SolidRun Unveils SolidNET DPUs – The First Software-Defined DPU for Cloud, Edge and Enterprise Data Centers

SolidRun Unveils SolidNET DPUs – The First Software-Defined DPU for Cloud, Edge and Enterprise Data Centers

by | Sep 28, 2022 | Press Release

SolidRun, a leading developer and manufacturer of high-performance System on Module (SOM) solutions, Single Board Computers (SBC) and network edge solutions, today announced SolidNET, a line of Arm®-based software-defined data processing unit (DPU) PCIe half-height-half-length (HHHL) cards based on off-the-shelf 16-core NXP LX2162A SoCs. Offering customers full flexibility to implement software-defined networking (SDN), networking security, and acceleration functions based on virtIO, DPDK and NVMe standards, these powerful data center solutions are packed with all the key elements required for next-generation cloud-scale computing.

“With the increasing demand for performance in data centers, securing the infrastructure and scaling performance becomes a major challenge,” said Mordi Blaunstein, VP marketing and sales at SolidRun. “SolidRun’s DPU makes it possible to isolate the servers from the infrastructure on the node level, abstracting the infrastructure based on open standards, thus making it higher performance for about the same cost as a standard smartNIC.”

SolidNET Software-Defined DPUs Fast-Track Next-Gen Cloud Scale Computing

Enabling 100 percent bare-metal and virtualized/containerized Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), these robust and flexible DPUs fully off-load the host server CPU’s hypervisor, handing network and NVMe functions to the DPU, creating physical isolation between the server compute resources and infrastructure. This provides vast service offload capabilities, and is perfect for network management, storage, security abstractions to hide advanced topologies from applications, SDN overlays, mesh, NVMeoF, network HSM, virtual private cloud (VPC) and more. With a dedicated DPU, application performance is greatly improved, making SolidNET DPUs an ideal solution for virtualized and bare-metal hosting infrastructure services. Furthermore, with a SolidNET DPU, these functions no longer compete with application workloads for server cores, memory or storage resources, and benefit from improved server security with independent out-of-band management capabilities, secure boot, and root of trust support.

SolidNET Software-Defined DPUs offer flexible integration for a variety of application-level offloading and acceleration functions, like L4 Firewall, DDOS, Bot Detection, API Gateway, etc. This is extremely beneficial when running workloads at the cloud edge to boost efficiency by maximizing the utilization of the host CPU for running the required application/service algorithms, while the DPU executes the basic function per application instructions. For example, DDoS attack filtering can be executed by the DPU per filtering tables built and maintained by the application running on the host server CPU.

SolidNET DPUs are a multi-vendor solution that utilizes off-the-shelf Arm-based SoCs from the industry’s leading chipmakers. This unlocks a wide variety of potential hardware solutions and vendors, and allows SolidRun to support different features and benefits, while keeping hardware costs low. Since complex network services are offloaded to the DPU, customers can further reduce data center costs with the use of more power-efficient data center network infrastructure hardware.

“DPUs provide an effective way to drive more efficient resource utilization and reduce operating costs throughout the data center,” said Imran Yusuf, director of hardware ecosystem, Infrastructure Line of Business, Arm. “Offloading applications that historically ran on server CPUs to high performance and efficient Arm-based CPUs is benefiting a wide range of applications from AI/ML, databases, storage and security tasks, and microservices. SolidRun’s Software-Defined DPUs will provide a streamlined user experience taking advantage of the robust Arm software ecosystem.”

In early testing, customers have found tremendous success using SolidNET DPUs for software-defined networking functions and application-level acceleration, effectively allowing the DPU to operate as a dedicated server within a server. This offers massive benefits for enterprise security acceleration, CDN uPOP acceleration and infrastructure cloud services. With an abundant software ecosystem for the Arm platform, SolidNET DPUs can be fully customized and optimized for the most stringent applications today and in the future – all while sustaining the highest possible performance.

The general-purpose 16-core Arm-based NXP Layerscape LX2162A CPUs powering SolidNET DPUs offer significant computing capabilities, while the PCIe card form factor makes it ideal for upgrading existing cloud, edge, and enterprise data centers servers for SDN applications. Operating separately from the host server, these DPU cards boot to a general-purpose operating system like Linux and offers independent out-of-band management capability. This offers strict security isolation of the hosting system from the cloud network infrastructure (VPC, encryption, storage services, etc.). Other Arm-based SoC options will be announced later.

SolidNET products are compatible with Linux-based SDN software applications, including DPDK, which provides data plane libraries and network interface controller polling-mode drivers for offloading many networking services and functions. For example, TCP segmentation from the operating system kernel to processes running in the DPU user space.

For more information about the new line of SolidNET network hardware solutions from SolidRun, please visit https://www.solid-run.com/arm-servers-networking-platforms/solidnet-dpu/.

For more information about SolidRun, please visit www.solid-run.com. SolidRun is a gold member of the NXP Partner Program. Learn more.

