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The Future of Data Processing with Intel® IPUs

ThomasScheibe
Employee
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As data centers continue to grapple with the surging demands for higher performance, fortified security, and complex data processing, Intel is introducing the Intel® Infrastructure Processing Unit (Intel® IPU) Adapter E2100-CCQDA2HL to address the growing needs of the modern data center. This full-height, half-length, 200GbE IPU PCIe adapter is designed to work in a broad range of PCIe compliant servers, handling evolving customer demands.

Performance for the Evolving Data Center

As artificial intelligence functionality continues to grow in data centers, power optimization becomes increasingly important. This new IPU adapter delivers full performance without requiring auxiliary power delivery.

Designed with the future in mind, the IPU adapter is designed to drive innovation and optimize infrastructure. The latest adapter is highly versatile supporting a wide range of applications and use cases.

  • With AI clusters, the IPU enhances security, storage offload, and networking performance
  • For tenant hosting, the IPU virtualizes network and storage functions, providing easy cloud service access.
  • In Kubernetes environments, the IPU efficiently offloads container networking and storage.
  • The IPU also enables accelerators-as-a-service, manages packet processing in appliances, and streamlines top-of-rack tasks in smart switches.

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Emerging Use Cases for Intel IPUs

 

One particular capability stands out: The challenges of lossy fabrics are now addressed with the availability of Falcon reliable transport in the IPU.  Created by Google, Falcon reliable transport is an open-source hardware assisted transport designed for demanding workloads like AI/ML, HPC, Cloud RDMA, RPC, and storage. Its low latency and low jitter are achieved in Ethernet networks by building upon existing RDMA technology.  Additionally, Falcon reliable transport ensures low-latency and high-bandwidth performance for RDMA messages and NVMe commands in cloud scale environments without requiring changes to existing applications. It's connection-oriented architecture includes built-in security and PSP, a scalable security protocol that supports cloud environments and simplifies networking management. With full backward compatibility for RDMA and storage applications, Falcon delivers end-to-end hardware paths for both initiator and target storage applications.

 

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 Intel® IPU Adapter E2100-CCQDA2HL

 

Additionally, we have simplified IPU management with the enablement of DMTF Redfish. Redfish provides standardized secure and efficient interface for remote IPU management. By giving users full control over infrastructure with minimal complexity, Redfish ensures that your data centers operation remains smooth, streamlined, and secured.

Please join us as we unveil our latest IPU adapter at the Open Compute Project (OCP) Summit October 15-17th. Intel IPUs offer more than just an incremental hardware improvement; they are solutions that meet the demand of future data processing. From improved power efficiency to advanced AI infrastructure workloads, and enhanced cloud virtualization, the Intel IPU is built to address the evolving needs of enterprises across the globe.

About the Author
Thomas is VP/GM Networking Solutions Group in the Network and Edge Cloud Connectivity Group, responsible for defining and selling innovative connectivity solutions for cloud centric deployments, optimized for performance, security, and TCO. In his previous role, Thomas was Vice President, Product Management, for Cisco’s Data Center Networking business group. He led the consolidation and growth of the Nexus portfolio into a multi-billion business with a large recurring software component. Thomas has 25 years of experience in the networking industry working with cloud providers, enterprise customers, and partners in various roles for Cisco, Juniper, and Insieme Networks. His main areas of expertise are the datacenter and optical interconnect technologies. In the past, Thomas served on the Board of Directors of The Ethernet Alliance., was a Board Observer at Innovium (acquired by Marvell), and a Board of Directors member for the Inspur-Cisco JV. Thomas is a frequent speaker at data center industry events and published blogs on technology trends. Before his first stint at Cisco, Thomas started his career in Germany working as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company. Thomas holds an MSEE from the Technical University Chemnitz (Germany) and an MBA from the Haas School of Business, U.C. Berkeley.