Timeline of Microsoft's SmartNIC Tech (Azure Boost)
8 hours ago
- #FPGA
- #Microsoft Azure
- #SmartNIC
- Microsoft has used SmartNICs in Azure servers since 2015, originally as FPGAs between host NICs and network cables.
- SmartNIC development evolved from Project Catapult, which initially used FPGAs to accelerate Bing, to Azure-specific designs.
- Key SmartNIC generations include names like Pikes Peak (40G), Longs Peak (50G), Storm Peak (100G), Celestial Peak (100G), and Glacier Peak (200G).
- Glacier Peak, or MANA/Azure Boost 2, is a 200G SmartNIC with an Altera Agilex FPGA, Arm SoC, and supports features like guest RDMA and GPUDirect Storage.
- These NICs require integration with Azure's hypervisor and special drivers; older models may not function in standard servers and can be found for sale second-hand but are not usable standalone.