SolidRun SolidNET Software-Defined DPU for the Edge Unveiled

SolidRun has announced SolidNET, a line of software-defined DPUs for Edge and cloud service providers that takes advantage of available open-stack software and open standards. The SolidNET DPU solution is an ARM-based software-defined data processing unit PCIe half-height-half-length (HHHL) cards based on off-the-shelf 16-core NXP LX2161A System on Card (SOC).

SolidRun has announced SolidNET, a line of software-defined DPUs for Edge and cloud service providers that takes advantage of available open-stack software and open standards. The SolidNET DPU solution is an ARM-based software-defined data processing unit PCIe half-height-half-length (HHHL) cards based on off-the-shelf 16-core NXP LX2161A System on Card (SOC).

SolidRun is a developer and manufacturer of high-performance System on Module (SOM) solutions, Single Board Computers (SBC), and network edge solutions. These new DPU solutions offer customers the flexibility to implement SDN, networking security, and acceleration functions based on virtIO, DPDK, and NVMe standards, delivering critical elements required for next-gen cloud-scale computing.

SolidRun’s Mordi Blaunstein, VP of marketing and sales, said:

“With the increasing demand for performance in data centers, securing the infrastructure and scaling performance becomes a major challenge. SolidRun’s DPU makes it possible to isolate the servers from the infrastructure on the node level, abstracting the infrastructure based on open standards, thus making it higher performance for about the same cost as a standard smart NIC.”

SolidNET Software-Defined DPUs Fast-Track Next-Gen Cloud Scale Computing

DPUs improve application performance by offloading a server CPU’s work, handing many of the network, NVMe, and security functions to the DPU, effectively creating physical isolation between the compute resources and the infrastructure. SolidNET DPUs absorb the workload, so these functions no longer compete with application workloads for server resources. At the same time, independent out-of-band management capabilities, secure boot, and root of trust support improve server security.

SolidNET Software-Defined DPUs offer flexible integration for application-level offloading and acceleration functions, like L4 Firewall, DDOS, Bot Detection, API Gateway, etc. This is beneficial for customers running workloads at the cloud edge to boost efficiency by maximizing the utilization of the host CPU for running the required application/service algorithms.

At the same time, the DPU executes the basic function per application instructions. For example, DDoS attack filtering can be performed by the DPU per filtering tables built and maintained by the application running on the host server CPU.

SolidNET DPUs is a multi-vendor solution utilizing off-the-shelf ARM-based SoCs, unlocking potential hardware solutions and reducing data center hardware costs.

SoldiNET DPU Specifications

Form Factor	Half Length Half Height (HHHL) PCIe Add-in card
SoC	NXP Layerscape LX2162A
Cores	16 x Cortex A72 Optional 8 and 12 core configurations
Memory	8GB and 32GB options Onboard DDR4 + ECC
Interface Standard	PCIe Gen 3.0 X8 Gold Fingers
Network	2x 25GbE 1x 1GbE
Physical/ Virtual Functions	2 PF with up to 64 VF per PF Default configuration: ● PF0 virtIO Network ● PF1 NVMe storage device
Security	Acceleration: TRNG, AES, SHA-256, etc.
Max Power Consumption	40W
TDP	Less than 25W

Early tests have demonstrated success using SolidNET DPUs for software-defined networking functions and application-level acceleration, effectively allowing the DPU to operate as a dedicated server within a server. The ARM platform brings a unique software ecosystem so SolidNET DPUs can be fully customized and optimized for most applications.

The general-purpose 16-core ARM-based NXP Layerscape LX2162A CPUs powering SolidNET DPUs, along with the PCIe card form factor, make it an excellent choice for upgrading existing cloud, edge, and enterprise data centers servers for SDN applications.

Operating separately from the host server, these DPU cards boot to general-purpose operating systems like Linux and offer independent out-of-band management capability providing strict security isolation of the hosting system from the cloud network infrastructure (VPC, encryption, storage services, etc.). SolidRun expects to announce other ARM-based SoC options in the future.

SolidNET products are compatible with Linux-based SDN software applications, including DPDK, which provides data plane libraries and network interface controller polling-mode drivers for offloading many networking services and functions., such as TCP segmentation from the operating system kernel to processes running in the DPU user space.

SolidRun SolidNET Product Page

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