sacri wrote on 2022-01-28, 16:09:
Today i got snailmail. A new Killer K1 \o/ Box was only opened. I think that someone looked the cooled model - it can be seen printed on the box what's inside =|
front.jpg
seal.jpg
Really nice !
I have one too (but a more recent, with a more conventional look)
It was insane when it came out. A NIC that runs Linux and replace the Windows network stack !
Just not as effective as it was advertised. But still a good idea.
In fact, new datacenter network cards are going that way.
This is called "smart nics", and used by cloud providers. (Like all the big ones Google, Amazon, Microsoft)
It is like virtualisation, but for network controllers.
The NIC can be managed by the cloud provider, but not by the server on which the card run.
For the server, it looks like it is a basic NIC. But the provider who manages the card can do a lot of thing.
- Offload network processing to the NIC instead of the CPU
- Expose multiple NICs to the OS. Virtually exposed on the PCIe bus.
- Expose network functions to the OS (Storage, etc...)
- Encapsulate the data, transparently, in a VLAN/XVLAN/VPN/Whatever
- Filter like a firewall, apply rate limiting, QoS policies
All functions usually provided by top of rack network switches, and more, but directly in the server itself.
It's insane !
(Yes, i'm kind of passionate about it cause it's my job)
"Hello, my friend. Stay awhile and listen..."
My collection (not up to date)