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https://github.com/opiproject/opi

OPI Main Repository
https://github.com/opiproject/opi

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README 

          
# **Open Programmable Infrastructure Project Vision Statement**



[![Linters](https://github.com/opiproject/opi/actions/workflows/linters.yml/badge.svg)](https://github.com/opiproject/opi/actions/workflows/linters.yml)

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The objective of the OPI initiative is to foster a community-driven

standards-based open ecosystem for next generation architectures and

frameworks based on DPU/IPU-like technologies.



## **TSC Charter**



You can read the current [TSC Charter](Charters/Open_Programmable_Infrastructure_Technical_Charter_Final-06-9-2022.pdf).



## **OPI Project Goals**



* Create community-driven standards-based open ecosystem for DPU/IPU-like

  technologies

* Create vendor agnostic framework and architecture for DPU/IPU-based software

  stacks

* Reuse existing or define a set of new common APIs for DPU/IPU-like

  technologies when required

* Provide implementation examples to validate the architectures/APIs



OPI uses the term **DPU/IPU** to represent the entire class of DPU/IPU-like

devices, and can refer to either the system containing a DPU/IPU-like device

or to the device itself. In cases where brevity is needed in the codebase,

OPI developers can use the term xPU to abbreviate DPU/IPU-like device.



For more details, see the full [page](GOALS.md).



## **OPI Project Backgrounder**



A new class of cloud and datacenter infrastructure is emerging into the

marketplace. This new infrastructure element, often referred to as Data Processing

Unit (DPU) or Infrastructure Processing Unit (IPU), takes the form of a server

hosted PCIe add-in card or on-board chip(s), containing one or more ASICs or

FPGAs, usually anchored around a single powerful SoC device. The DPU/IPU-like

devices have their roots in the evolution of SmartNIC devices but separate

themselves from that legacy in several important ways.



While a SmartNIC is clearly part of its host node’s compute system and exists

to closely interact with and offload node hosted applications, the DPU/IPU

dispenses with this secondary role. Instead, the DPU/IPU presents itself as a

complete compute system unto itself with the following key characteristics:



* Presence of their own general purpose processor

* The ability to boot a general purpose OS

* Domain-specific HW acceleration capabilities

* Software-defined device functions that allow the software components deployed

  to them to define the device's functions that are presented to the host

* Offloading of whole software subsystems, such as the Networking or Storage

  stack, including their control planes

* Strict security isolation from the host on the hardware-level

* Unique network identity

* Out-of-band management where the Data/Infrastructure Processing Unit

  (DPU/IPU)-like device is managed separately from the server where it resides

  or the DPU/IPU-like device can be used to manage the server



The new system architecture based on DPU/IPU is fully capable of running

independent software stacks and hosting its own applications using either

embedded or orchestrated deployment models (see the chart below). These unique

capabilities of the DPU/IPU are disruptive because they allow for key

infrastructure functions and their associated software stacks to be completely

removed from the host node’s CPU cores and to be relocated onto the DPU/IPU.

Network, storage, security, and virtualization functions are all ideal targets

for this relocation; in these cases the host cores become the exclusive domain

of the application workloads.



This arrangement solves multiple problems extant in current infrastructure. It

restores the separation of concerns between infrastructure and application and

solves an acute business problem for many enterprises. Specifically, the

infrastructure workloads, now executing on the DPU/IPU, are independently

managed by the Infrastructure, NetOps, and SecOps teams while the applications

can be managed by a DevOps team.



![Backgrounder Image](Assets/Backgrounder.png)



It prevents unexpected variations in the compute requirements of the

applications from interfering with the infrastructure services and vice-versa

while greatly simplifying node size estimation when provisioning and allocating

nodes at scale.



It facilitates the simplification of the network, storage, and security APIs

within the application, enabling more portable and performant applications,

while still delivering the full benefits of SDN overlays, remote storage

access, and in line encryption via the DPU/IPU infrastructure services.



It creates a security air gap between the untrusted host applications and the

infrastructure services. Virtualization control and crypto certificates are

kept on the DPU/IPU making it impossible for malware on the host node to

compromise the security of the hypervisor, the cloud’s underlying

infrastructure, or other hosted applications.



The proof of the power and leverage of an at scale DPU/IPU implementation has

been demonstrated by AWS with its Nitro technology. Nitro has allowed AWS to

secure, control, and manage its cloud infrastructure components and to even

create IaaS Bare Metal nodes, where customers' applications magically seem to

run directly on top of real metal hosts. But Nitro is a proprietary AWS

solution as are similar efforts by other hyperscale cloud providers. The

emerging DPU/IPU silicon and cards, offered as a merchant product, represent a

democratization of this advanced virtualization technology. Combined with the

right software stack, the advantages of the Nitro-like architecture can now be

realized by any organization or enterprise willing to build a private cloud

infrastructure around DPU/IPU technology.



But where will the right DPU/IPU software stack come from? And will it be a

closed, walled garden, single vendor offering? Or will it be an open,

collaborative, multi-vendor, innovation driven, ecosystem similar to what has

occurred with the Kubernetes and Container environments?



The OPI project is being created to address these questions and to foster the

emergence of such an open and creative software ecosystem for DPU/IPU based

cloud infrastructure. The project intends to delineate what a DPU/IPU is, to

loosely define a framework(s) and architecture for a DPU/IPU-based software

stack(s) applicable to any vendors hardware solution, to allow the creation of

a rich open source application ecosystem, to integrate with existing open

source projects aligned to the same vision such as the Linux kernel,

[IPDK.io](https://ipdk.io), [DPDK](https://www.dpdk.org/) and

[SPDK](https://spdk.io/) to create new APIs for interaction with and between

the elements of the DPU/IPU ecosystem:



* the DPU/IPU hardware

* DPU/IPU hosted applications

* the host node

* remote provisioning software

* remote orchestration software



## I Want To Contribute



This project welcomes contributions and suggestions.  We are happy to have the Community involved via submission of **Issues and Pull Requests** (with substantive content or even just fixes). We are hoping for the documents, test framework, etc. to become a community process with active engagement.  PRs can be reviewed by by any number of people, and a maintainer may accept.



See [CONTRIBUTING](CONTRIBUTING.md) and [GitHub Basic Process](Policies/doc-github-rules.md) for more details.