Link-Virtualization™ Software
for FPGA-based SmartNICs and DPUs
Napatech Link-Virtualization™ Software provide a hardware-based solution for virtual switch offload, dramatically increasing performance while reducing CPU consumption. The Link-Virtualization Software offloads and accelerates the Open vSwitch (OVS) dataplane to provide increased network performance and much better CPU efficiency with lower complexity and enhanced scalability than alternatives.
Link-Virtualization Software supports a broad range of applications and use cases delivering significant reductions in operating cost and improvements in energy efficiency for both cloud and edge data centers.
Key Benefits
Offloading the virtual switching function from the server’s host CPU to a programmable SmartNIC running Napatech’s Link-Virtualization software results in significant reductions in CAPEX, OPEX and power consumption for edge and cloud data centers.
High Performance
Scale networks to 100Gbps and 60Mpps to the host
Significantly Reduced CPU Utilization
Return CPU cores to applications and services
Total Cost of Ownership
Cost effective scaling for your data center
Reconfigurability
Completely programmable for custom requirements
Environmentally Sound
Lower power, space, and cooling
Solution Overview
Within cloud and edge data centers, the efficient utilization of server compute resources is key to maximizing overall Return on Investment and energy efficiency.
In virtualized environments, infrastructure handling consumes a significant portion of compute resources. Operators need to minimize the compute resources and energy used by infrastructure virtual switching and release these back to applications and services generating revenue.
Napatech’s Link-Virtualization Software and FPGA-based SmartNICs offer a 60x performance improvement compared to alternative approaches and saves significant CPU resources.
To find out more see:
Link-Virtualization Software Product Brief
Watch video: By offloading virtual switching from server CPUs to programmable Smart Network Interface Cards (SmartNICs), operators of edge data centers free up CPU cores to run additional revenue-generating applications and services, resulting in compelling CAPEX and OPEX reductions.
Presented by Napatech Senior Director Business Development Charlie Ashton.
Key Features
Link-Virtualization Software for Napatech
Napatech Link-Virtualization Software provides the Napatech SmartNIC family with a robust feature set and extendable architecture allowing plug-and-play virtualized dataplane offload support for Napatech SmartNICs. Key features are listed below.
Full offload of the virtual switching data plane
Up to 60M pps data delivery to virtualized applications
100Gbps switching throughput
Configurable match processing for L2, L3, L4
VLAN / QinQ / VxLAN support
1000 megaflows, millions of individual flows
Based on standard OVS and DPDK
Extensive actions
VirtIO / live migration support
Load balancing
Port mirroring
QoS
Link-Virtualization Performance Demo
Napatech’s hardware-based OVS offload solution offers a 6X gain compared to OVS DPDK and 60X gain compared to OVS kernel in performance, while reducing the CPU cycle consumption by as much as 90% compared to alternatives. While kernel based or user space (DPDK) versions of OVS are incredibly CPU intensive with network intensive workloads, Napatech’s SmartNICs and Virtualization software accelerate OVS and provide much better CPU efficiency, lower complexity, enhanced scalability and increased network performance.
Tested with 64byte frames, 1024 megaflows, 8 million individual flows.
For virtualized application hosting, OVS is the default solution for demultiplexing traffic from the network to, from, and between applications running in VMs or containers. Software-only implementations of OVS, though, fail to meet the performance and scale requirements of virtualized applications. Additionally, running OVS in software, which is the standard practice, uses significant CPU resources simply for directing traffic, stealing those CPU resources from revenue generating applications.
VM-to-VM Monitoring
VM-to-VM Monitoring provides insight into both North-South and East-West data in virtualized servers without consuming CPU cores.
Link-Virtualziation VM-to-VM monitoring solution can replicate traffic in hardware based in specific ports or flow-based rules and send the mirrored traffic to either another VM or an external analytics solution.
To find out more see: Napatech VM-to-VM Monitoring Solution.
Compatible FPGA-based SmartNICs
The Link-Virtualization Software is available for our family of FPGA-based SmartNICs.
NT200A02 SmartNIC
2×10/25G
The Napatech NT200A02 SmartNIC is a full height, half length QSFP28 PCIe card based on a powerful FPGA-based architecture which enables 8x10G, 2×10/25G, 2x40G or 2x100G applications. The solution offers flexibility to create high-performance solutions in server platforms for supporting network infrastructures up to 100G and and can be reconfigured to support specific SmartNIC functionality. The NT200A02 is available in both a self-contained cooling and passive cooling version.
NT50B01 SmartNIC
2×1/10G, 2×10/25G
The Napatech NT50B01 SmartNIC is a low-profile SFP28 PCIe card specifically engineered to reduce footprint without compromising on performance. The design delivers best-of-breed reliability and includes a proprietary full body heatsink developed to ensure optimal thermal performance for all critical components. Based on a powerful FPGA-based architecture, the NT50B01 SmartNIC enables 10/25G applications and can be reconfigured to support specific SmartNIC functionality.
F2070X DPU
2×10/25G, 8×10/25G, 2x100G
The Napatech F2070X Data Processing Unit (DPU) is a 2x100Gbe PCIe card with an Agilex® AGFC023 FPGA and an Intel® Xeon® D SoC. The unique combination of FPGA and full-fledged Xeon CPU on a PCI card allows for unique offload capabilities.
