RE: [PATCH rdma-core 0/7] Add mlx5 direct verbs

Amrani, Ram
2017-02-06T10:56:56Z

> This patchset from Leon adds direct access to mlx5 devices.
>
> The libibverbs API is an abstract API. It is agnostic to any underlying
> provider specific implementation. While this abstraction has the advantage of
> user applications portability it has a performance penalty. For some
> applications optimizing performance is more important than portability.
>
> The mlx5 direct verbs API introduced in this patchset is intended for such
> applications. It exposes mlx5 specific low level data path
> (send/receive/completion) operations, allowing the application to bypass the
> libibverbs data path API.
>
> The proposed interface consists from small number of hardware specific headers
> with relevant inline functions and conversion logic from ibverbs structures to
> mlx5 related structures.
>

Hi Yishay,
While I'm always for better performance, I'm not sure driver specific APIs is the way.
This will hurt portability for users.

Thanks,
Ram