ARM joins Linux Foundation’s Open Programmable Infrastructure project
ARM has joined the Linux Foundation’s Open Programmable Infrastructure project, a community-driven initiative focused on creating a standards-based open ecosystem for next-generation architectures and frameworks based on DPUs (data processing units) and IPUs (infrastructure processing units).
Launched in June 2021 under the Linux Foundation, the project is focused on utilising open software and standards, as well as frameworks and toolkits, to enable the adoption of DPUs. Arm joins other members including Dell Technologies, F5, Intel, Keysight Technologies, Marvell, Nvidia, Red Hat, Tencent, and ZTE. These member companies work together to create an ecosystem of blueprints and standards to ensure that compliant DPUs work with any server.
DPUs are used today to accelerate networking, security, and storage tasks. In addition to performance benefits, DPUs help improve data centre security by providing physical isolation for running infrastructure tasks. They also help to reduce latency and improve performance for applications that require real-time data processing. As DPUs create a logical split between infrastructure compute and client applications, the manageability of workloads within different development and management teams is streamlined.
“Arm has been contributing to the OPI Project for a while now,” says Kris Murphy, chair of the OPI project governing board and senior principal software engineer at Red Hat. “Now, as a premier member, we are excited that they’re bringing their leadership to the Governing Board and expertise to the technical steering committee and working groups. Their participation will help to ensure that the DPU components are optimised for programmable infrastructure solutions.”
“Across network, storage, and security applications, DPUs are already proving the power efficiency and capex benefits of specialised processing technology,” says Marc Meunier, director of ecosystem development, infrastructure line of business, Arm and member of OPI governing board. “As a premier member of the OPI project, we look forward to contributing our expertise in heterogeneous computing and working with other leaders in the industry to create solution blueprints and standards that pave the way for successful deployments.”
“The DPU market offers an opportunity for us to change how infrastructure services can be deployed and managed,” says Arpit Joshipura, general manager, networking, edge, and IoT, the Linux Foundation. “With collaboration across software and hardware vendors representing silicon devices and the entire DPU software stack, the OPI Project is creating an open ecosystem for next generation data centres, private clouds, and edge deployments.”
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