Collaborative Research: PPoSS: Planning: Making Smart Use of SmartNICs

随着底层技术的变化，计算范式偶尔会发生相当戏剧性的变化，从而显著地修改了主导用例。其中一些革命在很久以前就被看到了，并被大肆宣传，大肆宣传远在实际回报之前。其他人在本质上更具机会主义，利用最初为另一目的开发的技术，采用这种技术开始改变实践，而没有引起更广泛的社区的注意。计算技术现在正处于这样一场“静悄悄的革命”的边缘，这场革命与在将计算机连接到网络的设备上插入计算有关。这种被称为智能卡（用于计算增强的网络接口卡）的趋势在使应用程序更快和保持数据更安全方面显示出巨大的希望。该项目将重点关注如何最好地利用SmartCache来提高应用程序的性能和安全性。SmartCache最初的设计目的是从主机CPU中卸载数据包处理，在某些设置中，数据包处理是执行加密和数据路径上的其他计算密集型任务所必需的。SmartCache将这种数据包处理能力与其他三个特性相结合：（i）与主机CPU隔离，（ii）直接访问存储器，以及（iii）通用可编程性。事实证明，这种组合使SmartCloud有可能在整个计算生态系统中发挥强大而独特的作用。特别是，通过位于网络和主机之间的边界，它们可以更改暴露给两者的接口，从而使SmartVPN能够大幅提高应用程序性能，同时提供更高的安全性和隐私性。然而，要实现这些收益，就需要在三个不同的问题上取得进展。首先，智能机的硬件设计必须结合联合收割机几个不同的单元（一个专门的数据包处理单元，一个远程直接存储器访问单元，和一个通用计算单元），并提供它们之间的快速互连和与主机存储器。设计空间是巨大的，并且对于什么样的设计代表最佳权衡几乎没有达成一致。第二，这些智能路由器必须为应用程序提供一组原语，以提高其性能和安全性。必须明智地选择这些原语，使其既能为智能路由器提供支持，又能让应用程序轻松利用，以获得更好的性能和安全性。第三，需要验证工具来确保SmartNIC上的程序正确执行，以及整个系统（在多台主机及其SmartNIC上运行）是正确的。这将需要扩展目前的验证技术。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

Computing paradigms occasionally undergo rather dramatic shifts as underlying technologies change, significantly modifying the dominant use cases. Some of these revolutions are seen far in advance and are heralded by great fanfare, with the hype long preceding the actual payoffs. Others are more opportunistic in nature, leveraging a technology initially developed for another purpose, and the adoption of this technology starts altering practice without much notice from the broader community. Computing is now on the verge of such a “quiet revolution” having to do with inserting computation on the devices that connect computers to the network. This trend towards what are called SmartNICs (for computationally enhanced network interface cards) shows great promise in both making applications faster and in keeping data more secure. This project will focus on how to best leverage SmartNICs in order to improve application performance and security.SmartNICs were originally designed to offload packet-processing from the host CPU, which processing is necessary in certain settings to perform encryption and other compute-intensive tasks on the data path. SmartNICs combine this packet-processing power with three other characteristics: (i) isolation from the host CPU, (ii) direct access to memory, and (iii) general programmability. It turns out that this combination gives SmartNICs the potential to play a powerful and unique role in the overall computational ecosystem. In particular, by sitting on the boundary between the network and hosts, they can change the interfaces being exposed to both, allowing SmartNICs to substantially improve application performance while also providing greater security and privacy. However, realizing these gains requires making progress on three separate issues. First, the hardware design of SmartNICs must combine several different units (a specialized packet-handling unit, an remote direct memory access unit, and a general computation unit), and provide fast interconnections between them and with the host memory. The design space is vast, and there is little agreement on what designs represent the best trade-offs. Second, these SmartNICs must offer applications a set of primitives that can improve their performance and security. These primitives must be chosen wisely to be feasible for SmartNICs to support while being easy for applications to leverage for better performance and security. Third, verification tools are needed to ensure that the programs on the SmartNIC are correctly executed and that the overall system -- running on multiple hosts and their SmartNICs -- is correct. This will require extensions to current verification techniques.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.