Link-Storage™ Software
for Napatech F2070X Infrastructure Processing Unit (IPU)

CPU Utilization

NVMe/TCP communication involves encapsulating NVMe commands and data within the TCP transport protocol. Without offloading, the host CPU is responsible for processing these encapsulation and de-encapsulation tasks. Offloading these operations to dedicated hardware allows the CPU to focus on other critical tasks, leading to improved overall system performance and improved CPU utilization.

Lower Latency

Offloading the NVMe/TCP communication tasks to specialized hardware can significantly reduce the latency associated with processing storage commands. As a result, applications can experience faster response times and better performance when accessing remote NVMe storage devices.

Efficient Data Movement

Offloading non-CPU application tasks to discrete hardware accelerators enables data movement operations to be performed more efficiently than using a general-purpose CPU. It can handle large data transfers and buffer management effectively, further reducing latencies and improving overall throughput.

Improved Scalability

Offloading NVMe/TCP tasks allows for better scalability in large-scale storage deployments. By relieving the CPU from handling the network communication, the system can support a higher number of concurrent connections and storage devices without becoming CPU-bound.

Energy Efficiency

By offloading certain tasks to dedicated hardware, power consumption on the host CPU can be reduced. This energy efficiency can be especially important in large data center environments where power consumption is a significant consideration.