3 ms·

Intel's software has always been pretty good for me. You're complaining about the need for a driver, right? That seems reasonable, more like a weakness of cloud

by nvm0n2 3y ago

Intel's software has always been pretty good for me. You're complaining about the need for a driver, right? That seems reasonable, more like a weakness of cloud computing that it takes so long for clouds to expose the real capabilities of the hardware. It's a win for those who can (re)master dedicated machines and attendant Linux sysadmin issues.

tecleandor 3y ago
I think the driver and software resources have been very messy. There are different versions, hardware revisions, different QAT generations... and at first glance is very confusing to know how you can run certain accelerations. For example, the Zstandard plugin has this requirements: Hardware Requirements Intel® 4xxx (Intel® QuickAssist Technology Gen 4) Software Requirements ZSTD* library of version 1.5.4+ Intel® QAT Driver for Linux* Hardware v2.0 What's Gen 4? (I later found that means '4th Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors'. But not any Gen4, you have to find one with QAT included, and the product matrix is huge.) What's the v2.0 of the hardware? (I'm not completely sure about that) Does it automatically accelerate zlib and openssllib calls, or do you have to patch them? (I think you have to patch them) I think they're stabilizing the API from now on, but it's not as simple as buying a CPU or one of the older PCIe cards, and loading the driver.
- nvm0n2 3y ago
  Yes OK, I don't have direct experience with QAT and wasn't really counting getting the right hardware in the software experience. Their product matrix is very confusing.
pclmulqdq 3y ago
This is about Intel's drivers, which are usually buggy and subpar if you can figure out which ones to use (without contacting your FAE - not all of us have one of those), and the fact that they don't expose their hardware to you in a meaningful fashion. You have to access it through the programming models they want you to use, which usually involve a lot of overhead.
- nvm0n2 3y ago
  What does exposed in a meaningful fashion mean here? Their drivers all seem to be open source, so the hardware is exposed directly.

by nvm0n2 3y ago

tecleandor 3y ago

I think the driver and software resources have been very messy. There are different versions, hardware revisions, different QAT generations... and at first glance is very confusing to know how you can run certain accelerations. For example, the Zstandard plugin has this requirements: Hardware Requirements Intel® 4xxx (Intel® QuickAssist Technology Gen 4) Software Requirements ZSTD* library of version 1.5.4+ Intel® QAT Driver for Linux* Hardware v2.0 What's Gen 4? (I later found that means '4th Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors'. But not any Gen4, you have to find one with QAT included, and the product matrix is huge.) What's the v2.0 of the hardware? (I'm not completely sure about that) Does it automatically accelerate zlib and openssllib calls, or do you have to patch them? (I think you have to patch them) I think they're stabilizing the API from now on, but it's not as simple as buying a CPU or one of the older PCIe cards, and loading the driver.

nvm0n2 3y ago
Yes OK, I don't have direct experience with QAT and wasn't really counting getting the right hardware in the software experience. Their product matrix is very confusing.

pclmulqdq 3y ago

This is about Intel's drivers, which are usually buggy and subpar if you can figure out which ones to use (without contacting your FAE - not all of us have one of those), and the fact that they don't expose their hardware to you in a meaningful fashion. You have to access it through the programming models they want you to use, which usually involve a lot of overhead.

nvm0n2 3y ago
What does exposed in a meaningful fashion mean here? Their drivers all seem to be open source, so the hardware is exposed directly.