Event Details

Among the key findings of a recent survey by the OpenStack Foundation was a strong interest among OpenStack users in software-based networking on servers, or server-based networking. But the rapid evolution of cloud-based data centers to support virtualized services in multi-tenant environments requires an increasingly rich set of functionality in the server-based networking data path to support things such as overlay tunneling, distributed security, service chaining, and flow based analytics. This increasing functionality, coupled with ever-increasing speeds and feeds, all while maintaining the flexibility for change, creates the need for a new type of solution: the SmartNIC.

There has been a lot of buzz in the industry regarding the use of SmartNICs, also known as intelligent server adapters, in cloud datacenter servers to boost performance by offloading servers from having to perform server-based network data path processing. But what exactly is the definition of a SmartNIC anyway? What are the different models for SmartNIC offload for server-based networking? What are some examples for functions that can be offloaded to the SmartNIC, and how much benefit can be realized over purely software-based approaches? What are some examples of real-life use cases that can benefit from SmartNIC acceleration and offload?

This marketplace theater segment will provide a discussion with answers to these questions, and leave you with a better understanding of SmartNICs, their benefits, and their usage in OpenStack cloud networks.