[Hardware] Open Compute Project Foundation Launches a New Hardware-Software Co-design Strategy

[FazzNoth]

Today, the OCP Foundation, the nonprofit organization bringing hyperscale innovations to all, announced a new hardware-software co-design strategy that is exemplified by recent contributions to the OCP by Microsoft and Intel of the Scalable I/O (Input/Output) Virtualization (SIOV) specification, and a new collaboration with the SONiC Project now at the Linux Foundation.

“Hardware–software co-design focuses on software that requires intimate knowledge of the hardware to drive maximum hardware performance, and speed time-to-market for hardware where system performance and ecological footprint can be highly dependent on software and hardware interactions. As part of the OCP’s new hardware–software co-design strategy we are pleased to have new contributions from Microsoft and Intel and continue our collaboration with the SONiC Project at the Linux Foundation,” said George Tchaparian, CEO Open Compute Project Foundation.

 

Hardware-software co-design takes on new importance as software workloads become more diverse requiring specialized silicon to deliver top performance at an acceptable energy and ecological cost. System software, or firmware, will need to be designed using knowledge of the underlying hardware architecture to make appropriate engineering trade-offs along the cost vs performance curve enabling greener software.

The recent contribution of Microsoft and Intel of the Scalable I/O Virtualization specification is an important example of OCP’s hardware-software co-design strategy where SIOV provides a hardware and software architecture for mass-scale virtualization of I/O. This specification is an evolution of SR-IOV (single root input output virtualization) removing scaling limitations, enabling 100’s and 1,000’s of VMs (virtual machines) or software containers to dynamically share a pool of I/O devices meeting the requirements of today’s modern cloud native software. The OCP intends to grow a healthy community around SIOV becoming a catalyst to spark innovation in silicon and cloud architectures.

 

Collaboration between the OCP and the Linux Foundation expands to include the SONiC Project. In alignment with hardware-software co-design, collaboration continues around the Switch Abstraction Interface (SAI) project remaining at OCP and SONiC now at the Linux Foundation. The OCP is pleased that this collaboration allows the OCP to benefit from larger acceptance of SONiC by the Linux Foundation software development community, creating pull for OCP recognized switch hardware, opening new market verticals for OCP recognized equipment.  While SONiC is the OS of choice for many hyperscale data center operators, other market segments need specialized features and SAI will enable the market to choose the switch OS best suited to its use cases.

More Info: https://enterprisetalk.com/news/open-compute-project-foundation-launches-a-new-hardware-software-co-design-strategy/