episode 96: #96 – Discussing SmartNICs and Storage with Rob Davis from Mellanox
In this podcast, recorded live at Dell Technologies World 2019, Chris talks to Rob Davis, VP of Storage Technology at Mellanox, about the development of SmartNIC technology and storage. SmartNICs offload tasks such as encryption, compression and protocol traffic from core CPUs. This allows system vendors to create more efficient and cheaper products. It can also provide a backward compatibility for legacy applications and operating systems.
Rob takes us through the implementation of SmartNICs on both the initiator (host) and target (array) side of the storage network. We discuss vendors using the technology and what we can expect in terms of evolution in SmartNICs in the coming years.
You can read more about the Mellanox BlueField and Innova SmartNIC ranges here – https://www.mellanox.com/products/smartnic/.
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Timeline
* 00:00:00 – Intros
* 00:00:42 – What are SmartNICs?
* 00:02:00 – Network offload has been around forever
* 00:02:44 – Additional components can be SoC, FPGA, processor
* 00:04:00 – For storage, SmartNICs could be Initiators or Targets
* 00:06:00 – How is storage accelerated at the initiator end?
* 00:08:50 – Hyperscalers are using SmartNICs with their own software
* 00:10:00 – How much cost do SmartNICs add?
* 00:11:50 – Where are vendors using the technology?
* 00:12:30 – SmartNICs are great for disaggregated storage solutions
* 00:15:00 – Where do we think SmartNICs are headed?
* 00:15:23 – Wrap Up
Transcript
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* #76 – Fibre Channel and NVMe with Mark Jones
* #61 – Introduction to NVM Express with Amber Huffman
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