Balluff - BVS CA-GT Technical Documentation
RoCEv2

Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) is network technology which allows data transfers with a very low CPU load on the participants system. RDMA over Converged Ethernet version 2 (RoCEv2) protocol is standardized as part of the InfiniBand Architecture Specification. It defines the InfiniBand Architecture over the Ethernet infrastructure, replacing the InfiniBand physical and link layer with Ethernet and UDP/IP. RoCEv2 offers hardware-offloaded, zero-copy data transfers with the following main characteristics:

  • High performance and efficiency
    • Fully hardware-offloaded transport protocol
    • Kernel bypassing technology with DMA
  • Reliability and data consistency
    • Guaranteed packet delivery
    • In-order packet and buffer delivery
    • GigE Vision packet resend is not needed any more
  • Low latency
    • UDP based
    • Optional retransmissions handled in hardware, minimizing delays
  • Scalability
    • Fully Ethernet speed agnostic
    • Performance and efficiency scales with link rate
  • Industry proven standard
    • Deployed in data centers and high-performance computing for years
    • Adopted and supported by all major NIC vendors
    • NIC vendor-independent standardized software APIs

RoCEv2 support and libraries on different Operating Systems:

Operating SystemRoCEv2 SupportAPI/LibraryDeployment
WindowsyesNetworkDirect Service Provider Interface (NDSPI)
  • Network Service Provider Interface Interface is part of Windows OS
  • Network Service Provider library must be supplied by manufacturer of the RDMA capable Ethernet adapter
LinuxyesIBVerbs
  • Must be installed on Host by customer
  • Major Linux distributions provide ibverbs and rdma_cm through their package management

Tested RDMA (RoCEv2) capable Ethernet adapters and appropriate drivers for different operating systems.

VendorTypeLinux Ubuntu 22.04Windows 10 22H2 Client
Nvidia/MellanoxConnectX-4MLNX_OFED_LINUX-24.04-0.7.0.0MLNX_WinOF2-24_1_50000
Nvidia/MellanoxConnectX-5MLNX_OFED_LINUX-24.04-0.7.0.0MLNX_WinOF2-24_1_50000
Nvidia/MellanoxConnectX-6MLNX_OFED_LINUX-24.04-0.7.0.0MLNX_WinOF2-24_1_50000
BroadcomP150Pibverbs & rdma_cm from OS package management 231.0.158.0

The GigE Vision™ specification version 3.0 allows stream transmitters and stream receivers to use the RDMA technology in conjunction with the RoCEv2 protocol. Devices may support the conventional GigE Vision™ Streaming Protocol (GVSP) and/or RDMA streaming.

Note
The BVS CA-GT1 product family do support RoCEv2 streaming technology. Therefore a special firmware must be installed on the device, which will enable RDMA functionality and conventional GigE Vision™ streaming protocol will be disabled. If the host system and its Ethernet adapters are capable of RoCEv2, and a BVS CA-GT1 is running a RoCEv2 firmware, then the Impact Acquire host driver will automatically use the device's RoCEv2 functionality. Please contact https://www.balluff.com/go/contact, if you are interested in BVS CA-GT1 products supporting the RoCEv2 streaming technology.

You may verify the used streaming technology of a BVS CA-GT1 by opening the device in ImpactControlCenter and check the mvStreamDriverTechnology property which must show RDMA API.

RDMA API is shown in mvStreamDriverTechnology