In 2021, we are getting increasingly dependent on cloud services and the applications dependent on them are getting popular. From streaming Netflix to browsing web and now even education, we are increasingly relying on the various cloud services to make our lives better especially in the middle of this pandemic.
Intel has recently come up with a new Infrastructure Processing Unit, during the Six Five Summit, a programmable networking device designed to enable cloud and communication service providers to reduce overhead and free up performance for central processing units (CPUs).
The IPU is a new category of technologies and is one of the strategic pillars of our cloud strategy. It expands upon our SmartNIC capabilities and is designed to address the complexity and inefficiencies in the modern data centre. At Intel, we are dedicated to creating solutions and innovating alongside our customer and partners — the IPU exemplifies this collaboration.”
–Guido Appenzeller, chief technology officer, Data Platforms Group, Intel
So, with an IPU, customers will be able to better utilize resources with a secure, programmable, stable solution that enables them to balance processing and storage. It intelligently manages system-level infrastructure resources by securely accelerating those functions in a data centre, so no problems from the customer side.
Intel says the IPU allows cloud operators to shift to a fully virtualized storage and network architecture while maintaining high performance and predictability, as well as a high degree of control. Not only that, it has the capability to accelerate modern applications that are built using a microservice-based architecture in the data centre.
An IPU offers the ability to:
- Accelerate infrastructure functions, including storage virtualization, network virtualization and security with dedicated protocol accelerators.
- Free up CPU cores by shifting storage and network virtualization functions that were previously done in software on the CPU to the IPU.
- Improve data centre utilization by allowing for flexible workload placement.
- Enable cloud service providers to customize infrastructure function deployments at the speed of software.
“As a result of Intel’s collaboration with a majority of hyperscalers, Intel is already the volume leader in the IPU market with our Xeon-D, FPGA and Ethernet components,” said Patty Kummrow, vice president in the Data Platforms Group and general manager of Ethernet Products Group at Intel. “The first of Intel’s FPGA-based IPU platforms are deployed at multiple cloud service providers and our first ASIC IPU is under test.”
Watch the YouTube video here:
via Intel
