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On Wed, 2023-09-20 at 11:29 +0200, Rodolfo Alonso Hernandez wrote:
> Hello Kendall:
> 
> I can confirm that hardware offload (datapath offload in ML2/OVS and
> ML2/OVN) is currently used in several deployments and it's being tested
> internally in my company. However there are no upstream specific highlights
> about this topic right now. In the next cycle (or cycles) our plan is to
> create an external CI testing both mechanism drivers with HW NICs.
nova also added suport for DPU in yoga
https://specs.openstack.org/openstack/nova-specs/specs/yoga/implemented/integration-with-off-path-network-backends.html
but there has been significant changes in this area recently.

there may be some new enabling of intel/napatech dpus/smartnice for dpdk based hardware offloads
in both neutorn/nova next cycle. In bobcat 
https://specs.openstack.org/openstack/nova-specs/specs/2023.2/approved/support-napatech-linkvirtualization-smartnic.html
was prospoed but not completed due to technial reasons. it made some progress but realistically there is more work in
ovs to be done before that is sutable to merge upstream. as it stands the current approach is rather vendor specific
but they are working to make a more vendor neutral approach work so i expect that to continue in caracal or D
while this is relevent to this mail thread i dont think it should be included in any marketing matiral.

you could note that nova/neutron booth already support off-path dpus but i woudl likely omit the napatech spec
since that is still in flux. "off-path" means that the contol plane of the dpu is runing on the dpu not the linux host
wehere nova/neutron runs, in the case of the previous intergration ovn is the contolplane and it runs on the dpu and is
integrated with ml2/ovn in neutron and nova's pci tracker. in the context of the ironic enhancement ironic woudl be used
to provision both the host server OS and the linux/frimware image (with ovn) onto the dpu. that would then be configured
by external tooling (i.e. ansible) to be integrated with neutron ml2/ovn backend and nova.

one low light is a lot of the work around nova <=> cycborg interaction has more or less stopped since the
pandemic and i don't really see that changing anytime soon. The ironic enhancement kind of puts ironic and
cyborg in competition for the management of the dpu lifecycle since that was inteneded to be managed via cycborg not
ironic. It is the reason that cyborg has a rest api to manage the programing of a dpu os image and firmware.
form a nova/neutron point of veiw it does not impact us as we just assume the lifecycle of the dpu is
externally managed and wethere that si ironic or cyborg does not directly impact our usage of the dpu.
> 
> Regards.
> 
> On Tue, Sep 19, 2023 at 11:46 PM Kendall Nelson <kennelson11 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
> > Hello folks!
> > 
> > So, as the OpenInfra Foundation has begun putting together the release
> > marking materials for the Bobcat release, we noticed a trend focused on
> > enabling hardware and increasing utilization. Ironic in particular had an
> > excellent cycle highlight about DPUs[1]. We wanted to quickly reach out and
> > see if there were any cycle highlights that projects maybe haven't
> > published in a review, but are related to this topic. Please respond ASAP
> > as we are moving fast on finalizing the press release.
> > 
> > Also, if there is anything related coming in Caracal, we might be able to
> > call that out as well, though I know it's quite early to know what might be
> > landing in 2024.1.
> > 
> > If there are other cycle highlights that should get called out as well,
> > definitely push the patches and add me as a reviewer!
> > 
> > -Kendall Nelson
> > 
> > [1] https://releases.openstack.org/bobcat/highlights.html#ironic
> >