[Tsvwg] Re: [tcpm] Re: [e2e] Are you interested in TOEs and related issues(Resend)

[Rick Jones]

> Yes, that was one of the first thoughts that came to my mind when I
> started looking at this space. Its not just security issues but bugs and
> new features. TCP despite being mature still sees couple of RFC or tweaks
> a year that needs to be rolled out to existing systems. Apparantly the
> TOE vendors had thought about that. The firmware running the protocol code
> actually lives on the host and is delivered via exisiting delivery
> mechanism (packages in Solaris which can be upgraded). When machine boots
> and interface is configured, the protocol firmware is sucked in. So
> delivering fix or new revs in pretty similar to exisiting mechanisms.
> Also, the source code is still 'C' based so people like me can still
> work with it (just need to use some magic in the end to create the
> firmware instead of complier). Some vendors we talked to have promised
> that they can pretty much suck in the same code that runs on the host
> into the card (as long as we can clean some complier specific directives
> etc). Although I must admit that this aspect (common source files) of TOE
> has not been investigated by us at all so far.

That seems like a path out when the TOE is based on an embedded CPU, but doesn't
seem like it would work for those TOEs that are ASICs.

And a mostly rhetorical question - strictly in the context of TCP comms and not
RDMA and the like - if one can code tightly enough for an embedded CPU a TCP/IP
stack including comms with the host across the I/O bus with enough performance
to be reasonable for a given link, can't one presumeably make the host's TCP/IP
stack similarly efficient?  If nothing else that seems to be alluded to by the
last sentence in the quoted paragraph.

rick jones
-- 
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