests, licenses, supports, and distributes the open source software package known as OFS for high-performance networking applications that demand low latency and high scalability. OFS enables efficient computing through the support of RDMA. RDMA allows computers to read from and write to each other's application memory directly, eliminating the need to copy the information to intermediate buffers, thus removing a large burden from system CPUs which substantially reduces latency and increases network utilization.

The PLX vision is to extend OFED compatibility to native PCIe-based platforms, thus leveraging the huge installed base of RDMA-enabled software to run without bridging to intermediate protocols. Transport independence means that users can utilize the same OpenFabrics RDMA, kernel bypass the API, and run their applications agnostically over PCIe, InfiniBand, iWARP or RoCE.

"PLX is well aligned with the OpenFabrics Alliance and currently developing compliant PCI Express-based solutions featuring RDMA and other functions to enable PCI Express to act as a fabric within data center racks;" said Mani Subramaniyan, principal architect, system software, PLX. "The core goal is to develop products that greatly reduce energy costs while vastly increasing performance, and our engagement with OFA is a step toward achieving that goal."

"The OFA's mission is to deliver a cross-platform, transport-independent software stack for RDMA;" said Jim Ryan, chairman, OFA. "PLX is a recognized supplier of PCI Express switching with expertise in RDMA and we welcome their contributions to the development and promotion of the OpenFabrics Software."

PLX is the worldwide market leader with over 70 percent market share in PCIe switch products, today offering 18 ExpressLane PCIe Gen3 switches. The company has many more Gen3 switches in development to enable ExpressFabric, storage and other key data center applications, and in parallel is planning for PCIe Gen4 products.