[ofw] What is the current support level for QoS in WinOF?

[Hal Rosenstock]

Hi Diego,

On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 7:08 AM, Diego Guella
<diego.guella at sircomtech.com> wrote:
> Hi Hal,
>
>> From: "Hal Rosenstock"
>> On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 5:03 AM, Diego Guella wrote:
>>>
>>> I forgot to mention: I am using plain verbs. (Actually, I'm using IBAL).
>>> Connection estabilishment is done like in the ibv_pingpong_rc examples:
>>> communicating LID, QPN, ... data over sockets.
>>
>> Then this support may be sufficient for you given you have a way to set
>> SL.
>>
>> On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 5:03 AM, Diego Guella wrote:
>>>
>>> I forgot to mention that I am new to QoS too.
>>> I think I can achieve urgent vs non-urgent traffic distinction by using 2
>>> QPs, and setting different SLs to these QPs, in the INIT->RTR transition.
>>> Are there other ways to "mark" some traffic as high-priority vs
>>> low-priority?
>>
>> SL is the way. It can be set in different ways based on the connection
>> type. For RC, it is bound to the QP.
>>
>> The key will be setting the QoS parameters appropriately for your traffic.
>
> Ok, so I will be setting qos_max_vls, qos_high_limit, qos_vlarb_low,
> qos_vlarb_high, qos_sl2vl, like in the qos-config.txt doc.
> Just for confirmation, should I put those settings in Tools/opensm.opts file
> ?

I don't know where they go in Windows. Hopefully someone familiar with
Windows OpenSM configuration will comment on this.

>> One more note: QoS is supported on only certain hardware. You will
>> likely need to check with your vendor as to what hardware is
>> supported.
>
> Exactly.
> I have MHES14-XTC and MHGA28-XTC cards now.
> Seeking through the ML archive, it seems only ConnectX from Mellanox have
> QoS capabilities.
>
> I want to be sure of 2 things before buying a new expensive card:
> 1. Opensm support in WinOF - You are saying the basic support it has can be
> sufficient for my needs.

Yes, the operative word being "can" as I haven't used or verified
Windows OpenSM and also haven't tracked what fixes relative to this
might not be there.

-- Hal

> 2. Can someone from Mellanox confirm that all ConnectX cards have QoS
> capabilities? Even when used in WinOF?
>
> Thanks for your help,
> Diego
>
>