NVIDIA Announces Spectrum High-Performance Data Center Networking Infrastructure Platform

By AIT News Desk On Mar 23, 2022

End-to-End 400G Hyperscale Networking Platform Delivers 4x Acceleration With Breakthrough Spectrum-4 Switch, BlueField-3 DPU and ConnectX-7 SmartNIC

NVIDIA announced NVIDIA Spectrum-4, the next generation of its Ethernet platform which enables the extreme networking performance and robust security needed for data center infrastructure at scale.

The world’s first 400Gbps end-to-end networking platform, NVIDIA Spectrum-4 provides 4x higher switching throughput than previous generations, with 51.2 terabits per second. It consists of the NVIDIA Spectrum-4 switch family, NVIDIA ConnectX-7 SmartNIC, NVIDIA BlueField-3 DPU and the DOCA™ data center infrastructure software to supercharge cloud-native applications at scale.

Built for AI, NVIDIA Spectrum-4 arrives as data centers are growing exponentially and demanding extreme performance, advanced security and powerful features to enable high-performance, advanced virtualization and simulation at scale. The Spectrum-4 Ethernet platform includes key features needed for the uncompromising requirements of these technologies.

Spectrum-4 switches allow nanosecond timing precision — which is an improvement of five to six orders of magnitude compared to typical, millisecond-based data centers. They also accelerate, simplify and secure the network fabric with 2x faster per-port bandwidth, 4x fewer switches and 40 percent lower power consumption compared to the previous generation.

The Spectrum platform enables the simulation of precise space and time in the NVIDIA Omniverse™ platform for 3D design collaboration and simulation and the Spectrum-3 switch fabric connects 32 OVX servers to form the OVX SuperPOD.

“A new era of massive-scale cloud technologies, such as Omniverse, requires a transformation of data center architecture,” said Kevin Deierling, vice president of Networking at NVIDIA. “The Spectrum-4 platform’s extreme performance and robust security will equip data centers to power breakthrough discoveries that push the boundaries of what’s possible for the benefit of society.”

NVIDIA Spectrum-4 Switch Performance and Innovation

The NVIDIA Spectrum-4 ASIC and SN5000 switch family is based on a 4N process and contains over 100 billion transistors along with a simplified transceiver design that leads to best-in-class power efficiency and total cost of ownership. With 51.2Tbps aggregate ASIC bandwidth supporting 128 ports of 400GbE, combined with adaptive routing and enhanced congestion control mechanisms, Spectrum-4 optimizes RDMA over Converged Ethernet fabrics and dramatically accelerates data centers.

The Spectrum-4 ASIC features state-of-the-art security features such as support for MACsec and VXLANsec, plus secure boot as default via hardware root of trust to help ensure the security and integrity of data flows and network management.

With 12.8Tbps of encrypted bandwidth and these security features — also found in BlueField-3 DPUs and ConnectX-7 SmartNICs — Spectrum-4 is the fastest, most secure end-to-end Ethernet networking platform on the market.

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The Spectrum platform, inclusive of Spectrum switches, BlueField and ConnectX, boosts performance and scalability for AI applications, digital twins and cloud infrastructure, enabling the highest efficiency and availability for modern data centers.

Growing Ecosystem of Spectrum Support

The speed, security and functionality of the Spectrum platform is ideal for building state-of-the-art data centers and is being adopted by a growing number of partners.

BlueField DPUs now offload and accelerate Red Hat OpenShift, including an end-to-end cloud-native architecture that integrates tenant and infrastructure clusters with automation and deployment tools capable of running complex containerized workloads.

BlueField is also central to VMware’s Project Monterey, which includes a collaboration between VMware and NVIDIA that aims to improve the performance, manageability and security of data centers.

Now select enterprises can get immediate access to VMware’s Project Monterey Beta with BlueField on NVIDIA LaunchPad. LaunchPad equips IT administrators to deploy data-driven applications for quick testing and prototyping entire workflows on the same complete stack.

BlueField-2 DPU integration with Palo Alto Networks VM-Series virtual next-generation firewalls and Intelligent Traffic Offload service delivers best-in-class security innovation that results in up to a 5x performance boost to virtual firewalls for enterprise and service provider networks.

The Spectrum platform accelerates state-of-the-art data center networking infrastructure for industry-leading customers and software vendors that include Akamai, Baidu, Canonical, Criteo, DDN, F5, Kuaishou, NetApp, Nutanix, OVHcloud, Pure Storage, Pluribus Networks, Red Hat, StackPath, VAST Data, VMware, WEKA and others.

Industry-leading server manufacturers integrating Spectrum switches into their systems include Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IBM, Lenovo and Supermicro.

NVIDIA BlueField DPUs are being offered in solutions from innovators that include ASUS, Atos, Dell Technologies, GIGABYTE, H3C, IBM, Inspur, Lenovo, Nettrix, Pluribus Networks, Quanta/QCT and Supermicro.

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