[ofw] choice between IBAL and winverbs

[Smith, Stan]

Prasanna Vv wrote:
> Hello All,
>
> In WINOF 2.1, most of the ULPs are based on Winverbs, while IPoIB
> driver continues to use IBAL .

Actually most of the ULPs are based on IBAL for historical reasons.
It's only newer DAPL providers (Socket-CM & rdma-CM) plus OFED diags which are using OFED compatibility (aka libibverbs/winverbs).
NetworkDirect continues to use the IBAL IF although there is work-in-progress to switch over to winverbs to take advantage of overlapped I/O ops.

> I wish to know if OFED will continue to support and enhance IBAL as
> complimentary approach for Winverbs for IB verbs interface ?  Or IBAL
> may be phased out ?

The IBAL interface will be supported well into the future, measured in years.
Under the covers, how the IBAL interface is implemented may change such that an IBAL function could transparently become a wrapper for a call into winverbs.
The 'BIG" deal with IBAL is how it implements PNP and how IPoIB and drivers rely on this implementation.
There are no current plans to change all drivers and IPoIB to use Microsoft PNP and remove this functionality from IBAL; although it would be an excellent idea (very large task). For the PNP reasons, IBAL will stick around for some time.

For future development, I would recommend the OFED compatibility layer (libibverbs/winverbs).

Stan.

>
> Thanks,
> Prasanna
>
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