IB is a high-bandwidth messaging technology that is used for high-performance computing. IB interconnects processor nodes and I/O nodes to a system area network. The leaf switch contains up to 38 4x IB ports to provide switching for the fabric, while the virtualization switch has up to 100 12x IB ports that support EDR speeds.
SM groups manage the switching on an IB subnet. Use the GUI to create SM groups that contain the switches where OpenSM will run. Using the GUI ensures that the configuration changes for an SM group are applied to all the affected devices.
These topics explain how IB works and demonstrates how to configure IB.