Date: 17/10/2023

F5 NGINX container powered by Arm Neoverse-based Marvell OCTEON 10 DPU

Marvell, F5 Networks, and Arm have joined hands to develop real-world use case example built on the OPI framework. The first demonstartion is displayed at Arm booth at the OCP Global Summit event this week. The demo use case is an F5 NGINX container acting as a proxy for traffic destined to a workload running on either the DPU host or on separate hosts. The NGINX container is running in a single node OpenShift installation on the Arm Neoverse-based Marvell OCTEON 10 DPU.

The idea is to transfer the cloud infrastructure management services such as security, load balancing, and API gateways from the host CPU to the DPU with an aim to lower cloud and data center operator's total cost of ownership and use the general compute capacity of CPU cores for more user applications.

Linux Foundation's OPI founded in 2022 is developing community-driven, standards-based open ecosystem for next-generation architectures and frameworks based on DPU technologies. OPI helping in simplifying network, storage and security APIs within applications to enable more portable and performant applications in the cloud and data center across DevOps, SecOps and NetOps.

"The Open Programmable Infrastructure project is excited to showcase its first real-world use case for an OPI-enabled DPU, with a demonstration running on an Arm-based Marvell OCTEON 10 DPU," said Paul Pindell, chair of the OPI Outreach Working Group. "OPI can now start using this use case within our testing lab infrastructure used for our Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery workflows against example DPUs from multiple OPI member vendors."

"Applications are increasingly important to our customers' ongoing digital transformation efforts. Along the way, the need to make them more reliable, cheaper, and secure to operate is critical to their future needs and their bottom line. F5 believes that DPU technologies hold the key to reaching all three of these outcomes for our customers," said Joel Moses, CTO of platforms & systems at F5, and OPI board member. "This OPI technology demonstration directly points out what Marvell's DPU can do towards achieving these aims, with notably increased web application security, performance, and reliability supplied by running our industry-leading NGINX. We are pleased to work with Marvell and Arm to demonstrate this first OPI use case."

"Marvell's participation in OPI is driven by our belief in enabling more use cases for DPUs to support high-speed network compute and network capabilities required by AI and 5G," said Cary Ussery, vice president, platforms and software, Compute and Custom Business Unit, at Marvell. "Marvell is committed to collaborating with key players, like F5, to drive the ecosystem forward. In addition, this highlights the need for more processing in the DPU using the power of the Arm Neoverse N2 cores on the OCTEON 10 family of DPUs."

"Arm's collaboration with Marvell and F5 to showcase the first OPI use case on an Arm-based DPU demonstrates the flexibility and versatility of the Neoverse N2 platform, and the effectiveness of leveraging Arm's pervasive software ecosystem," said Eddie Ramirez, vice president of go-to-market, Infrastructure Line of Business, at Arm. "OPI is an important project to drive the standardization and innovation of DPU technologies across the industry, and we are happy to be part of it."

The 2023 OCP Global Summit takes place October 17-19, 2023, at the San Jose Convention Center. Visit Marvell at booth B13, Arm at booth B14, and the Linux Foundation at booth C37.

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