SNIA Storage Developer Conference: Chelsio Showcased Multiple T7-Enabled Storage Networking Solutions for NVMe/TCP, NVMe-oF and iSCSI

Chelsio Communications, Inc. announced a set of storage demonstrations and performance benchmark results which showcase how T7 DPU enables optimal application performance and ROI for NVMe-TCP, NVMe-oF (RDMA) and iSCSI technologies at the annual SNIA Storage Developer Conference.

A highlight was the demonstration of NVMe/TCP with the company’s TCP/IP Offload Engine (TOE) using the NVMe protocol data unit (PDU) interface for efficient, low-latency access to NVMe SSD storage using the T7 DPU Emulation Platform. The T7 DPU Emulation Platform supports a 5U chassis that connects to a server host via a PCIe ribbon cable. It includes a mapping of all T7 logic gates, supports the Linux boot process for running applications, and the host software of T7 predecessors, T5 and T6, as-is, thus demonstrating the ability of customers to leverage prior software investment. T7 Emulation Platform delivers an aggregate of 40GbE bandwidth via 4x10GbE or 2x40GbE connectivity options. The T7 Emulation Platform for software development is available to T7 early access customers.

“The extreme performance requirements of modern applications require exceptional performance from the underlying storage networking for users to realize the best possible value of their data centers and the data they hold,” stated Kianoosh Naghshineh, CEO. “T7 DPU provides such access using a variety of offloaded storage protocols including T7-powered NVMe/TCP, NVMe-oF and iSCSI to meet the needs of innovative applications.”

“Continued growth of cloud and edge workloads are placing more demand on data infrastructure resources,” said Greg Schulz, senior analyst, StorageIO. “Fast applications need fast I/O and compute including server, storage, and I/O network offloads to boost not only efficiency, also productivity effectiveness. TOEs are a great solution to offload core server compute freeing up those resources for other productive tasks like the value benefit GPUs provide in freeing up compute cycles through offloading graphics and AI/ML workloads.“

During the Storage Developer Conference, the company will demonstrate the following technologies that illustrate how T7 DPU solutions offering high-speed Ethernet storage networking complement modern application and storage architectures:

NVMe/TCP with the firm’s TOE using the PDU interface for efficient, low-latency access to NVMe SSD storage.
NVMe Over Fabrics (RDMA)-based network access with high-performance and low latency.
iSCSI Protocol Offload-based access to flash storage with high throughput and IO/s.
Memory-free Server Offload functions optimized for datacenter networking applications.
T6 legacy mode software running on T7 for iSCSI, iWARP, TOE, NIC, NVMe/TCP.

In addition, the firm was participating in a Birds of a Feather (BoF) session entitled NVMe/TCP Deployment Best Practices. NVMe over TCP has emerged to provide a more powerful, and compute resource friendly NVMe-oF technology deployment option. Not only does NVMe over TCP help with lower deployment costs and reducing design complexity, it also enables higher performance with lower latency. In essence, NVMe over TCP extends NVMe across the entire data center (from on-prem core to edge to cloud) using the simple, standard, and efficient well-known TCP/IP fabric networks. The BoF as moderated by Greg Schulz, independent industry analyst and author, StorageIO, and included review of NVMe/TCP performance results using T6 Unified Wire TCP Offload Engine (TOE) to illustrate the benefits in performance and efficiency of NVMe/TCP fabrics, opening the way to storage performance and scale.

Availability:

T7 DPU ASICs and the first 2 adapter SKUs will be in production in 1Q23.
T7 DPU emulation platforms for software development are available to early access customers.
T7 reference design kit is also available.

Resources:
T7 product brief
T7 NVMe PDU Interface Offload video
T7 NVMe-oF (RDMA) Offload video
T7 Overview video