This document discusses smart network interface controllers (SmartNICs). It begins by explaining the differences between regular NICs and SmartNICs, noting that SmartNICs can offload networking, storage, and security functions from servers. It then discusses the Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) framework and how it allows building applications that can process packets faster using "kernel bypass." The document provides an overview of DPDK implementation and installation. It concludes by discussing how DPDK and SmartNICs can improve performance for 5G networks by further offloading functions from servers.

1. What is Smart NIC?
Darniss
Department of Wireless Networks and
Applications
MCN

2. Overview
❖ Smart Network Interface Controller (Smart-NIC)
➢ Regular NIC vs Smart-NIC
➢ Evolution of Smart NIC
❖ Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK)
❖ Implementation Design of DPDK
❖ Installation of DPDK
❖ Quick Demo
❖ Smart NIC and DPDK in 5G

3. Why Smart NIC ?
• A network interface controller, commonly known as a NIC, is
a computer hardware component that connects a computer
to a network.
• A SmartNIC is a dedicated piece of hardware that can be
used to accelerate networking, storage, and security
functions. Also, they can perform virtualization, load
balancing, and data path optimization.
• SmartNICs are equipped with computing power, allowing
them to offload all networking functions, security function,
and storage functions from the host server to the SmartNIC,
freeing up valuable processing power. Freeing up processing
power allows the server to focus on running
revenue-generating enterprise applications and the OS more
efficiently

4. Regular NIC vs Smart NIC

6. Why DPDK ?
• DPDK enables us to build applications, that we can use to
process packets faster! This is done by enabling packets to
follow ‘fastpath’(Kernel Bypass) instead of normal route of
Network layers and Context switching
• There are many network interface cards which are supported
by DPDK, and most of them are quite expensive. So its quite
useful to have a option to develop and run DPDK
applications without any physical constrains.
• Running DPDK in virtual machines allow anyone to play with
it and to overcome any physical constrains.

7. DPDK (Data Plane Development Kit)

8. Implementation Design

9. RTC Vs Pipeline

10. Installing DPDK
● Check if h/w supports DPDK (DPDK compatibility)
● Clone DPDK from GIT (DPDK GIT repository)

11. DEMO

12. Example - L2FWD

13. DPDK and Smart NIC
• DPDK provides many APIs to take
advantages of features of NIC
• Some packet processing offloaded
to h/w
• Some features include:
– Checksum verification /
computational offloading (L3 and L4)
– Parsing L3 and L4 Headers

14. DPDK and Smart NIC in 5G
• Datacenter operators can extract more performance from
the same hardware by adding SmartNICs to their servers.
SmartNICs allow operators to extract more performance
from existing hardware because they can offload some of
the networking, storage, and security functions from the
server’s CPU to the SmartNIC.
• DPDK provides a programming framework for x86, ARM,
and PowerPC processors and enables faster development
of high speed data packet networking applications.

15. Reference
https://blog.selectel.com/introduction-dpdk-architecture-principles/
https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2021/10/29/what-is-a-smartnic/
https://premioinc.com/blogs/blog/smartnic-vs-regular-nic-differences-explained
https://blog.emumba.com/setting-up-virtual-machines-for-dpdk-da1b49a9bf5f
https://www.vvdntech.com/blog/how-is-vvdn-redefining-5g-with-its-smart-nics/
https://premioinc.com/blogs/blog/how-smartnics-fpga-and-now-dpus-are-accelerating-workloads-for-5g
https://www.datasciencecentral.com/the-role-of-smartnics-in-5g-s-drive-for-new-network-architecture/
https://24x7itconnection.com/2020/10/27/whats-the-buzz-about-smartnics/
https://www.starwindsoftware.com/blog/smartnic-and-the-future-of-computing-storage-networking-and-security