Re: Mx204 alternative

[Raymond Burkholder <ray () oneunified net>]

On 2019-09-02 8:07 p.m., Brandon Martin wrote:
> On 9/2/19 6:04 PM, Mark Tinka wrote:
> > > Like how about 8-16*100GE single Trio PCI card with no-questions
> > > asked, specification released, would there be a market? I like to
> > > think there would be.
> Oh my gosh this.  Especially if the docs are truly public (i.e. 
> available with single click-wrap "don't be an asshat" license or even 
> something like GDFL) and not just under NDA, but honestly even if it's 
> an NDA required as long as it's broadly available for issuance (no 
> need to be a high-volume) Broadcom partner and allows the results of 
> its use to be distributed as F/OSS software, I'm game.
In light of the xeon cost benefit mentioned earlier, I don't know how 
this fits, but with enough pcie lanes going to an appropriate number of 
cores, Mellanox has dual port 100gbps and 200gbps ConnectX cards.  Plunk 
four of those cards into a suitable chassis, you could conceivably have 
8 ports by 100 or 200gbps.  From their site, ConnectX-6 can do various 
smart offload and such.  ConnectX has some sort of XDP Redirect 
capability, so may have eBPF hardware/software offload capability.  Not 
sure.

A commit back in December indicates 100Mpps on single port and 72Mpps on 
dual port depending upon how things are setup.

Actual routing/switching actions at those rates might be challenging but 
for smaller shops with pipes not fully utilized, might be an 
entertaining evaluation.

Raymond.