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I've been following these posts for a while and it looks to me they've decided to go with Solarflare but haven't really explained why. I would be interested to

by stzup7 11y ago

I've been following these posts for a while and it looks to me they've decided to go with Solarflare but haven't really explained why. I would be interested to see a fair comparison between Solarflare & openonload and their competitors such as Dolphin & super sockets, Mellanox & VMA, Chelsio & rdma. Also, if they're looking at pure PPS stats a good FPGA with a built-in hardware TCP/IP stack could be a very powerful filter.

masklinn 11y ago
Have they? They just noted that Solarflare's proprietary library EF_VI has an interesting approach to kernel bypass, then indicate that you can replicate that approach on other NICs and show how.
- stzup7 11y ago
  Right. The fact that it's the only proprietary platform tested biased my mind too quickly :)
  - __d 11y ago
    It's worth noting that OpenOnload is GPLv2. The issue is that Solarflare has patents on some of the underlying techniques. They were very open to licensing those patents for a reasonable figure when I last talked with them about it, but that wouldn't work for a general-purpose OSS project.
scurvy 11y ago
We actually use the offloading Myricom NICs in our deployment. We've found them to work very well. Solarflare makes nice stuff, too, but Myricom is easier to get started with.
- __d 11y ago
  Was this Myricom before they went bust and got taken over? Or more recent? It seemed like most of the momentum (such as it was) that DBL had was lost in the mess.
  - scurvy 11y ago
    After.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
omgtehlion 11y ago
From all those vendors with bypass stacks only solarflare and mellanox are really friendly to start with. Others require to register/request a quote/pay your arm and leg to just get started. On the other side: you could easily pickup an SF or mlnx card at almost any shop, or get a used one from ebay for a hundred bucks, then download software from the internet and start playing with the stuff right away. Just 'olnoad ./your-binary', that's it.

by stzup7 11y ago

masklinn 11y ago

Have they? They just noted that Solarflare's proprietary library EF_VI has an interesting approach to kernel bypass, then indicate that you can replicate that approach on other NICs and show how.

stzup7 11y ago
Right. The fact that it's the only proprietary platform tested biased my mind too quickly :)
- __d 11y ago
  It's worth noting that OpenOnload is GPLv2. The issue is that Solarflare has patents on some of the underlying techniques. They were very open to licensing those patents for a reasonable figure when I last talked with them about it, but that wouldn't work for a general-purpose OSS project.

scurvy 11y ago

We actually use the offloading Myricom NICs in our deployment. We've found them to work very well. Solarflare makes nice stuff, too, but Myricom is easier to get started with.

__d 11y ago
Was this Myricom before they went bust and got taken over? Or more recent? It seemed like most of the momentum (such as it was) that DBL had was lost in the mess.
- scurvy 11y ago
  After.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

omgtehlion 11y ago

From all those vendors with bypass stacks only solarflare and mellanox are really friendly to start with. Others require to register/request a quote/pay your arm and leg to just get started. On the other side: you could easily pickup an SF or mlnx card at almost any shop, or get a used one from ebay for a hundred bucks, then download software from the internet and start playing with the stuff right away. Just 'olnoad ./your-binary', that's it.