Broadcom and Arista have announced an open end-to-end networking solution optimized for Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) over Converged Ethernet (RoCE). Hyperscaler and enterprise data center operators can now deploy fully optimized systems using open-standard RDMA. Jointly integrated by Broadcom and Arista, this end-to-end solution features Broadcom’s Ethernet NIC and switch technology.
Broadcom and Arista have announced an open end-to-end networking solution optimized for Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) over Converged Ethernet (RoCE). Hyperscaler and enterprise data center operators can now deploy fully optimized systems using open-standard RDMA. Jointly integrated by Broadcom and Arista, this end-to-end solution features Broadcom’s Ethernet NIC and switch technology.
The Broadcom and Arista RoCE solution simplifies the deployment of RoCE in the data center, by utilizing an end-to-end open congestion control algorithm to deliver the industry’s lowest latency at scale. The whole-fabric optimization, covering NIC and switches, contributes to scale and performance improvements over solutions that rely exclusively on the NIC to manage network behavior.
RDMA helps to reduce the CPU workload as it offloads all transport communication tasks from the CPU to hardware and provides direct memory access for applications without involving the CPU. RoCE allows RDMA to run over Ethernet. The second version of RoCE (RoCE-v2) adds a UDP/IP header and enables a routable RoCE. Broadcom’s Ethernet Adapters support RoCEv2 in hardware and allows for higher throughput, lower latency, and lower CPU utilization, which are critical for AI/ML, Storage, and High-Performance Compute (HPC) applications.
RoCEv2 provides three advantages:
- Operation on routed ethernet networks, ubiquitous in large data centers
- IP QoS – The DiffServ code point (DSCP), or alternatively VLAN PRI
- IP congestion control – The explicit congestion notification (ECN) signal
Tests conducted by both companies demonstrate improvement in congestion control latency over existing solutions as well as improved bandwidth and collective completion times. In addition, Broadcom and Arista have collaborated to provide comprehensive documentation to simplify RoCE deployment, management, and increase performance in the data center.
Arista’s Narayanan Surynarayanan, Director, Systems Engineering, said:
“Knowing and delivering what the market needs is critical to Arista. High-performance RoCE networking is key to our customers in a wide range of verticals such as the cloud, machine learning, AI, storage, and HPC. Our mission to offer market-leading, scalable, Ethernet networking solutions to expand the RDMA ecosystem and simplify deployments is essential for our customers. By combining Broadcom’s NIC with Arista switches, customers get turnkey, performance-optimized, end-to-end solutions for RoCE networking.”
Jas Tremblay, Vice President and General Manager of the Data Center Solutions Group at Broadcom added:
“RDMA has become a must-have technology in the data center for Ethernet NIC and switches. Broadcom has been diligently working with Arista, a networking industry leader, to expand the hardware ecosystem. This long-standing collaboration marks a critical turning point for the networking industry by making RoCE a multi-vendor, competitive technology that will benefit a broad range of customers and applications. We are deeply committed to developing open standards RDMA for low-latency, high-speed data transfers, and working with Arista ensures we deliver the best technology to customers, the right way.”
The End-to-End Solutions Available Today Include:
- Broadcom Family of Ethernet NICs Include:
- OCP 3.0 adapters with 2x100G, 1x200G, 1x100G, and 4x25G Ethernet
- PCIe adapters with 2x100G, 1x200G, and 4x25G Ethernet
- Linux, VMware ESX, and Windows drivers
- Industry’s lowest power solution
- Arista Switches Include:
- Broadcom and Arista RoCE RDMA Solutions Documentation Include:
- Introduction to Congestion Control for RoCE White Paper
- Arista/ Broadcom RoCE RDMA Solutions Data Sheet
- Arista/ Broadcom RoCE RDMA Solution: Deployment and Configuration Guide
- RDMA Over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) Configuration Guide
To learn more about this solution, please view the Broadcom configuration guide and whitepaper and the Arista data sheet and deployment guide.
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