Napatech expands infrastructure services and processing capabilities optimized for high-performance datacenter workloads.
Napatech (OSLO: NAPA.OL), the leading provider of programmable Smart Network Interface Cards (SmartNICs) used for Data Processing Unit (DPU) and Infrastructure Processing Unit (IPU) services in telecom, cloud, enterprise, cybersecurity and financial applications worldwide, announced a set of new SmartNIC capabilities that enable standard, unmodified applications in edge and core data centers to benefit from offloaded and accelerated compute and networking functions. As enterprises, communications service providers and cloud data center operators deploy virtualized applications and services in edge and core data centers, they increasingly leverage workload-specific coprocessors to offload functions such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), storage, networking and infrastructure services from general-purpose server CPUs. This architectural approach maximizes the availability of server compute resources for running applications and services while improving system-level performance and energy efficiency by running offloaded workloads on devices optimized for those specific tasks.
Programmable SmartNICs represent the fastest-growing segment of the NIC market, with a Total Available Market (TAM) forecasted to reach $3.8B/year by 2026 according to Omdia. To address the need for standards-compatible offload solutions that avoid requiring custom, vendor-specific versions of software, Napatech upgraded its Link-Virtualization software to release 4.4, incorporating networking and virtual switching features that implement full support for relevant open standards while delivering best-in-class performance and functionality.
Link-Virtualization 4.4 now supports a fully hardware-offloaded implementation of the Virtio 1.1 Input/Output (I/O) virtualization framework for Linux, including the standard kernel NIC interface, meaning guest Virtual Machines (VMs) do not require a custom or proprietary driver. The software also supports the open-standard Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) fast-path running in guest VMs to maximize the performance of functions such as Open Virtual Switch (OVS), and is fully compatible with OpenStack for seamless integration into cloud data center environments. Additional features include IPv6 VxLAN tunneling, RPM-based setup for OpenStack Packstack, configurable Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU), live migration on packed ring, port-based Quality of Service (QoS) egress policing and more. The software is available on Napatech's portfolio of SmartNICs powered by AMD (Xilinx) and Intel FPGAs that span 1 Gbps, 10 Gbps, 25 Gbps, 40 Gbps, 50 Gbps and 100 Gbps port speeds.
Link-Virtualization delivers industry-leading performance through complete offload of the OVS data path onto the SmartNIC, requiring only a single host CPU core to run the OVS control plane while delivering 55 million packets per second for Port-to-VM-to-Port (PVP) traffic and 130 million packets per second for Port-to-Port (PTP) traffic. Reclaiming host CPU cores previously required to run OVS and making them available for applications and services drives significant reductions in the number of servers required to support a given workload, resulting in lower data center CAPEX and OPEX as well as lower system-level power consumption and improved energy efficiency. Napatech provides an online ROI calculator to aid data center operators in estimating cost and energy savings for specific use cases.
"Napatech's Link-Virtualization software enables data center operators to optimize the performance of their networking infrastructure in a completely standards-compatible environment, which maximizes their flexibility in selecting applications," said Napatech CMO Jarrod J.S. Siket. "Besides full support for standard APIs, the solution also incorporates critical operational features such as Receive Side Scaling (RSS) for efficiently distributing network traffic to multiple VMs and Virtual Data Path Acceleration (vDPA), which enables the live migration of running workloads to and from any host, whether or not a SmartNIC is present."