Handling Topology Changes in InfiniBand

InfiniBand is a high-performance switched network. Its topology may change due to devices being turned on/off, hot expansion, link remapping, and component failures. The InfiniBand specification defines a management infrastructure which is responsible for detecting and assimilating any change in the network. When a change occurs, management entities must update switch forwarding tables, in order to maintain the connectivity among end nodes. This implies the acquisition of the current topology and the computation of a new set of routes accordingly. It is desirable that the execution of this process does not affect the performance of the upper-level applications that are using the network. In previous works, we have proposed enhanced implementations for the main tasks involved in the assimilation of a change. Now, we present a detailed performance evaluation of a management mechanism which incorporates all our proposals