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

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.

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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.

SolidRun Unveils SolidWAN Line of Software-Defined Edge Network Hardware

SolidRun Unveils SolidWAN Line of Software-Defined Edge Network Hardware

SolidRun, a leading developer and manufacturer of high-performance System on Module (SOM) solutions, Single Board Computers (SBC) and network edge solutions, today announced its all-new line of SolidWAN system-level solutions for software-defined wide area networks and network security applications. Available in different form factors, with different wired and wireless networking configuration options, SolidWAN networking solutions are ideal for home office use, SMB and enterprise applications and deployment at the network’s edge.
“Businesses across the world are evolving their network infrastructure to take advantage of the vast flexibility, security, and cost-saving benefits of software-defined networking,” said Mordi Blaunstein, VP Marketing and Sales at SolidRun. “However, one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to network hardware. This is especially true when connecting today’s distributed workforce. With that in mind, we created our game changing SolidWAN line, which makes software-defined networking more affordable and easily deployable to home offices, branch offices, data centers and more.”
SolidWAN network hardware solutions are optimized for software-defined networking applications and provide direct connectivity of network ports to the CPU. This direct connection allows all network traffic to be managed by software, which not only guarantees the highest security and best possible quality of service, but also makes upgrading network hardware, deploying updates and establishing new network services fast and easy. The embedded Layerscape® LX2 SoCs from NXP® Semiconductors offer advanced data path acceleration optimized for L2/3 packet processing, security offload and robust traffic management and quality of service.
“The future of network management is software based, and NXP has created the powerful Layerscape LX2160A and LX2162A processors with this in mind,” said Toby Foster, senior product marketing manager at NXP. “SolidRun’s SolidWAN networking solutions take full advantage of our LX2 line of processor’s 16 powerful cores, numerous SerDes lanes, security acceleration, and data compression engine to produce cost-effective and compact hardware that can be configured to serve any number of enterprise and edge processing network functions, while helping to reduce latency, enhancing security, and improving resiliency.”
For Home Offices and SMBs
The SolidWAN LX2162A is a small form factor network solution that takes full advantage of the robust performance and security features embedded into the LX2162A SoC from NXP. Utilizing SolidRun’s LX2-Lite system-on-module as the foundation for this compact system, the SolidWAN LX2162A efficiently addresses SMB and local branch office needs with outstanding performance and security. Engineered with a wide array of wired and wireless software-defined networking connection options, including eight dedicated GbE RJ45 ports, two 25GbE SFP and two 10GbE dedicated SFP interfaces, and optional GbE RJ45 management port, LTE and Wi-Fi options, this unit offers maximum site installation flexibility while maintaining a compact, desktop-friendly footprint and low price point.
SolidRun also offers fanless small form factor SD-WAN platforms with quad-core processors and 1GbE/2.5GbE/10GbE software-defined dedicated Ethernet ports to address the home-office, remote-workers, and Industrial locations the need high security and high-performance network services.
For Enterprise and Edge
For the most advanced enterprise and edge data center applications, the SolidWAN Dual LX2160A network solution boasts 32-core processing performance for advanced network security and accelerated data routing capabilities. With two SolidRunLX2160A COM Express 7 modules serving as the system’s foundation, each packing a 16-core NXP LX2160A SoC, up to 32GB of DDR4, up to 64GB of embedded eMMC, this SD-Wan- and software-defined network security-targeted system supports up to 24 dedicated high-speed Ethernet connections (12 10GbE SFP+ and 12 1GbE SFP interfaces). This system is also equipped with a 2x100GbE OCP3.0 Dual Host NIC which features two dedicated 100GbE QSFP28 interfaces. What’s more surprising than the number of dedicated high-speed connections this system supports is its size. Thanks to the purpose-built, network-focused design of the SoCs used and the thermal efficiency of Arm processors, SolidRun was able to engineer this system to fit within a standard 1U rack-mountable enclosure.
For less intense applications, SolidRun offers a SolidWAN Single LX2160A network solution that features a single NXP LX2160A SoC and supports up to 16 high-speed Ethernet connections (8 10GbE SFP+ and 8 1GbE SFP interfaces). This system is equipped with 4x10GbE OCP3.0 NIC which features four dedicated SFP+ interfaces. Like the SolidWAN Dual LX2160A, this system also features a compact 1U rack-mountable enclosure.
As with many SolidRun network hardware solutions, the SolidWAN family of products offers SKUs that support a wide range of deployment environments and can be pre-configured for commercial applications where environmental conditions range between 0°C to 70°C, or for more extreme industrial applications where conditions range between -40°C to 75°C.
SolidWAN 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 TCP packet processing from the operating system kernel to processes running in user space. SolidRun has also partnered with several software developers to offer full SD-WAN and security service software to customers.
For more information about the new line of SolidWAN network hardware solutions from SolidRun, please visit https://www.solid-run.com/arm-servers-networking-platforms/solidwan/
For more information about SolidRun, please visit www.solid-run.comSolidRun is a gold member of the NXP Partner Program. Learn more.