Click here for the press kit

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About SolidRun

SolidRun is a global leading developer of embedded systems and network solutions, focused on a wide range of energy-efficient, powerful, and flexible products. Our innovative compact embedded solutions are based on Arm and x86 architecture and offer a variety of platforms including SOMs (System-on-Module), SBCs (Single Board Computer) and industrial mini-PCs.

SolidRun offers a one-stop-shop for developers and OEMs, providing a complete service from hardware customization to software development, product branding and enclosure design. With a mission to simplify application development while overcoming deployment challenges, SolidRun proudly provides customers faster time-to-market and lower costs.

Hiperwall 8.0 Adds Video Wall Zone Control

Hiperwall 8.0 Adds Video Wall Zone Control

by | Sep 15, 2022 | Press Release

Hiperwall, Inc., a leader in IP-based video wall and signage control solutions, today announced version 8.0 of its powerful, hardware-agnostic video wall control software. One of the most value-adding upgrades to the company’s software to date, Hiperwall 8.0 unlocks extremely powerful features that dramatically improve content integrity, system performance, and content sharing.
Zone Control and Permissions
Ideal for control rooms, HiperZones, a game-changing new feature of Version 8.0, allows video wall administrators to maintain integrity of displayed content by reducing the possibility of unwanted interference by users. HiperZones provides admins the ability to define multiple access-controlled zones on a single video wall – turning one video wall into a group of several smaller video wall regions. This feature is ideal for maintaining order within a control room, especially during mission-critical operations, as it enables only designated operators to access, share content to and manipulate their assigned zone of the video wall. Combined with a HiperOperator license, a user can remotely access and share content to their assigned zone from any Windows PC or tablet. Admins with full permissions can access all regions, move objects between them, and take over the entire wall when necessary.
“Our software-driven AV over IP architecture provides us the freedom to constantly innovate powerful new video wall control features that our customers can easily put to use via a software upgrade,” said Dr. Stephen Jenks, Chief Scientist and Co-Founder at Hiperwall. “Version 8.0 of our Hiperwall video wall software will likely prove to be one of the most significant upgrades for customers with mission-critical operations. Our new HiperZones feature adds a powerful layer of user and content management capabilities that keeps displayed information focused while providing admins unprecedented control of their video wall system’s operation.”
Simple, Organized Sharing Between Video Walls
Due to the complex network security requirements, many government agencies, security operations centers and network operations centers have in place, sharing content between multiple video walls can be challenging and compromising to network security integrity. Hiperwall Version 8.0 adds HiperCast Pull, a solution that simplifies HiperCast configurations (HiperCast connects Hiperwall video wall systems no matter where they are in the world), making it capable of sharing content between an organization’s various Hiperwall-powered video walls, without any network or server changes.
“HiperCast Pull was created with direct feedback from several customers. Many large organizations with multiple video walls, often with those walls connected to very high-security networks, need to share content between their various locations. Rather than punch through the network firewall by port-forwarding to each Hiperwall system, we streamlined the process by directing the controllers to pull content from the HiperCast server, reducing security risks and simplifying system and network setup,” Jenks continued.
Users will now find a ‘HiperCast Pull’ button at the bottom of the sources tab. Clicking this button brings up a menu of in-network video walls to connect to, and once connected it users can select which sources they require from all available sources, reducing the clutter of unnecessary content sources in the sources tab.
Enhanced Efficiency for Higher Quality Content
The new HiperSource Streamer+ technology helps video wall users maximize the visualization capabilities of Hiperwall Certified HiperView PCs from Seneca, and modern UHD displays now support seamless output of 4K content at 60 frames per second. Because of the upgraded foundational technology that HiperSource Streamer+ is based on, content streams are more efficient than ever, allowing Hiperwall video walls to support more concurrent content streams from a single HiperSource Streamer PC.
Version 8.0 also rings in HiperView+, a no-cost license upgrade for customers with HiperView PCs equipped with NVIDIA graphics cards. Based on HiperView Quantum technology, the same technology Hiperwall developed for seamless DV-LED video performance across multiple video wall controllers, HiperView+ delivers high-performance content drawing and synchronized video decoding that enhances HiperView PC performance and video playback capabilities. Support for Intel-based graphics is in development.
For more information about Hiperwall video wall control software, please visit www.hiperwall.com. To see if Hiperwall software is right for your organization’s video wall, please send us a note at https://www.hiperwall.com/contact_usrequesting a demo.
About Hiperwall, Inc.
Hiperwall, Inc., a leading company in next-generation video wall systems and distributed visualization software technology, is transforming the industry by eliminating the need for specialized servers, matrix switches, tangled cables and time-consuming training in favor of a solution that is easy to install, easy to use and easy on the budget. Hiperwall has eliminated these barriers by developing a software-based video wall system that is completely hardware agnostic, allowing users to deploy systems with nothing more than commonly available PCs, displays and network equipment. For more information, visit www.hiperwall.com.