Characterizing Off-path SmartNIC for Accelerating Distributed Systems

Explore a comprehensive characterization of off-path SmartNICs for accelerating distributed systems in this 15-minute conference talk from OSDI '23. Delve into the first holistic study of the Bluefield-2, a representative off-path SmartNIC, from a communication-path perspective. Discover key performance characteristics of communication among the client, on-board SoC, and host, and gain valuable insights for system designers. Learn about the proposed concurrent use of multiple communication paths in SmartNICs and understand the pioneering guideline for optimizing various distributed systems. Examine case studies on a SmartNIC-based distributed file system (LineFS) and an RDMA-based disaggregated key-value store (DrTM-KV), showcasing improvements of up to 30% and 25% respectively. Presented by researchers from the Institute of Parallel and Distributed Systems at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Shanghai AI Laboratory, this talk offers crucial knowledge for those interested in advancing distributed systems using SmartNIC technology.