.svg)
I’ve been following the evolution of DPUs for several years. Now, as they make their way from the hyper-scalers and HPC (High Performance Computing) environments to the enterprise, it seems like a good time to post on this topic. I will start today with the basics and spotlight key vendors in coming weeks.
A DPU is a processor aimed at offloading infrastructure functions such as network, storage, and security from server or network appliance CPUs or GPUs. Typically, a DPU will be made up of its own dedicated CPU and memory, along with an acceleration engine, and its own dedicated operating system. Several of the benefits are immediately obvious.
- Offloading infrastructure functions can provide up to a 30% saving on the host CPU or GPU.
- The DPUs own processor is designed for specific infrastructure functions, which makes them more energy efficient.
- By running its own OS, a DPU will continue to function if the host OS fails.
A range of DPU form factors exist but the most common for enterprise will be PCIe, Onboard, and System on a Chip (SoC). With PCIe, the DPU connects directly into the server’s PCIe bus like a standard NIC. Onboard DPUs connect directly into the server or appliance motherboard to save room on the PCIe bus. Finally, SoC is used on switches where the DPU is packaged with the switch silicon to effectively provide a DPU on each switchport.
In high performance environments server and network DPUs may work side by side bringing individual benefits, in addition to the common advantages listed above. Server DPUs provide storage acceleration with features like NVMe-over-Fabrics (NVMe-oF), Zero Trust security, and hypervisor offload. Smart switch DPUs will deliver network policy such as micro-segmentation, perimeter security, and load balancing, along with other functions such as NAT and telemetry.
The DPU market is complex but can be distilled to vendors who manufacture DPUs for server OEMs, network OEMs, hyper-scalers, and service providers. The two main vendors supplying to network OEMs are AMD and NVIDIA. Both Cisco and HPE use the AMD Pensando DPU for their smart switches, Nexus 9000 and CX10K respectively. PAN, Juniper, Fortinet, F5, and Check Point integrate with NVIDIA Bluefield for security policy. I will attempt to spotlight both in coming weeks.