Dolphin Launches Low Latency Networking Solution

Dolphin ICS, a provider of low-latency, high-bandwidth computer interconnect solutions for application acceleration, today announced the addition of high-speed reflective memory to its Dolphin Express line of high-speed interconnect solutions. Reflective memory is a memory bus technology that allows simultaneous reads and writes to multiple memories, so that memory can be shared among multiple CPUs. This technology is used in a range of applications such as financial trading systems and digital simulation for automotive, military and power electronics systems. The new offering from Dolphin promises to speed up application performance and lower latency.

Real-time simulation of complex systems like algorithmic trading requires extremely low latency, in the sub-milliseconds. Dolphin's reflective memory solution addresses this issue with a high-performance switched network that the vendor says enables a hardware-based data broadcast approach. This data broadcast is similar to the ring serial reflective memory networks of the past, except that data is broadcast to all server nodes simultaneously instead of serially, providing lower latency between the nodes. The company says that Dolphin Express combines bandwidth of 10 Gbits per second with latency as low as 1.2 microseconds.

The new reflective memory solution from Dolphin uses system memory, eliminating the need for costly SRAM on the board. This gives the ability to easily adjust the memory needed for different applications or simulations, as well as contribute to a competitive price/performance.

The new solution is based on Dolphin Express, a high-speed computer interconnect utilizing standard PCI Express. The DXS410 switch supports up to 10 nodes connected through standard CX4 cables to a DXH510 Host Bus Adapter in each host. In addition to copper cables, optical fiber is available, supporting distances up to 300 meters between the nodes. The reflective memory solution also includes a Dolphin SISCI Developers kit (Software Infrastructure for Shared-memory Cluster Interconnect) complete with drivers, API software and tools for memory configuration and general setup. Linux, Solaris and Windows are supported operating systems.