[ewg] RE: OFED Jan 5, 2009 meeting minutes on OFED plans

[Doug Ledford]

On Tue, 2009-01-06 at 18:12 -0800, Gilad Shainer wrote:
> We need to look on this from the right angel. This is not a "feature"
> but rather a core component that adds support for a new adapter/NIC.
> This is the same as the core drivers for the other adapters that are
> supported already. 

In all fairness, the comment below was to implement IB over eth.
Nothing today does that.  iWARP is not IB and has unique requirements.
Running full IB over eth is different.  Saying it's not a new feature is
like saying that when iSCSI over TCP first came out that it wasn't a new
feature.  Sure, we had SCSI and we had TCP, but we didn't have SCSI over
TCP, so adding it *was* a new feature.

> In general we need to look not only on spec related features, but also
> to cover features that can benefit OFED and WinOF users (such as IPoIB
> connected mode or WinVerbs).

I'm not so much concerned over IBTA standards.  I'm concerned over what
makes it into the upstream linux kernels.  How much OFED's kernel
differs from the upstream kernel directly impacts supportability of the
OFED stack in our products.  The more it diverges, the higher the
support load.  We actively control that divergence as a result.

> Gilad.
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ewg-bounces at lists.openfabrics.org
> [mailto:ewg-bounces at lists.openfabrics.org] On Behalf Of Ryan, Jim
> Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2009 2:01 PM
> To: Hefty, Sean; Tziporet Koren; ewg at lists.openfabrics.org
> Cc: general at lists.openfabrics.org
> Subject: RE: [ewg] RE: OFED Jan 5, 2009 meeting minutes on OFED plans
> 
> Sean, I think that's a good point. What it suggests to me is asking when
> someone proposes a "non-standard" feature, what process, procedures,
> documentation, support, etc. if any, should be made available by the
> entity making the proposal?
> 
> It seems to me asking the same questions of all proposed features is
> fair and reasonable, and shouldn't represent an unreasonable barrier to
> progress.
> 
> Thoughts? If this already exists, it's my ignorance and I will apologize
> in advance
> 
> Thanks again, Jim 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ewg-bounces at lists.openfabrics.org
> [mailto:ewg-bounces at lists.openfabrics.org] On Behalf Of Sean Hefty
> Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2009 1:54 PM
> To: 'Tziporet Koren'; ewg at lists.openfabrics.org
> Cc: general at lists.openfabrics.org
> Subject: [ewg] RE: OFED Jan 5, 2009 meeting minutes on OFED plans
> 
> >* Mellanox suggested to add IB over Eth - this is similar to iWARP but 
> >more like IB (e.g. including UD), and can work over ConnectX.
> >A concern was raised by Intel (Dave Sommers) since it is not a standard
> 
> >transport.
> >Decision: This request will be raised in the MWG, and they should 
> >decide if OFA can support it.
> 
> Just is just my opinion, but in the past, OFED has included non-standard
> features, like extended connected mode, that are still not part of the
> IBTA spec.
> 
> Do we know if such a feature would be accepted into the Linux kernel?  I
> think OFED should base their decision more on the answer to that
> question than IBTA approval.
> 
> - Sean 
> 
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-- 
Doug Ledford <dledford at redhat.com>
              GPG KeyID: CFBFF194
              http://people.redhat.com/dledford

Infiniband specific RPMs available at
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