ST. LOUIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Liqid, the technology leader in composable disaggregated infrastructure (CDI), has announced breakthrough capabilities that further extends the promise of CDI simplicity for organizations struggling to meet application SLAs due to traditional server infrastructure limitations. Powered by Liqid Matrix™ software, the Liqid EX-4400 series is the world’s first fabric-integrated CDI resource expansion chassis. Until now, all CDI solutions required the purchase of a separate PCIe fabric switch, adding complexity and cost. Liqid is championing a new concept called CDI Simplified where customers can now directly connect servers to the resources they need (GPU, NVMe SSD, storage class memory) and then quickly compose them in via Liqid Matrix software. It is now easier than ever to deploy, expand, and reclaim critical resources with far greater efficiency that traditional server design, accelerating time to value for the world’s most challenging workloads.
The EX-4400 series is comprised of the following two high-density, 4U fabric-integrated expansion chassis that support the disaggregation of Full-Height Full-Length (FHFL) PCIe Gen 4.0 Add-in-cards:
- Liqid EX-4410, featuring support for up to 10 FHFL double-width devices
- Liqid EX-4420, featuring support for up to 20 FHFL single-width devices
The Liqid EX-4400 series enclosures are the first with integrated CDI fabric which simplifies the composable experience and can eliminate the need to purchase PCIe switches. Both enclosures have sixteen onboard 16GB/sec PCIe interface ports that support up sixteen host servers directly connected, and for higher bandwidth requirements, a single host can consume up to four fabric ports, for 64GB/sec throughput.
“At the Electronic Visualization Lab (EVL), we provide resources for the unpredictable and scalable computational demands of the College of Engineering. These GPU-centric research workloads are continually evolving to address a myriad of application areas,” said Lance Long, Sr. Research Programmer at the University of Illinois at CHICAGO (UIC), a Liqid customer. “We chose Liqid Matrix software to rapidly accommodate and adjust our research cyber-infrastructure based on the requirements of the academic research. The Liqid EX-4400 will allow us to add, move, and make changes without disrupting in-process workloads.”
In another industry first, the Liqid EX-4400 enclosures include independent PCIe slot power management that allows PCIe devices to be added and removed without powering-down the entire chassis, preventing the disruption of access to the other PCIe devices. Additionally, the chassis itself is designed to simplify serviceability. With the PCIe devices oriented at the front of the system, simply slide the chassis out and lift the lid to swap-out resources.
“For the past several years, Liqid has been reshaping infrastructure management procedures that have been ingrained for decades. Liqid’s software-defined, composable approach to deploying and scaling bare-metal systems accelerates time to value, is change-ready and reduces cost,” said Sumit Puri, CEO & Co-founder, Liqid. “With CDI Simplified, we’re making composable infrastructure more accessible and easier to manage than ever before. While software is our business, the EX-4400 was born out of desire for industry leading simplicity and PCIe device density. Now we’re thrilled to offer the world’s first and only fabric-enabled, high-density expansion chassis powered by the most advanced CDI software in the world.”
To learn more about CDI Simplified and the Liqid EX-4400 go here. To find out more about Liqid’s work with the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at UIC to accelerate global scientific discovery among its researchers, read this case study. Follow Liqid on Twitter and LinkedIn to stay up to date with the latest Liqid news and industry insights.
About Liqid
Liqid’s composable infrastructure software platform, Liqid Matrix, unlocks cloud-like speed and flexibility plus higher efficiency from on-prem infrastructure. Now IT can configure, deploy, and scale physical, bare-metal servers in seconds, then reallocate valuable accelerator and storage resources via software as needs evolve. Dynamically provision previously impossible systems or scale existing investments, and then redeploy resources where needed in real-time. Unlock cloud-like datacenter agility at any scale and experience new levels of resource and operational efficiency with Liqid.