Integrating an Alveo Card

Over the past few weeks, we have been discussing the integration of Accolade FPGA IP onto Xilinx Alveo Accelerator cards. A common question we get is: How do I integrate an Alveo adapter into my appliance and with my host application?

The answer is fairly straightforward. The Alveo card utilizes a standard PCIe slot (or two in the case of the U280) so is compatible with any industry-standard Intel server. The cards vary in size but as long as you have a full length PCIe slot available there is no problem accommodating any Alveo card.  

As for the host application (i.e. security or network monitoring), it must be able to communicate with the card via a well-defined API. The API is documented and provided by Accolade as a software development kit (SDK) with various procedures to manipulate the card such as for setup, defining an action, or reading data from the card. The good news is that once a host application has been modified to interact with any Alveo (or Accolade ANIC adapter) card then the exact same API calls can be used to interface with other adapters.

We should note that if your application uses PF_RING or is Suricata based then there are adapter interface options that do not require direct use of the Accolade API.

To learn more about how easy it is to integrate your application with Accolade FPGA IP, please contact us at [email protected].

Host CPU Offload Product Features Summary

wdt_ID Speed 1G 10G 10G 10G 10G/40G 10G/40G 100G 100G 100G
1 Model 4Ku 20ku 40ku 40kq 80ku ATLAS-1100 Service Node ANIC-200KFlex ANIC-100Kq ANIC-200Kq
2 Port/Type 4X1G SFP 2X10G SFP+ 4X10G SFP+ 1X40G QSFP+ 4X10G SFP+ 2X40G QSFP+ 8X10G SFP+ 4x10G SFP+ 1x40G QSFP+ 2x100G QSFP28 2x40G QSFP28 1X100G QSFP28 2X100G QSFP28
3 PCIe Interface Gen3 x8 Gen3 x8 Gen3 x8 Gen3 x8 Gen3 x8 Gen3 x8 Gen3 x16 Gen3 x16 Gen3 x16
4 Dimensions(H x L inches) 4.25 x 6.5   4.25 x 6.25 4.25 x 6.25 4.25 x 6.25 4.25 x 6.25 1.75 x12.28x14 4.25 x 6.5 4.25 x 10.5 4.25 x 10.5
5 Memory 32MB 4G 4G 4G 4G 16/32G 8G 12G 12G
6 Timestamp 5.7 nS 5.7 nS 5.7 nS 5.7 nS 5.7 nS 5.7 nS 4 nS 4 nS 4 nS
7 100% Packet
Capture		 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
8 Gigamon, AristaTimestamp ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
9 Packet Merging ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
10 Packet Parsing ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

About Accolade

Accolade is the technology leader in FPGA-based Host CPU Offload and 100% Packet Capture PCIe NIC’s and Scalable 1U Platforms. Accolade’s line of 1-100GE products enable 100% packet capture, flow classification, flow shunting, deduplication, packet filtering and more. Our customers are global leaders in network monitoring & cybersecurity applications as well as in the network test and measurement, telecom and video stream monitoring markets.

FPGA Acceleration Features

100% Packet Capture | Flow Classification | Flow Shunting | Precise Time Stamping | Packet Merging | Packet Slicing | Packet Parsing | Packet Filtering | Deduplication | Host Packet Buffer | Packet Steering | Direct Memory Access (DMA) | Statistics (RMON1)

Free Product Evaluation

Resolve all your host CPU offload bottlenecks. Share Your Technical Requirements with our FPGA and software experts to tailor the optimal solution. Accolade offers a 60 day free product evaluation for qualified customers to fully test and evaluate our products.