iWARP for wan/www deployment

gveld · ‎01-24-2018

We've recently bought a new server with a Intel X722 controller. Which supports iWARP.

I've read white papers about iWARP benefits (performance benefits), however I couldn't find any information about drawbacks or use of iWARP on the world wide web.

It seems that iWARP is manly targeted at servers in a LAN network which transfer lots of data. But I couldn't find any details on WAN deployments.

When installing the Intel Proset drivers on Windows, we noticed the following:

User Mode iWARP provider is unchecked by default
We are specifically asked if we want to enable iWARP across IP subnets
When installing the iWARP provider the firewall rule for public network is unchecked by default.

This makes me believe that there are (security) Drawbacks to enabling iWARP accross IP subnets.

However I couldn't find any information about this and the build in documentation is vague on this subject.

Can someone tell me if if iWARP is safe to use across the world wide web? We aim to deploy this server as web and application server and expect to run several applications and websites which will be publicly accessible.

idata · ‎01-24-2018

Hi Gijs007,

Thank you for posting in Wired Communities. Let me check if there is any information about your inquiry.

Thanks,

Sharon T

gveld · ‎01-25-2018

Hi Sharon,

Thank you for the fast reply.

Did you find any information about this?

Kind Regards,

Gijs

idata · ‎01-26-2018

Hi Gijs007,

Thank you for the reply. We are still checking on this and will update you if there is any information to share.

Regards,

Sharon T

idata · ‎02-05-2018

Hi Gijs007,

Please find information below hope can clarify your concern:

1) There are no known issues using iWARP technology over WAN, but you must have both server and client running iWARP RDMA.

2) In order to use any form of RDMA (including iWARP), you must use an RDMA-enabled application and you must install and configure iWARP on the network.

If the application you are using is not RDMA-enabled, then you will not be able to use iWARP.

3) Since you are using the server for Web Server/ Application Server. iWARP support is not really relevant.

Thanks,

Sharon T

gveld · ‎02-06-2018

Hi Sharon,

Thank you for the explanation.

I'll keep iWARP enabled then, although we currently can't really take advantage of it.

I'd like to add that the Ohio Supercomputer Center actually did research to using iWARP for web servers and created a module for Apache to add support for RDMA:

https://www.osc.edu/files/research/network_file/projects/rdma/downloads/ccs_2006_presentation.pdf https://www.osc.edu/files/research/network_file/projects/rdma/downloads/ccs_2006_presentation.pdf

According to their research the main benefit for iWARP enabled web servers is the lower CPU usage, as well as slightly better latency and being able to handle more connections.

Perhaps we will see support for iWARP in popular web applications and web servers in the future, as iWARP becomes mainstream with current and next generation servers. However we also need clients/web browsers capable of using iWARP (in hardware or trough software emulation).

idata · ‎02-06-2018

Hi Gijs007,

You are welcome and thank you for sharing the additional information, this will benefit others in case they need to use iWARP for their implementation.

Please let me know if you still have other inquiries. Thank you.

Regards,

Sharon T