Rack-scale Networking

Oxide and Friends · 28 Feb 2023 · 1h 34m · Episode 6

What this episode covers

Bryan Cantrill, Adam Leventhal, and the Oxide networking team (Ryan Goodfellow, Levon Tarver, Ben Naecker, Arjen Roodselaar) discuss the software stack driving the Oxide rack-scale networking. They detail the use of Intel Tofino 2 ASICs and the P4 programming language to create a fully programmable data plane, enabling features like Delay-Driven Multipath (DDM) and tight integration between the Sidecar switch and Gimlet servers. The team explains how they built a custom P4-to-Rust compiler and virtualized the ASIC to develop and test the network stack without relying on fixed-function hardware.

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