IBM Corp. isn't the only server vendor hoping that innovations in its I/O systems will help it grab market leadership and users' attention. The future of I/O architectures was the topic of Strategic Research Corp.'s Server I/O 2000 Conference in Monterey, Calif., last week.
The conference marked the debut of the Infiniband Trade Association, which formed last August when the competing Future I/Oand Next Generation I/O groups merged. The new group, led by Compaq Computer Corp., Dell Computer Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM, Intel, Microsoft and Sun Microsystems Inc., is working to develop an I/O architecture that uses switching rather than a shared bus to relieve congestion in the bus and thereby improve performance.
Support for Infiniband is an important part of IBM's new chip set design for its Intel-based servers. Initial products based on Infiniband aren't expected until next year.