Advanced Computing in the Age of AI | Friday, March 29, 2024

Solarflare Showcases Software Defined Ethernet NICs 

SAN JOSE, California, November 8, 2017 -- Solarflare, a pioneer in the development of neural class networks, today demonstrated a software defined Ethernet NIC platform along with a suite of NIC fabric services which run on Qualcomm Centriq™ 2400 Arm-based servers.

Driven by the needs of global cloud applications, the data center industry is undergoing an epic migration to a scale-out architecture with computing distributed among dozens to thousands of cores. As a result, data center operators need server processors with higher core densities and lower power to efficiently support these sprawling environments. Qualcomm Datacenter Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Technologies Inc., answers the call with Qualcomm Centriq 2400, an Arm-based processor with up to 48 cores, and the world’s first 10-nanometer server processor.

“Qualcomm Centriq 2400 processors enable data center operators to achieve new levels of efficiency with their computing infrastructure,” said Ram Peddibhotla, vice president, product management, Qualcomm Datacenter Technologies. “With software defined NIC fabric technology alongside power and cost-efficient Qualcomm Centriq 2400 processors, Solarflare adds enhanced Ethernet networking infrastructure with micro-segmented neural class connectivity for a true software defined data center world.”

A single data center rack equipped with 38 servers, each with a Qualcomm Centriq 2400 Arm-based server processor, delivers 1,824 cores to achieve the neural-class core density and can easily require inter-connections for over 10,000 applications—the same number of connections maintained by a human neuron. That’s where Solarflare comes in. Solarflare complements efficient Arm computing with innovative neural-class Ethernet networking designed specifically for scale-out cloud environments.

The foundation is an ultra-high performance NIC capable of FPGA-like packet inspection in the compact size, power and cost foot print of a standard NIC, plus ultra-scale connectivity of 1,000s of vNICs needed by distributed applications. On that platform, Solarflare developed the first suite of telemetry, acceleration, and security NIC fabric services which scale-out with each new Arm-based bare metal server, VM and container. The high powered Solarflare NIC platform and shrink-wrapped fabric services combine to provide IT organizations with the unique ability to deploy micro segmented networking services across an Qualcomm Centriq 2400-based data center using standard NICs.

According to Ahmet Houssein, Vice President of Marketing at Solarflare, “Our goal is to enable the new era of Arm-based computing to leap-frog other processor environments with intelligent server connectivity such as micro segmented telemetry, acceleration and security fabric services that scale-out with every server.”

Solarflare XtremeScale Architecture, Software Defined NICs and Fabric Services

The NIC fabric hardware and software deployed by hyperscale cloud service providers is proprietary. Solarflare has developed the industry’s first commercially available NIC fabric for the masses. Solarflare XtremeScale for Qualcomm Centriq processors includes the:

XtremeScale Architecture—All new Solarflare chips, adapters and software are designed under an architecture designed for scalable and granular Ethernet traffic engineering in Qualcomm Centriq environments.

XtremeScale Software Defined NICs—A new class of standard NICs join FPGAs and NPUs in the Smart NIC class of server adapters. The powerful, software defined products are the industry’s first NICs for Qualcomm Centriq 2400 Arm-based servers with FPGA-like capabilities at the cost of a NIC.

XtremeScale NIC Fabric—Once XtremeScale NICs are installed, XtremeScale Fabric applications are available to provision performance, security and visibility applications tailored for specific workloads running on Qualcomm Centriq 2400-based bare metal servers, VMs and container microservices. Universal Kernel Bypass (UKB), is a suite of kernel bypass fabric services for accelerating application performance. Onload is the UKB application proven with cloud web hosting and CDN applications. DPDK and NVMe are the two newest UKB apps available for accelerating NFV and storage server traffic.

About Solarflare

Solarflare is pioneering server connectivity for neural-class networks. From silicon to firmware to software, Solarflare provides a comprehensive, integrated set of technologies for distributed, ultra-scale, software-defined data centers. Learn more at www.solarflare.com


Source: Solarflare

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