in terms of SoC-based SmartNICs, I have not managed to get my hands dirty with any yet. Although, I believe Nvidia’s Bluefield is not only one of the best, but according to the number and amount of people behind it and the documentation available, it seems to be a good pick over Broadcom stingray or Marvell LiquidIO. The former is quite outdated and the company does not have a good portfolio in SmartNICs — only the stingray is available. Marvell has several products, with even up to 36 core MIPS settings, but bandwidth-wise, I found them to be below 100G — and Nvidia is already thinking of 400G with BF-3 in 2022.

But, actually, getting one is very difficult. Cloudlab has its own BF2 SmartNICs, however I was not able to buy any! I contacted several resellers and Nvidia stores but the demand is high and the production speed is low. Still the easiest and fastest way to play with it, is through cloudlab!

I hope you will get access to it.