NVIDIA announces industry’s first
secure SmartNIC optimised for 25G
NVIDIA has launched the NVIDIA
Mellanox ConnectX-6 Lx SmartNIC
– a highly secure and efficient
25/50 gigabit per second (Gb/s) Ethernet
smart network interface controller
(SmartNIC) – to meet surging growth in
enterprise and cloud scale-out workloads.
ConnectX-6 Lx, the 11th generation
product in the ConnectX family, is
designed to meet the needs of modern
data centres, where 25Gb/s connections
are becoming standard for handling
demanding workflows, such as enterprise
applications, AI and real-time analytics.
The new SmartNIC extends accelerated
computing by leveraging softwaredefined,
hardware-accelerated engines
to offload more security and network
processing from CPUs.
“Modern cloud and enterprise data
centres rely on accelerated networking
to address their scalability and compute
challenges,” said Amit Krig, Senior Vice
President of Software and NIC Products
in NVIDIA’s Mellanox networking
business. “ConnectX-6 Lx SmartNIC
delivers cost-effective, accelerated and
secure networking for the new era of
disaggregated, composable data centres.”
Advanced security
Accelerated security features such as IPsec
in-line cryptography and Hardware Root of
Trust, and a 10x performance improvement
for Connection Tracking, enable Zero Trust
security throughout the data centre. Bestin-class
RDMA Over Converged Ethernet
(RoCE), advanced virtualisation and
containersation, and NVMe Over Fabrics
storage offloads provide highly scalable
and performant networking.
“The server industry is rapidly
transitioning from 10GbE to 25GbE
network speeds with very fast growth
expected. With increasing requirements
being placed on the network, more
offloads need to be performed on
SmartNICs,” said Scott Raynovich,
Founder and Chief Technologist of
Futuriom, a technology research firm.
“NVIDIA’s Mellanox ConnectX-6 Lx
enables SmartNIC offloads, including
advanced switching and security, in a
cost-efficient 25/50GbE solution.”
Key features
The Mellanox ConnectX-6 Lx provides:
• Two ports of 25Gb/s, or a single port
of 50Gb/s, Ethernet connectivity with
PCIe Gen 3.0/4.0 x8 host connectivity
• Security features including Hardware
Root of Trust, Connection Tracking for
stateful L4 firewalls, and in-line IPSec
cryptography acceleration
• GPUDirect RDMA acceleration for
NVMe Over Fabrics (NVMe-oF)
storage, scale-out accelerated
computing and high-speed video
transfer applications
• Zero Touch RoCE (ZTR) for scalable,
easy-to-deploy, best-in-class RoCE
without switch configuration
• Accelerated switching and packet
processing (ASAP2), with built-in
SR-IOV and VirtIO hardware offloads
for virtualisation and containersation,
to accelerate software-defined
networking and connection tracking
for next-generation firewall services
ConnectX-6 Lx is sampling now, with
general availability expected in Q3
2020. Like all products in the ConnectX
family, it is compatible with the Mellanox
SmartNIC software stack. Together with
Mellanox Spectrum switches and the
LinkX family of cables and transceivers,
ConnectX SmartNICs enable the most
comprehensive end-to-end solution for
high-performance networks.
Broad industry support
Mellanox SmartNICs and software are used
in cloud, hyperscale and enterprise data
centres, high performance computing,
cybersecurity and financial services
systems around the world. Scott Tease,
General Manager of High Performance
Computing and Artificial Intelligence at
Lenovo Data Centre Group, a NVIDIA
technology partner, said: “Lenovo
offers best-of-breed solutions that are
engineered, tested and certified for cloud,
HPC, Artificial Intelligence and hyperscale
computing workloads. Mellanox ConnectX
SmartNICs enable secure, efficient,
high-speed connectivity that accelerates
networks and provides critical business
advantages for our clients.” ◊
intelligent OPERATIONS
www.intelligentdatacentres.com Issue 17
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