[openfabrics-ewg] [openib-general] OFED 1.2 - request addition of VNIC as a feature

[Roland Dreier]

 > I cannot debate what is the right way of bridging from IB to
 > Ethernet LANs and FC SANs.  For the latter, vendors have used one
 > of the three HCA drivers with iSER or SRP over it.  For the former,
 > one of the three HCA drivers and IPoIB has been used by all gateway
 > vendors except QLogic/SilverStorm.  ISER, SRP and IPoIB are part of
 > OFA and going into distros - thanks to the above common usage with
 > gateways.  Imagine if each gateway vendor (I am counting three) had
 > chosen to have a VNIC equivalent for their Ethernet and SAN
 > gateways - I can count at least three VNIC drivers, and six VHBA
 > drivers (3 for SRP and 3 for iSER), besides the three basic drivers
 > (ipath, mthca and ehca) - taking us to a potential total of 12
 > drivers when there are really only three kinds of HCAs (Mellanox,
 > QLogic, eHCA) plugging in the server running the OFA software. That
 > in essence is what I am trying to avoid.

Sorry, this doesn't make any sense.  OFED shouldn't be picking
technology winners.  I don't see any fundamental issue that would
prevent merging the vex driver to the upstream kernel -- the only
problems are code quality and an apparent desire to make code review
as difficult as possible.  And surely OFED will ship IB drivers that
make it upstream?

And given that the current OFED policy is to shovel in unreviewed junk
like SDP, I don't see how you can legitimately oppose the vex driver
even before it is merged upstream.

(And also your argument would say we should reject FC support for
ConnectX, since we already have SRP and iSER -- and I suspect that you
would not agree with that reasoning)

 - R.