The Linux Foundation's OPI Project Announces Arm as Premier Member

The Open Programmable Infrastructure Project to keynote at second annual SmartNICs Summit on June 13-15

 SAN FRANCISCO, May 31, 2023 – The Open Programmable Infrastructure (OPI) Project, a community-driven initiative focused on creating a standards-based open ecosystem for next-generation architectures and frameworks based on DPU/IPU-Like (Data Processing Units)/(Infrastructure Processing Unit) technologies, is excited to announce that Arm, has joined the project as a premier member.

Launched in June 2021 under the Linux Foundation, the project is focused on utilizing open software and standards, as well as frameworks and toolkits, to enable the rapid adoption of DPUs. Arm joins other premier members including Dell Technologies, F5, Intel, Keysight Technologies, Marvell, Nvidia, Red Hat, Tencent, and ZTE. These member companies work together to create an ecosystem of blueprints and standards to ensure that compliant DPUs work with any server.

DPUs are used today to accelerate networking, security, and storage tasks. In addition to performance benefits, DPUs help improve data center security by providing physical isolation for running infrastructure tasks. They also help to reduce latency and improve performance for applications that require real-time data processing. As DPUs create a logical split between infrastructure compute and client applications, the manageability of workloads within different development and management teams is streamlined.  

 “Arm has been contributing to the OPI Project for a while now,” said Kris Murphy, Chair of the OPI Project Governing Board and Senior Principal Software Engineer at Red Hat. “Now, as a premier member, we are excited that they’re bringing their leadership to the Governing Board and expertise to the technical steering committee and working groups. Their participation will help to ensure that the DPU components are optimized for programmable infrastructure solutions.”

"Across network, storage, and security applications, DPUs are already proving the power efficiency and capex benefits of specialized processing technology,” said Marc Meunier, director of ecosystem development, Infrastructure Line of Business, Arm and member of OPI Governing Board. “As a premier member of the OPI project, we look forward to contributing our expertise in heterogeneous computing and working with other leaders in the industry to create solution blueprints and standards that pave the way for successful deployments.”

“The DPU market offers an opportunity for us to change how infrastructure services can be deployed and managed,” Arpit Joshipura, General Manager, Networking, Edge, and IoT, the Linux Foundation. “With collaboration across software and hardware vendors representing silicon devices and the entire DPU software stack, the OPI Project is creating an open ecosystem for next generation data centers, private clouds, and edge deployments.”

SmartNICs Summit

SmartNICs Summit will host its second annual event at the Doubletree by Hilton San Jose Hotel on June 13-15. The Summit will feature the OPI Project in a Pre-Conference Tutorial C on June 13 from 1-5 pm PST.

The agenda includes:

• Open Programmable Infrastructure Overview - Paul Pindell, OPI Outreach Chair, F5; Manoj Roge, Joseph White, Dell
• OPI Use Cases, Solutions, and Requirements - Venkat Pullela, Chief of Technology, Networking for Keysight Technologies
• Lifecycle and Provisioning of DPUs – Dong Wei, Fellow/Lead Standards Architect, Arm
• DPU APIs for Networking and Storage – Vipin Jain, Sr. Fellow, AMD and Mark Sanders, Distinguished Engineer, Dell

 Additionally, OPI Project’s TSC Chair Joseph White and Venkat Pullela will give a keynote presentation on June 15 at 11-11:10 am.

“SmartNICs and DPUs can avoid bottlenecks by offloading tasks from central processors. They also produce scalable systems, such as 5G networks that can expand as more subscribers sign up. And they can isolate services or security, making them easier to revise and upgrade,” said Chuck Sobey, Summit General Chair. He noted that, “The event will educate designers and present the state-of-the-art. Open Programmable Infrastructure Project is key in making SmartNICs and DPUs accessible to more network, cloud, system, and computer designers.”

To learn more about SmartNICs Summit or to register for the event, click here. To learn more about the Open Programmable Infrastructure Project, its vision statement, TSC charter, project goals, and backgrounder, visit https://github.com/opiproject/opi.