Big news! The IBTA today announced the updated specification for Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) over Converged Ethernet (RoCE), RoCEv2. This is a huge development and one that will expand RoCE’s adoption.
The benefits of the first RoCE spec released in 2010 were many:
- Low latency and CPU overhead (eliminated the multiple data copies inside the server)
- High network utilization
- Support for message passing, sockets and storage protocols
- Supported by all major operating systems
RoCEv2 extends the original RoCE specification by enabling routing across Layer 3 networks and as a result provides better isolation and enables hyperscale data center deployments. This addresses the needs of today’s evolving data centers which require more efficient data movement over a variety of network topologies.
With a number of vendors including Dell and Zadara Storage recently adopting RoCE, this new specification comes at the perfect time. Major cloud providers and Web 2.0 companies are also adopting RoCE in order to combat the challenges of running compute intensive applications and processing massive amounts of data in hyperscale networking environments.
Representatives from IBTA member companies including Emulex, IBM, Mellanox, Microsoft and Software Forge, Inc. participated in the development of this new standard, which will help enterprises to more widely adopt RoCE and improve infrastructure efficiency.
For more information, read the full IBTA announcement.
