[Rdma-developers] RE: [openib-general] OpenIB and OpenRDMA: Convergence on commonRDMA APIs and ULPs for Linux

[Talpey, Thomas]

I usually try to avoid sending messages like the following, but...


Well said, Roland.


TTKO - Time To Kernel dot Org. I for one want iWARP there
along with IB. Before 2007. Before 2006!

Tom.

At 02:09 PM 5/27/2005, Roland Dreier wrote:
>    Caitlin> There isn't enough there to go farther.
>
>I think there is.  In fact I outlined exactly what I would do if I
>were working at an iWARP company:
>
>    Roland> Then someone would have to start implementing a low-level
>    Roland> driver for a specific RNIC, and find which modifications
>    Roland> to the existing verbs are required.  For example, I
>    Roland> believe the QP attribute structure passed into the QP
>    Roland> modify verb probably has to become a union containing the
>    Roland> IB attributes and the RNIC attributes.  However, most
>    Roland> verbs should work fine with at most trivial modifications.
>
>As for which option I was suggesting, it was c:
>
>    Caitlin> c) The same methods but with struct/enums that have
>    Caitlin> common and transport specific portions? That is doable,
>    Caitlin> in fact that is what RNIC-PI is today. Repeating that
>    Caitlin> work with the gen2 verbs will be time consuming.  I don't
>    Caitlin> want to have to wait 4 months to debate the details of
>    Caitlin> this before I can start working on my next generation of
>    Caitlin> verbs.
>
>OpenIB chose to focus on getting working code released quickly.
>OpenRDMA chose to focus on writing architecture documents and API
>specifications.  The results were completely unsurprising.
>
>I have outlined what I believe are good and valid reasons why there
>should not be two verbs layers in the Linux kernel.  If you think I'm
>wrong and that you will be able to have RNIC-PI merged into the Linux
>kernel alongside the existing IB midlayer, then implementing iWARP
>support through RNIC-PI is a reasonable way forward.
>
>If you believe that the single verbs layer in the kernel should be
>RNIC-PI, then you should extend RNIC-PI to support the IB features
>currently supported (eg datagrams), and port the existing IB code to
>the new API.  Once that's done I would certainly be happy to review
>the changes for merging.  However, I don't think any current OpenIB
>contributors will be willing to do the work to port to RNIC-PI.  I see
>no reason to spend a lot of effort to end up with a result that will
>be at best equivalent to what we have today and will likely be worse
>in some real ways (for example, how does RNIC-PI handle adapter hotplug?)
>
>If neither of these options appeals to you, then the only alternative
>left seems to be to work with the OpenIB community to evolve the
>existing IB midlayer into an RDMA midlayer than can support both IB
>and iWARP.
>
>Without seeing some real patches from the iWARP side, it's hard for me
>to see any value in continuing to participate in this debate.
>
> - R.
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