Virtualized Acceleration: The MoSys Approach

By Michael Miller, Chief Technology Officer, MoSys, Inc.

EETimes – MoSys Webinar

Effectively utilizing and deploying hardware in multiuser environments has long been an issue in many systems. Virtualization allows for more flexibility in how many users can utilize hardware and how easily software applications can be moved from one platform to another and be configured. First, there was time sharing of CPUs & OS: DEC, CDC, IBM, Unix, Tymeshare, VMWare, etc. which allowed for multiple user to share one machine. Then, along came storage solutions in the form of EMC, NFS, iCloud, SharePoint, DropBox, Box, etc. which allowed for multiple users on multiple systems to share the same files. Next network developers took a stab at the issue with VPN, VLAN, etc. for merging private networks and NFV, OpenFlow, SDN, OVS, etc. for software flexibility of defining to features through virtual functionality. More recently, applications are hoping to ease the burden of portability of hosted applications through things like Containers, Open Virtual Formats (OVF), and others. While these may be over simplifications of more complex issues, the idea remains that when something is virtualized it enables broader use, platform portability and protects intellectual investment of the designer.

So, if we agree that virtualized resources can ease deployment and improve hardware utilization in datacenters and across networks including compute, storage, and networking applications then flexibility is one of the next biggest draws for using virtualized resources. So, while flexibility is great, it comes at a cost! For example, virtualizing can impact hardware efficiency, throughput, latency and power. So, the challenge before us know, is how can we get the same flexibility for hardware acceleration and reduce the system cost?

That’s the crux of tomorrow’s webinar. The EETimes and MoSys-sponsored webinar will talk about its Virtualized Accelerator Engine that provides performance scalability through virtualized hardware with the run time flexibility of a software interface. As markets continue to migrate to software-defined environments, most notably software-defined networks (SDN), performance scaling has become key to remaining competitive while addressing the growing demands being placed on the network. Software investments now must be transferrable across multiple hardware environments in order to be both cost-effective and to provide the required flexibility to meet changing performance demands. This webinar will discuss the fundamentals of what a Virtualized Accelerator Engine is, how VAE can scale app performance, Packet Classification with Graph Memory, how to future proof your apps, future trends of this technology and more.