Napatech Extends Collaboration with AMD to Data Center Networking with FPGA-based SmartNIC Solutions

Napatech, the leading provider of programmable Smart Network Interface Cards (SmartNICs) used for Data Processing Unit (DPU) and Infrastructure Processing Unit (IPU) services in telecom, cloud, enterprise, cybersecurity and financial applications worldwide, today announced an extension of its sales and marketing collaboration initiatives with AMD that will make Napatech’s hardware-plus-software SmartNIC solutions available to AMD customers worldwide through both direct engagements and global channel partners.

OEMs, enterprises and data center operators across a wide range of industries are adopting SmartNIC solutions to achieve levels of performance, security, latency and energy efficiency that are unachievable with servers or appliances equipped with traditional “foundational” NICs. As the leading provider of field programmable gate array (FPGA)-based SmartNICs, Napatech leverages the extensive portfolio of AMD Xilinx FPGAs, in combination with its own commercial-grade software suites, to accelerate and offload a variety of workloads in cybersecurity, financial systems, mobile infrastructure, data centers, network appliances and monitoring solutions.

Many companies that can benefit from Napatech’s SmartNIC solutions are already customers of the extensive AMD processor portfolio, leveraging EPYC processors in servers or Ryzen processors in workstations. The expanded collaboration between AMD and Napatech is designed to enable AMD experts and channel partners to propose and architect end-to-end solutions for these companies, spanning their network infrastructure as well as their processor subsystem. Fine-tuning the balance of workloads between the processor and the SmartNIC through true system-level design results in optimized performance, system cost and energy efficiency for the target applications.

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End-users who adopt Napatech’s SmartNIC solutions benefit from a true “IT” experience, whereby they simply install a card, load a driver, and achieve seamless acceleration of common applications, both commercial and open source, with no need for custom programming at either the application or FPGA level.

As one example of the benefits of Napatech SmartNIC solutions based on AMD FPGAs, a tier-one global cybersecurity OEM that needed to scale the performance of their security appliance leveraged Napatech’s Link-Capture software running on the NT200 SmartNIC with AMD Virtex UltraScale+ VU9P FPGA. This company achieved industry-leading performance measured in terms of packet rate, lossless throughput, low latency and millions of simultaneous flows. Similarly, an edge data center operator increased the performance of virtual switching for traffic between Virtual Machines (VMs) via the Link-Virtualization software running on the NT100 (Virtex UltraScale+ VU5P). This resulted in a doubling of VM density and a 49% reduction in data center OPEX calculated over a five-year period.

“Programmable SmartNICs, including IPUs and DPUs, are a critical part of modern network infrastructure and data center designs. The demand for these innovative technologies is rapidly increasing as services must be distributed as close as possible to the applications they support, without impacting CPU performance,” said Bob Laliberte, Senior Analyst and Practice Director at Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG). “We expect that this expanded collaboration between AMD and Napatech will accelerate SmartNIC adoption across a wide range of use cases, given the global reach of the AMD sales team and their channel partners.”

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“Napatech is the leading merchant supplier of FPGA-based programmable SmartNICs with an extensive AMD FPGA-based product portfolio targeting networking and data center applications,” said Sina Soltani, Corporate Vice President of Worldwide Sales at AMD. “We are excited to make their solutions available to our customers and prospects via our global sales, marketing and channel organizations.”

“GL Communications Inc, a leading telecom test equipment provider, is a proud user of Napatech SmartNICs based on AMD FPGAs to drive feature rich Protocol Emulators and Analyzers at up to 100 Gbps, permitting wire speed capture and analysis for 100,000+ simultaneous sessions,” said Vijay Kulkarni, CEO at GL Communications. “As an established Napatech customer, we have found that their solutions provide the performance and feature velocity required for our markets, so we are delighted to see the announcement of their new partnership with AMD.”

“FPGA-based SmartNICs comprise the majority of SmartNIC ports currently deployed in network infrastructure and data centers,” said Napatech CEO Ray Smets. “We are excited to be working closely with AMD as a long-term supplier of the FPGAs used in our SmartNICs, and we look forward to working with them to increase the adoption of these solutions worldwide.”

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